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Science Fiction
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"the [science fiction] writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true...and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you."
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The Martians fought with weapons as yet unimagined by the people of Earth; an invisible sword of fire that destroyed all it touched.
Compare to the death-ray from The World Masters (1903) by George Griffiths, the
short-wave surgical knife from Boomerang (1953) by Eric Frank Russell, the
ray gun from The Black Star Passes (1930) by John W. Campbell, the
pencil heat ray from Brigands of the Moon (1930) by Ray Cummings, the Banning gun from Voyage 13 (1938) by Ray Cummings and the
flesh gun from The Computer Connection (1974) by Alfred Bester.
The invention of the laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) probably dates to 1958, when Schawlow and Townes (Bell researcher and consultant, respectively) published a paper called Infrared and Optical Masers.
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Science Fiction
Timeline
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'A human brain snugly encased in a transparent skull-shaped receptacle.'
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'The actuating mechanism that should have operated by the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell...'
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'The border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
WiFi and AI Team Up To See Through Walls
'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'
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'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
Optimus Robot Will Be A Good Nanny, Says Musk
'Nanny is different,' Tom Fields murmured... 'she's not like a machine. She's like a person.'
ESA To Build Moon Bases Brick By Printed LEGO Brick
'We made a crude , small cell and were delighted - and, I admit, somewhat surprised - to find it worked.'
Does The Shortage Of Human Inputs Limit AI Development?
'...we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
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