Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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 suspect that religion is a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species. And that's one of the interesting things about contact with other intelligences: we could see what role, if any, religion plays in their development."
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| Sonomagnetic Fabric | ||
| Cloth that gathers sound energy. |
Magnetic fields can be produced by acoustic motions in electrically conducting media, like sea water. A sonomagnetic field can be induced in the ocean by submerged acoustic sources, which imparts a water mass oscillation in the ocean. Water particles crossing flux lines of the Earth's ambient magnetic field experience an induced electric field.
Whether or not this would work in the open air, with a fabric that would turn the resulting sonomagnetic fields into words you could hear, I don't know. Brin makes it work, though.
| They were being scanned again, and it wasn't just someone's True-Vu this time, but real eavesdropping. "Some tokomak's got a big ear on us," Roland reported irritably.
...He looked around quickly, searching for the voyeur... Then he saw the geek - a codger this time - leaning against one of the slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector, looking directly at the three of them. And sure enough, amid the bushy gray curls spilling under his white sun hat, Remi saw a thin wire, leading from an earpiece to a vest made of some sonomagnetic fabric. |
| Technovelgy from Earth,
by David Brin. Published by Bantam in 1990 Additional resources -
|
See Sonomagnetic Field Characterization from Induced, Radial Current Waves for a bit more about sonomagnetic fields.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Earth
More Ideas
and Technology by David Brin
Tech news articles related to Earth
Tech news articles related to works by David Brin
| LingYuan Vehicle Roof Drones Now Available, ala Blade Runner 2049 |
| Chameleon Personalized Privacy Protection Mask |
| Spherical Police Robot Rolls In China |
| Vietnam To Have Full Biometric Transparency |
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 Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain...'
'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
