"And it looks to me as though everyone in Civilization is operating heavy machinery every day, by our standards. That time when the guy stops at the barber for a shave, I bet it is with the atomic clipper, which by a million tiny rays of incomprehensibly powerful fourth-order radiation annihilates the hair microscopically straight down to the root. So horrific were the energies concentrated upon every follicle, that it not only was vapourised, but each particle was individually propelled into nega-space without leaving even one atom of vapour to trouble the hair's owner; and yet the energies were in perfect balance - the customer being shaved felt not even the slightest sensation of warmth upon the skin - as, indeed, he would not feel it if the balancing bar were misaligned, and the Titanic force misdirected to blow his head into tiny pieces, and, a moment later too small to measure, the barber shop and the entire city, also. Yet such was the reputation of the Engineers of Civilization that not once had this happened anywhere on the planet!" --Ryk "Sea Wasp" Spoor in rec.arts.sf.written   talking about "Civilization" in   E. E. "Doc" Smith's "Lensmen" books
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