Science fiction; Space ships -- Fiction; Space warfare -- Fiction
"I'll answer you first, Dot. This is an improved model--it has quite a
few gadgets of my own in it. Now, Mart, as to how it works--it isn't so
funny after you understand it--it's a lot like radio in that respect. It
operates on a band of frequencies lying between the longest light and
heat waves and the shortest radio waves. This thing here is the
generator of those waves and a very heavy power amplifier. The headsets
are stereoscopic transmitters, taking or receiving a three-dimensional
view. Nearly all matter is transparent to those waves; for instance
bones, hair, and so on. However, cerebin, a cerebroside peculiar to the
thinking structure of the brain, is opaque to them. Dunark, not knowing
chemistry, didn't know why the educator worked or what it worked on--he
found out by experiment that it did work; just as we found out about
electricity. This three-dimensional model, or view, or whatever you want
to call it, is converted into electricity in the headsets, and the
resulting modulated wave goes back to the educator. There it is
heterodyned with another wave--this second frequency was found after
thousands of trials and is, I believe, the exact frequency existing in
the optic nerves themselves--and sent to the receiving headset.
Modulated as it is, and producing a three-dimensional picture, after
rectification in the receiver, it reproduces exactly what has been
'viewed,' if due allowance has been made for the size and configuration
of the different brains involved in the transfer. You remember a sort of
flash--a sensation of seeing something--when the educator worked on
you? Well, you did see it, just as though it had been transmitted to the
brain by the optic nerve, but everything came at once, so the impression
of sight was confused. The result in the brain, however, was clear and
permanent. The only drawback is that you haven't the visual memory of
what you have learned, and that sometimes makes it hard to use your
knowledge. You don't know whether you know anything about a certain
subject or not until after you go digging around in your brain looking
for it."
"I see," said Crane, and Dorothy, the irrepressible, put in:
"Just as clear as so much mud. What are the improvements you added to
the original design?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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