Term coined by E E Smith in Spacehounds of IPC (July-September 1931 Amazing; 1947) – initially as "a pusher or presser beam", so spelt – for a Force-Field application that pushes targeted objects away from the beam's projector, reversing the action of the fictional Tractor Beam. In the same year as Smith's story, Neil R Jones's "The Jameson Satellite" (July 1931 Amazing) deploys "radium repulsion rays" (> Elements) to fend off meteors. The pressor beam has been widely adopted by sf authors, both as an item of Terminology and a plot convenience. The all-purpose Ray technology of Robert A Heinlein's Sixth Column (January-March 1941 Astounding as by Anson MacDonald; 1949 as Heinlein; vt The Day After Tomorrow 1951) includes a pressor-beam equivalent. [DRL]
see also: Antigravity.
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