Stability (short story)

Last updated

"Stability" is a short science fiction story by Philip K. Dick, first written around 1947, but not published until 1987 in Volume I of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick . [1] The story is set in the far future, where civilization never progresses; the government has determined it to have reached its peak, and to prevent declination, society is forcibly kept in a state of "Stability".

Plot summary

Robert Benton, through the use of his gigantic, detachable white wings, leaps off a roof and flies into the darkness of the night sky. He sees many others who are flying in the darkness as well. The others invite him to participate in night races, but he declines. Instead, he continues to move upward into the “higher air”, coasting on air currents until he arrives at the “City of Lightness” where he is summoned to a meeting at the Control Office via a bright “winking” light, which he spots from above and then flies down to meet.

At the Control Office, Benton is informed that a patent application he filed for an invention has been unsuccessful, as the invention could threaten Stability. Benton is surprised, because as far as he was aware he had not filed any such application. Returning home with a set of plans and prototype device given "back" to him by the office, he discovers it to be a time machine.

Activating the device, Benton finds himself transported to an unknown point in history and confronted with what appears to be a living city contained in a glass globe. Despite being warned not to by a mysterious voice claiming to be a "guardian" against evil, Benton feels compelled to take the globe; it then telepathically informs him how to use the machine to return to his own time. Benton does so, but travels to a point in time shortly before he originally left, and deposits his "invention" and the plans at the Control office as a patent application, creating a bootstrap paradox.

After Benton leaves, the Controllers deduce what has happened and go to Benton's home in order to end the threat to Stability. Discovering Benton and the city, one Controller recounts hearing an ancient story of an evil city that had been enclosed in glass for the protection of everyone else. The Controllers attempt to take the globe from Benton, but it breaks, releasing a strange mist, and Benton loses consciousness.

Benton awakes to find himself living in a city where the human inhabitants exist only to service "their Machines". However, neither he nor anyone else has any memory of things being any different; as far as they are aware, life has always been like this.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Control engineering</span> Engineering discipline that deals with control systems

Control engineering, also known as control systems engineering and, in some European countries, automation engineering, is an engineering discipline that deals with control systems, applying control theory to design equipment and systems with desired behaviors in control environments. The discipline of controls overlaps and is usually taught along with electrical engineering, chemical engineering and mechanical engineering at many institutions around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans Lipperhey</span> German-Dutch lens crafter (1570–1619)

Hans Lipperhey, also known as Johann Lippershey or simply Lippershey, was a German-Dutch spectacle-maker. He is commonly associated with the invention of the telescope, because he was the first one who tried to obtain a patent for it. It is, however, unclear if he was the first one to build a telescope.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antonio Meucci</span> Italian inventor (1808–1889)

Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci was an Italian inventor and an associate of Giuseppe Garibaldi, a major political figure in the history of Italy. Meucci is best known for developing a voice-communication apparatus that several sources credit as the first telephone.

Bauer & Cie. v. O'Donnell, 229 U.S. 1 (1913), was a 1913 United States Supreme Court decision involving whether a purchaser of a patented product bearing a price-fixing notice incurs guilt of patent infringement by reselling the product at a price lower than that which the notice commands. A divided Court (5–4) held that it was not.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elisha Gray</span> American electrical engineer (1835–1901)

Elisha Gray was an American electrical engineer who co-founded the Western Electric Manufacturing Company. Gray is best known for his development of a telephone prototype in 1876 in Highland Park, Illinois. Some recent authors have argued that Gray should be considered the true inventor of the telephone because Alexander Graham Bell allegedly stole the idea of the liquid transmitter from him. Although Gray had been using liquid transmitters in his telephone experiments for more than two years previously, Bell's telephone patent was upheld in numerous court decisions.

Prior art is a concept in patent law used to determine the patentability of an invention, in particular whether an invention meets the novelty and the inventive step or non-obviousness criteria for patentability. In most systems of patent law, prior art is generally defined as anything that is made available, or disclosed, to the public that might be relevant to a patent's claim before the effective filing date of a patent application for an invention. However, notable differences exist in how prior art is specifically defined under different national, regional, and international patent systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Touchscreen</span> Input and output device

A touchscreen is a type of display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device and an output device. The touch panel is typically layered on the top of the electronic visual display of a device. Touchscreens are commonly found in smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other electronic devices. The display is often an LCD, AMOLED or OLED display.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whitcomb L. Judson</span> American inventor (1843–1909)

Whitcomb L. Judson was an American machine salesman, mechanical engineer and inventor. He received thirty patents over a sixteen-year career, fourteen of which were on pneumatic street railway innovations. Six of his patents had to do with a motor mechanism suspended beneath the rail-car that functioned with compressed air. He founded the Judson Pneumatic Street Railway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Invention of the telephone</span> Technical and legal issues surrounding the development of the modern telephone

