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The bank was also connected by telegraph to other institutions according
to the Wheatstone telegraph system long since in use throughout England,
and stock prices were continually updated from stock markets all around the
world.
Further, photographic telegraphy, invented in the last century by Professor
Giovanni Caselli of Florence, permitted transmission of the facsimile of any
form of writing or illustration, whether manuscript or print, and letters
of credit or contracts could now be signed at a distance of five thousand
leagues.
7
The Wheatstone telegraph system was in widespread use in Britain by the
1850s but Professor Giovanni Caselli had only just invented his facsimile
pantel-
graph
system for transmitting images over telegraph lines. It was in 1862, one
year before Verne wrote his topic, that the irst
pantelegram
had been sent from
Lyon to Paris.
Fig. 17.2. The cover of the April 1926
issue of
Amazing Stories
. It contained
reprints of stories by H. G. Wells, Jules
Verne, and Edgar Allan Poe.
Computers and hard SF - the early years
It was the
scientific romances
of Wells and Verne that provided the inspira-
tion for the first popular magazine in the United States dedicated to science
fiction (SF).
Amazing Stories
was founded in 1926 by Hugo Gernsback (
B.17.3
).
The first issue set the direction for the new magazine by republishing stories
from Verne and Wells (
Fig. 17.2
). Gernsback was first to use the term
science
fiction
to describe what he called “a charming romance intermingled with sci-
entific fact and prophetic vision.”
8
During the 1930s and 1940s, there was a
great increase in the number of science fiction magazines but the most influ-
ential of all of these was undoubtedly
Astounding Science Fiction
. Its editor, John
W. Campbell Jr. (
B.17.4
) had been a student at MIT and been taught by Norbert
Wiener. Campbell's own short story “The Last Evolution,” published in
Amazing
Stories
in 1932, envisioned a future where man and machines fought together
against an invasion from outer space. We can recognize aspects of modern com-
puters in his description of the machines:
B.17.3. Hugo Gernsback (1884-1967)
was born in Luxembourg and
emigrated to America when he was
twenty. He published his novel
Ralph
124C 41+
, subtitled
A Romance of the
Year 2660
, in his magazine
Modern
Electrics
in 1911. In 1926, Gernsback
launched
Amazing Stories
, the first
magazine to be exclusively devoted
to science fiction. The slogan on the
title page proclaimed its mission
“Extravagant Fiction Today … Cold
Fact Tomorrow.” Gernsback invented
the term
science fiction
and the annual
science fiction Hugo awards are
named in his honor.
Machines - with their irrefutable logic, their cold preciseness of figures, their
tireless, utterly exact observation, their absolute knowledge of mathematics -
they could elaborate any idea, however simple its beginning, and reach the
conclusion.
9
As editor, Campbell set about raising the standard of writing in
Astounding
,
training a whole generation of science fiction writers, including Asimov and
Robert Heinlein. Although Campbell rejected Asimov's first story, his rejection
letter inspired Asimov to do better:
The joy of having spent an hour or more with John Campbell, the thrill of
talking face to face and on even terms with an idol, had already filled me with
the ambition to write another science fiction story, better than the first, so
that I could try him again. The pleasant letter of rejection - two full pages - in
which he discussed my story seriously and with no trace of patronization or
contempt, reinforced my joy.
10
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