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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."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Life Detector | ||
| A device that was capable of detecting living tissue within a set radius. |
This device was able to sense the presence of life directly, without using auxiliary signs (like carbon dioxide or heat emission).
| The antennae of the Life Detector atop the OP swept back and forth in a rhythmic halfcircle like so many frozen sticks brittle with rime ice...
One operator - drugged to shivering wakefulness - stood watch in the OP. The space around him was barely six feet in diameter, crammed with equipment, gridded screens glowing a pale green with spots that indicated living flesh: a covey of ptermigan, a possible Artic fox. Every grid point on the screens held an aiming code for mortar fire. |
| Technovelgy from Cease Fire,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Conde Nast in 1958 Additional resources -
|
See the entry for Life Detector Shield for more discussion.
This is an early use of the concept; it comes ten years before the "sensor scans" of Star Trek fame.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Cease Fire
More Ideas
and Technology by Frank Herbert
Tech news articles related to Cease Fire
Tech news articles related to works by Frank Herbert
Life Detector-related
news articles:
- Life Detector Robot To Find Life On Distant Worlds
- Urey Life Detector
- LifeReader Senses The Enemy Through Walls
- Cougar20-H Robot Hears Your Breathing
- NASA FINDER To The Rescue In Nepal
- Is There Life In Outer Space? Will We Recognize It?
| Heart Patches Grown In The Lab Repair Hearts |
| Pixel Watch 'Loss of Pulse Detection' And Philip K. Dick |
| ErythroMer Artificial Blood |
| MouthPad Supports Head And Tongue Tracking |
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'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
