matter transporter n.

= matter transmitter n.; = transporter n.

  • 1956 M. Banister Scarlet Saint in Amazing Stories Mar. 73/2 page image Manly Banister bibliography

    Only the Scarlet Saints…knew how to operate the matter transporters that brought people and materials in.

  • 1957 H. Slesar Babbit from Bzlfsk in Amazing Stories June 45/1 page image Henry Slesar bibliography

    ‘Do you think you could move his house? Without him finding out?’ ‘I suppose so. I have a small Matter Transporter in my suitcase.’

  • 1971 Luna Monthly May 43

    The MT (matter transporter) serves to transmit plague to a primitive culture.

  • 1978 B. Pronzini Cat in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Nov .60/2 page image Bill Pronzini bibliography

    Suppose, as in George Langelaan’s story ‘The Fly’, a scientist somewhere had been experimenting with a matter transporter and a cat had gotten inside with a human subject?

  • 1987 S. H. Elgin Judas Rose ix. 128 Suzette Haden Elgin

    Heykus was personally convinced that the Aliens who interacted routinely with Earth did have matter transporters, in the old science fiction sense. Gadgets that would get you and all the gear you could carry from Point A to Point C, without having to go through the intervening expanse represented by B.

  • 2004 C. Milburn Nanotechnology in Age of Posthuman Engineering in N. K. Hayles Nanoculture 126

    Nanotechnology can devise a matter-transporter to facilitate human travel across great distances of space.

Research requirements

any evidence 1956
Earliest cite

Manly Banister, in Amazing Stories
Research History
Douglas Winston submitted a 1987 cite from Suzette Haden Elgin's 'The Judas Rose'
Adam Buchbinder submitted a 2004 cite from Colin Milburn's "Nanotechnology in the Age of Posthuman Engineering: Science Fiction as Science"
"Larry" points out "The term first appears in the first Star Trek pilot episode, The Cage, but was not used during the original three year TV run. Later on-air usage, with additional footage, was in the two-part episode, The Menagerie, aired Nov 17, 1966. First televised (hence first actual usage) in the second pilot (first aired episode), The Man Trap and aired on Sep 8, 1966" : on this basis, it would seem that the term would have been used in print e.g. scripts, novelizations, from the 1960s onwards.

We would like to see further cites of any date from other sources

Last modified 2022-09-01 18:17:05
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.