a device for conveying matter over a distance by transforming it into energy or information, beaming this to another location, and reconstituting the original matter at the destination; cf. matter transmission n.
Of the fleet of ten great ships, and the accompanying matter-sender, six ships returned. The rest floated out there in the interplanetary space around Betelguese.]
With me at her side, Geble hastened to the beam station and there in the matter transmitter we dispatched our physical beings to the palace at Tola.
The captain’s position in the military establishment had brought him…into contact with that phenomenon which, of all the phenomena of the age, was most advanced, most contemporary, most at the forefront of the future—with, in short, the matter transmitter.
Now somebody’s gonna have to explain away that matter transmitter. Or are you going to tell me it was a Kodak moment that brought us all the way across the Andes.
Matter…is at bottom a message, since it can be turned into energy and propagated. Nevertheless, the awesome radio did not develop into a matter transmitter, which is no closer to reality than it was a century ago.
Later, I worked on a matter transmitter for the Pentagon. I tested it on myself. It went wrong. I was dragged back to old Mars instead.
antedating 1931
L. F. Stone, in Wonder Stories
In the OED, with an earliest date of 1931.
Last modified 2021-10-28 19:00:24
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entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
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