[Terr_]

> I remember in Asimov's Empire series of books, at one point a scientist wanted to study something.

Or "The Machine Stops" (1909):

> Those who still wanted to know what the earth was like had after all only to listen to some gramophone, or to look into some cinematophote.

> And even the lecturers acquiesced when they found that a lecture on the sea was none the less stimulating when compiled out of other lectures that had already been delivered on the same subject. “Beware of first-hand ideas!” exclaimed one of the most advanced of them. “First-hand ideas do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced by love and fear, and on this gross foundation who could erect a philosophy? Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element — direct observation. [...]"