Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"I kind of take it for granted that our great-grandchildren will regard us as a sort of precursor species. That they won't think of us as human and if we could see them, we probably wouldn't think of them as human either."
- William Gibson
 |
| Molecular Sieve | ||
| A device that can extract any element from seawater. |
Clarke begins the story by pointing out that a cubic mile of sea water contains millions of tons of dissolved minerals - how best to get at them, when there are only about fifty pounds of gold per cubic mile?
| I put some of my young men to work and they have made what we call a 'molecular sieve.' ... It depends on very advanced wave-mechanical theories for its operation, but what it actually does is absurdly simple. We can choose any component of sea water we like, and get the sieve to take it out. With several units, working in series, we can take out one element after another. The efficiency's quite high, and the power consumption negligible. |
| From Tales from the White Hart,
by Arthur C. Clarke. Published by Ballantine Books in 1957 Additional resources -
|
This device comes from the short story The Man Who Ploughed The Sea, which was published in 1957 with the publication of Clarke's third collection of short stories Tales From The White Hart.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 1 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Tales from the White Hart
More Ideas
and Technology by Arthur C. Clarke
Tech news articles related to Tales from the White Hart
Tech news articles related to works by Arthur C. Clarke
| Has Climate Change Already Been Solved By Aliens? |
| Skin Electronics 3D Printed |
| Super-Resolution Microscopy Provides '4D' Views |
| Physicists Try To Turn Light Into Matter |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'A worker replaced by a nubot... had to be compensated.'
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to regrow his lost fingers.'
'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.'
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too.
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.'
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.'
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century.
