I have spent many hours searching for these forgotten short stories.
Hopefully someone out there has a better memory than I.
Their basic plots structures follow:-
1. A team of engineers are shown a video of the test flight of an Anti-Gravity belt.
I recall the test flight ending with the belt burning out and the Inventor being killed in the fall to earth.
They visit his home where a well stocked library, laboratory and workshop are found.
After months of work attempting to recreate the Anti-Gravity device one of the engineers has a eureka moment, while either fishing or looking at sticks floating in a river.
When the idea is proven to work the team are told that it was a psychological experiment to prove a theory.
This being that the solution to all problems are 'already known' in some sort of race-memory.
They were tricked into 'remembering' how to create the device by 'Knowing' that it was possible to build one.
2. An inventor dies while waiting to see someone at the company that used to employ him.
Apparently he has invented a technique for Time Travel and wanted to show that his ideas, that the company had fired him for pursuing, were correct.
He was then going to take the design to another company.
The folder he is carrying has full details of his invention, and the person who he was waiting to see decides to steal the plans and sets up a Time Travel company using them.
3. The protagonist gets a visit from an authority figure who is enquiring about a breakthrough he has had.
The protagonist describes in detail the eureka moment that led to his discovery.
It involved being on the toilet and discovering that toilet tissue always seems to tear in the paper sheet and not at the perforations as intended.
He recalls his secretary thinking he had gone insane when he emerged from the toilet clutching a sheet of toilet tissue.
This idea led to his proposed force-field design.
At this point the authority figure explains that his organisation wishes to suppress all such new ideas as they may have unwanted economic and social effects.
He first tries bribery and then attempts to kill the protagonist.
This fails as he has already perfected his invention of the force-field and is using it for protection. This was done before he leaked or published information of his discovery.
4. Yet another Time Travel Invention story, where the protagonist has chosen a friend to reveal his invention to.
He is going to travel to another time and wished his knowledge be preserved if he is unable to return.
Apparently he was only able to create it though the combination of knowledge from several diverse disciplines.
This story is actually more about the benefits of being a Polymath and resisting externally imposed ideas on specialisation in a single discipline.
As such it had a profound effect on my teenage years and I would love to read it again.
Hope someone can
with these.
Hopefully someone out there has a better memory than I.
Their basic plots structures follow:-
1. A team of engineers are shown a video of the test flight of an Anti-Gravity belt.
I recall the test flight ending with the belt burning out and the Inventor being killed in the fall to earth.
They visit his home where a well stocked library, laboratory and workshop are found.
After months of work attempting to recreate the Anti-Gravity device one of the engineers has a eureka moment, while either fishing or looking at sticks floating in a river.
When the idea is proven to work the team are told that it was a psychological experiment to prove a theory.
This being that the solution to all problems are 'already known' in some sort of race-memory.
They were tricked into 'remembering' how to create the device by 'Knowing' that it was possible to build one.
2. An inventor dies while waiting to see someone at the company that used to employ him.
Apparently he has invented a technique for Time Travel and wanted to show that his ideas, that the company had fired him for pursuing, were correct.
He was then going to take the design to another company.
The folder he is carrying has full details of his invention, and the person who he was waiting to see decides to steal the plans and sets up a Time Travel company using them.
3. The protagonist gets a visit from an authority figure who is enquiring about a breakthrough he has had.
The protagonist describes in detail the eureka moment that led to his discovery.
It involved being on the toilet and discovering that toilet tissue always seems to tear in the paper sheet and not at the perforations as intended.
He recalls his secretary thinking he had gone insane when he emerged from the toilet clutching a sheet of toilet tissue.
This idea led to his proposed force-field design.
At this point the authority figure explains that his organisation wishes to suppress all such new ideas as they may have unwanted economic and social effects.
He first tries bribery and then attempts to kill the protagonist.
This fails as he has already perfected his invention of the force-field and is using it for protection. This was done before he leaked or published information of his discovery.
4. Yet another Time Travel Invention story, where the protagonist has chosen a friend to reveal his invention to.
He is going to travel to another time and wished his knowledge be preserved if he is unable to return.
Apparently he was only able to create it though the combination of knowledge from several diverse disciplines.
This story is actually more about the benefits of being a Polymath and resisting externally imposed ideas on specialisation in a single discipline.
As such it had a profound effect on my teenage years and I would love to read it again.
Hope someone can
with these.