"The New Accelerator" is a 1901

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

short story by

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

, first published in ''

The Strand Magazine ''The Strand Magazine'' was a monthly British magazine founded by George Newnes, composed of short fiction and general interest articles. It was published in the United Kingdom from January 1891 to March 1950, running to 711 issues, though the ...

'' in December 1901. The story addresses an elixir, invented by Prof. Gibberne, that accelerates all of an individual's physiological and cognitive processes by some orders of magnitude, such that although the individual perceives no change in themselves, the external world appears almost frozen into immobility, and only the motion of most rapidly moving objects – such as the tip of a cracked whip – can be perceived. The exploration of the consequences of this is incomplete; for example, the inventor and his companion find that while under the influence of the elixir they can easily singe their clothing from the heat produced by friction against the air as they walk, such is the rapidity of their motion; but this same air friction would render it impossible to breathe at a correspondingly accelerated rate, and this difficulty is ignored. The drug has considerable advantages, as well as risks, drawing upon a

trope Trope or tropes may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Trope (cinema), a cinematic convention for conveying a concept * Trope (literature), a figure of speech or common literary device * Trope (music), any of a variety of different things in medi ...

present in other of Wells' literary works that describes the possibility of scientific discoveries to be both a blessing and a curse. "The New Accelerator" was included in the H. G. Wells short-story collection ''Twelve Stories and a Dream'' (1903) and much later reprinted in the first edition of ''

Amazing Stories ''Amazing Stories'' is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Science fiction stories had made regular appearance ...

'' (April 1926).''Amazing Stories''
April 1926. In 1966, the premise of this story was adapted as an episode of the CBS TV series ''The Wild, Wild West'' titled "The Night of the Burning Diamond" (season 1, episode 26, originally aired 8 April 1966). In 2001 it was adapted for the first episode of the 2001 miniseries '' The Infinite Worlds of H. G. Wells''. The French comic-series '' La Brigade Chimérique'' features, among other characters from literature and comic, Prof. Gibberne's son Andrew Gibberne.

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* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:New Accelerator, The 1901 short stories Short stories by H. G. Wells Science fiction short stories Works originally published in The Strand Magazine