Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

openculture.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 215 posts

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#11

Post by comrade1234 »

delichon wrote: post #3

I'd guess that Heinlein was aware of it and scaled it up in his imagination. The Roads must roll — they are the arteries of the nation. When they stop, everything stops. Factories idle, food rots, men starve. The nation cannot live without its Roads. A thousand feet wide, level as a floor, strip after strip moving past in ordered procession. The slow strips on the outside moved at five miles an hour; the inner ones f…

I think about this every time I get on a moving walkway and wish it had a few more speeds.

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#12

Post by JKCalhoun »

delichon wrote: post #3

I'd guess that Heinlein was aware of it and scaled it up in his imagination. The Roads must roll — they are the arteries of the nation. When they stop, everything stops. Factories idle, food rots, men starve. The nation cannot live without its Roads. A thousand feet wide, level as a floor, strip after strip moving past in ordered procession. The slow strips on the outside moved at five miles an hour; the inner ones f…

Yeah, love that idea of progressive velocities. I ant someone to at least build a short test track like this so we can play with it.

Seem to recall they were called "slidewalks" by some Sci-Fi author—probably Heinlein, eh?

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#13

Post by bobthepanda »

troupo wrote: post #8
delichon wrote: post #3

I'd guess that Heinlein was aware of it and scaled it up in his imagination. The Roads must roll — they are the arteries of the nation. When they stop, everything stops. Factories idle, food rots, men starve. The nation cannot live without its Roads. A thousand feet wide, level as a floor, strip after strip moving past in ordered procession. The slow strips on the outside moved at five miles an hour; the inner ones f…

It was a recurring theme throughout most of Golden Age fiction. E.g. Clifford D. Simak mentions them as a mode of transportation in The Goblin Reservation , Asimov has them in Robots of Dawn , and I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty more. It could be that it was Heinlein who kicked of the trend.

People have tried faster moving walkways many times. The problem is getting humans on and off such a system safely in a way that is easy to maintain.

In practice, everyday transportation systems need to accommodate a wide variety of users safely, like a toddler, or a commuter holding a cup of coffee, or a grandmother with a walker.

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#15

Post by excalibur »

> It’s fair to say that few of us now marvel at moving walkways, those standard infrastructural elements of such utilitarian spaces as airport terminals, subway stations, and big-box stores.

You've gotta be referring to escalators here. Never seen a moving walkway in a big-box store, or a subway station for that matter.

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#19

Post by userbinator »

excalibur wrote: post #15

> It’s fair to say that few of us now marvel at moving walkways, those standard infrastructural elements of such utilitarian spaces as airport terminals, subway stations, and big-box stores. You've gotta be referring to escalators here. Never seen a moving walkway in a big-box store, or a subway station for that matter.

I've seen them in airports.
Post reply on HN