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"In 1977, it took about eight months for a slightly faster more refined mechanism to put punk in the window of Holt Renfrew. It's gotten faster ever since."
- William Gibson
 |
| Neutron Disruption Blaster | ||
| Beam pistol which splits neutrons into protons and electrons, releasing enormous energy. |
In the "Paratime" series by Horace Beam Piper(1904-1964), this was used by the First Level civilization. Since ours is Fourth Level, hopefully we won't be making one any time soon.
| "...Verkan Vall aimed the blaster and squeezed. In a spot less than a millimeter in diameter on the crocodile idol's side, a certain number of neutrons in the atomic structure of the stone from which it was carved broke apart, becoming in effect atoms of hydrogen. With a flash and a bang, the idol burst and vanished. |
| From The Complete Paratime,
by H. Beam Piper. Published by Astounding Fiction in 1951 Additional resources -
|
Largely self-educated, H. Beam Piper created the fascinatingly complex "Paratime" alternate history world, with levels and sublevels of varying technological advancement, based on the premise of Earth being colonized by Martians 100,000 years ago.
Compare to the blaster from When the Green Star Waned (1925) by Nictzin Dyalhis, the stationary automatic blaster from Red Planet (1949) by Robert Heinlein and the meteor blasters from First Contact (1945), by Murray Leinster.
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"We had leisure to make a thorough observation of the hidden side of earth's satellite."
'... iron tubes... the ends of the tubes were joined to each other...to preserve it from the action of the seawater.'
'Mr. Garden, you are in no condition to drive....'
'A cable, here, from the controller to the interface plug... wires from that to the brain.'
'The slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector...'
'Holodeck 4 was waiting to be programmed...'
