How Science Fiction And Modern Technology Are Related
This year, Star Trek – the ironic 1960′s TV show about the voyages of the starship Enterprise – celebrated its 45th Anniversary. 45 years ago, a man named Gene Roddenberry had an idea for a show where people went out into space to explore distant galaxies and alien species.
And while we haven’t found evidence (yet!) of aliens, many of our technological advances can traced back, not only to Star Trek, but even the earliest of science fiction books and ideas. Back in the early 1800′s, an author by the name of Jules Verne wrote a book about people going to the moon; over two hundred sixty years later, Americans made history by traveling and landing on the moon.
A running theme within the Trek series was that of artificial intelligence and the use of computers; computers of course are currently being used in our society and while we don’t have beings like Lt. Commander Data from The Next Generation, scientists and researchers are making headway to introducing AI beings, those that are made from the circuits of computers, but look as human as you or I.
Many of the ideas that were thought up by authors and screen writers were often time based on that of the world’s technology – in the 60′s and 70′s for instance, the popular movie 2001: A Space Odyssey had some designs based on the space shuttles of the time – while technology has also taken its cues from that of science fiction.
We’re still a ways off from exploring a planet called Vulcan or even going to a galaxy far, far away, but its very clear that technology is trying to catch up with the revolutionary ideas that authors have created and written about. Time will tell if we’re making our own star trek across the stars or if our world is a Skynet just waiting to happen.