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To: ransomnote
Sounds like Isaac Asimov's Schlemmelmayer Relay in the short story, "Button, Button":

My uncle Otto had been saying that since the business of the "Schlemmelmayer Effect" first started up. Maybe that surprises you. Maybe you think it was the Schlemmelmayer Effect that made my uncle Otto famous. Well, it's all how you look at it.

He discovered the Effect back in 1952 and the chances are that you know as much about it as I do. In a nutshell, he devised a germanium relay of such a nature as to respond to thoughtwaves, or anyway to the electromagnetic fields of the brain cells. He worked for years to build such a delay into a flute, so that it would play music under the pressure of nothing but thought. It was his love, his life, it was to revolutionize music. Everyone would be able to play; no skill necessary - only thought.

Then, five years ago, this young fellow at Consolidated Arms, Stephen Wheland, modified the Schlemmelmayer Effect and reversed it. He devised a field of supersonic waves that could activate the brain via a germanium relay, fry it, and kill a rat at twenty feet. Also, they found out later, men.

813 posted on 09/04/2025 8:42:58 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: All; Nightshift







814 posted on 09/04/2025 8:56:55 PM PDT by foldspace
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