The invention of the telephone was the culmination of work done by more than one individual, and led to an array of lawsuits relating to the patent claims of several individuals and numerous companies. Notable people included in this were Antonio Meucci, Philipp Reis, Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Anderson (inventor)</span> American inventor (1866–1953)

Mary Elizabeth Anderson was an American real estate developer, rancher, viticulturist, and most notably the inventor of what became known as the windshield wiper. On November 10, 1903 Anderson was granted her first patent for an automatic car window cleaning device controlled from inside the car, called the windshield wiper. Her patent didn't get far as she got no manufacturing firms to agree to make her invention.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kálmán Tihanyi</span> Hungarian physicist, electrical engineer and inventor

Kálmán Tihanyi, or in English language technical literature often mentioned as Coloman Tihanyi or Koloman Tihanyi was a Hungarian physicist, electrical engineer and inventor. One of the early pioneers of electronic television, he made significant contributions to the development of cathode ray tubes (CRTs), which were bought and further developed by the Radio Corporation of America, and German companies Loewe and Fernseh AG. He invented and designed the world's first automatic pilotless aircraft in Great Britain. He is also known for the invention of the first infrared video camera in 1929, and coined the first flat panel plasma display in 1936. His Radioskop patent was recognized as a Document of Universal Significance by the UNESCO, and thus became part of the Memory of the World Programme on September 4, 2001.

Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63 (1972), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that a process claim directed to a numerical algorithm, as such, was not patentable because "the patent would wholly pre-empt the mathematical formula and in practical effect would be a patent on the algorithm itself." That would be tantamount to allowing a patent on an abstract idea, contrary to precedent dating back to the middle of the 19th century. The ruling stated "Direct attempts to patent programs have been rejected [and] indirect attempts to obtain patents and avoid the rejection ... have confused the issue further and should not be permitted." The case was argued on October 16, 1972, and was decided November 20, 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dictation machine</span> Device for recording human speech

A dictation machine is a sound recording device most commonly used to record speech for playback or to be typed into print. It includes digital voice recorders and tape recorder.

Thomas David Petite is an American inventor. He is Native American and a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa tribe. He is also a founder of the Native American Intellectual Property Enterprise Council, a non-profit organization helping Native American inventors and communities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of United States inventions (1890–1945)</span> Chronological list of advances

A timeline of United States inventions (1890–1945) encompasses the innovative advancements of the United States within a historical context, dating from the Progressive Era to the end of World War II, which have been achieved by inventors who are either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Copyright protection secures a person's right to the first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abraham Lincoln's patent</span> Invention to lift boats, by the President

Abraham Lincoln's patent relates to an invention to buoy and lift boats over shoals and obstructions in a river. Abraham Lincoln conceived the invention when on two occasions the boat on which he traveled got hung up on obstructions. Lincoln's device was composed of large bellows attached to the sides of a boat that were expandable due to air chambers. Filed on March 10, 1849, Lincoln's patent was issued as Patent No. 6,469 later that year, on May 22. His successful patent application led to his drafting and delivering two lectures on the subject of patents while he was president.

John Tregoning was an American mechanical engineer, inventor and business manager from Lynn, Massachusetts, known for writing one of the first books on factory operations in 1891. and as early systematizer of management.

Henry v. A.B. Dick Co., 224 U.S. 1 (1912), was a 1912 decision of the United States Supreme Court that upheld patent licensing restrictions such as tie-ins on the basis of the so-called inherency doctrine—the theory that it was the inherent right of a patent owner, because he could lawfully refuse to license his patent at all, to exercise the "lesser" right to license it on any terms and conditions he chose. In 1917, the Supreme Court overruled the A.B. Dick case in Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Universal Film Mfg. Co.,

<i>Button-Fastener case</i>

The Button-Fastener Case, Heaton-Peninsular Button-Fastener Co. v. Eureka Specialty Co., also known as the Peninsular Button-Fastener Case, was for a time a highly influential decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Many courts of appeals, and the United States Supreme Court in the A.B. Dick case adopted its "inherency doctrine"—"the argument that, since the patentee may withhold his patent altogether from public use, he must logically and necessarily be permitted to impose any conditions which he chooses upon any use which he may allow of it." In 1917, however, the Supreme Court expressly overruled the Button-Fastener Case and the A.B. Dick case, in the Motion Picture Patents case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudolph M. Hunter</span>

Rudolph Melville Hunter was an American inventor, engineer, patent attorney and entrepreneur. Hunter was granted 299 US patents, over 140 of them for electric railway apparatus. He played a key role in the development of "mixed control," long the standard method of controlling the speed of electric streetcars and locomotives. Hunter later largely abandoned his work as a practical inventor and devoted himself to a futile quest to transmute silver and other metals into gold.

References

  1. von Ruff, Al. "Bibliography: Stability". ISFDB . Retrieved 2012-10-17.[ self-published source ]