“A marvel of modern technology. Just put this on, and you will see the world of virtual particles.”

The helmet was large, and it looked very complicated and even, she felt, a little sinister. However, if this was going to reveal the virtual particles she had heard mentioned so often, she was prepared to try it. She put the helmet on her head. It was very heavy. He reached across to the helmet and made some adjustment at the side of her head, where she was unable to see. The view through the visor clouded over with little sparkling dots and…

When her view through the visor cleared, it had dramatically changed. She could see the electrons in their various levels, but now instead of their appearing to be within a tall building she saw them as enmeshed in a network of vivid lines which joined one electron to another, so that they looked as much as anything like flies caught in some great spider’s web of shining strands ...

What’s particularly remarkable about the helmet is that it presages with astounding prescience augmented reality tools like Google Glass nearly twenty years before their existence. Now, if she were to say she saw Mars, perhaps .. no one would dream of disputing it.