The 54th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK® Quotes

“Brother, we don’t know what this thing is even for,” reminded Jim. “Much less do we know the effect of anything on it. Diddle, I say.” “O.K., we diddle.” Barney turned on half power and reached into the maze of wiring and began to tinker with one of the screws. “Hm-m-m,” he said after a minute. “Does things, all right. She goes through some kind of resonance point or something. There is a spot of minimum current here. There!”
― George O. Smith, The 54th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: George O. Smith

“Altas picked up a long screw-driverlike tool and inserted it into the maze of wiring that surrounded the tube. Squinting in one end of the big tube, he turned the tool until the cathode surface brightened slightly. He adjusted the instrument until the cathode was at its brightest, and then withdrew the tool.”
― George O. Smith, The 54th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: George O. Smith

“A beat-frequency-oscillator was never made to run at that level,” complained Jim Baler. “At least, not this one. She’ll tick on a bit of second, I think.” “Are we ready for the great experiment?” “Yup, and I still wish I knew what the thing was for. Go ahead, Barney. Crack the big switch!”
― George O. Smith, The 54th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: George O. Smith

“Yeah,” drawled Jim. “About the same recognition as the difference between Edison’s first electric light and a twelve-element, electron multiplier, power output tube. Similarity: They both have cathodes.” “Edison didn’t have a cathode—” “Sure he did. Just because he didn’t hang a plate inside of the bottle doesn’t stop the filament from being a cathode.” Barney snorted. “A monode, hey?” “Precisely. After which come diodes, triodes, tetrodes, pentodes, hexodes, heptodes—” “—and the men in the white coats. How’s your patching job?” “Fine. How’s your power-supply job?” “Good enough,” said Barney. “This eighty-four cycles is not going to be a sine wave at two hundred volts; the power stage of the BFO overloads just enough to bring in a bit of second harmonic.”
― George O. Smith, The 54th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: George O. Smith

“we can’t do it by clawing through the first edition of Henney’s ‘Handbook of Radio Engineering.’ It will be done by the seat of our pants if at all; a pair of side-cutters and a spool of wire, a hunk of string and a lump of solder, a—” “A rag, a bone, and a hank of hair?” asked Franks. “Leave Kipling out of this. He didn’t have to cover the whole Solar System. So let’s get cooking.”
― George O. Smith, The 54th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: George O. Smith

“We’re at the theoretical limit of sensitivity now,” said Jones. “And we’ve been there for years. The noise level, thermal agitation in the set itself, and a horde of other things limit the ultimate sensitivity of any detector. And don’t mention noise-eliminators. They aren’t. You can’t stop electrons from rubbing one another and that’s that!”
― George O. Smith, The 54th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: George O. Smith

“does help, sometimes,” grinned the shop foreman, “because we can tell when a piece of work is not going to be moved. Then it impedes the work.” “How do you know whether the impedance caused by not moving the work is responsible for the work not having been moved?” asked Simpkins, wonderingly.”
― George O. Smith, The 54th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: George O. Smith