Anne predicts future object!

[Mary]

I don't know if anyone remembers in Crystal Line when Killa went into Lars's office once. He had a photograph display that showed a new photograph of himself and Killa every day. Taken on holidays or sailing or whatever over the years. Killa knew nothing about it and did not like Lars "remembering" stuff about their past.

When I was in the local electronic store a few weeks ago I came across a digital picture display item.

This is a Kodak one that I just goggled.

This is what I always imagined the one Lars had to be like. When I saw the item in the shop I was pretty impressed that Anne had come up with something similar so many years ago. I could be wrong about the exact book reference, please correct me.

[granath]

Yes, it's pretty close to the holocube that shows up in both the Crystal Singer and Ship books, but as BBs show up in CS, that's not so surprising. The main difference is that the holos are probably 3D.

[Hans]

Indeed Mary!

And I gather, since Anne used the term photographs it is something different and more like the digital display frame we get nowadays, than it would resemble a holocube which I see as something totally different yet again (I see them as the the ones of which there are good examples in Star Wars and Star Trek).

[Cheryl]

Annie's not a bad prognosticator. She also predicted in vitro fertilization well before it was a reality.

[Sandi]

I've long felt that Science Fiction has propelled our scientific community for a very long time. Look at Captain Kirk's communicator and flip phones I've often wondered whether any of the people working on the advances in communication and activity for the paralized ever read any of Anne's Ship series.

[Bob12]

In one of the early books of the John Carter of Mars series, he describes a Martian wristwatch. Except for the red background (if I remember correctly - it's been a while,) the description is that of an LCD digital watch. The book was written in 1912.

Then there are also the remote and miniature handling devices commonly called Waldoes. They were developed by an engineer after he read one of Robert A. Heinlein's short stories. They were named after the title character in that story.

Lots of other examples from early science fiction.

[Cheryl]

Too bad the writers probably can't get part of the patent rights!

[Topaz the Golden]

True doesn't that mean we'll live in space and have cars that drive themselves and take off. Just what New York City doesn't need traffic on the streets and in the air too. Then again who I'm to stop people from inventing these cars. By the way the cars are from J.D. Robbs' in death books and they take place 50yrs from now.

[P'ter]

I believe that Azimov described communication satelites so well that he was able to claim royalties for each one launched.

[Brenda]

Asimov also predicted the calculator - if you read his short story "The Feeling of Power", it's a lot more effective to realize it was written before the "pocket computer" was invented!

[granath]

Originally Posted by P'ter

I believe that Azimov described communication satelites so well that he was able to claim royalties for each one launched.

That was Clarke.

Heinlein also predicted the cellphone system, he described a working model with base towers and explained why it wouldn't work from orbit (the set would try to contact too many base towers at once, even if the radio signal was strong enough) in Space Cadet, first published in 1939, almost 30 years before Star Trek.

Asimov not only predicted miniaturization (although by his own admission only after the process had started, as his first computers/brains, apart from those installed in robots, were huge things, the biggest the size of planets), but he also predicted a social consequence of using computers: people don't bother to do sums in their head anymore, instead using their calculators. Especially as most carry one with them at all times, in their cellphone.

[P'ter]

Captain Brereton in 'The Great Airship' (1928) predicted perspex (the airship was made of it).

Kipling in 'With The The Night Mails' (1905 & set in 2000) predicted something very akin to atomic power.

[edith]

It can be very scary!
One thing I noticed in I Robot was that in many ways the development of the robot mirrored that of the computer!

One thing which I find quite scary at times (and I bet Nigel Kneale didn't get royalties ) was that there was a SF horror written by Nigel Kneale (Quatermass et al.) for the BBC in the 60s (which I would love to watch! BBC are really missing something here- what with Big Brother et al- tghey could have a real poke at them) called "The Year of the Sex Olympics" which gives a scary account of reality TV0- in the 1960s!

read the wikipedia page- its too complex for me to explain!

[P'ter]

I remember that one and a number other Theatre 625 productions.

[ghost8772]

Reading this thread I could only think that most of the people who invented things in this century were either military scientists, or edisonian (hiding in the garage and working too many hours) the latter would likely have grown up with very few companions who didn't start out life in a printing press. so the ideas found in stories would be likely a basis for a path. Since science fiction is frequently an extrapolation of current science, most of the time an idea can be followed. Although I doubt Asimov's micro reactors in belt buckles will ever catch on..... I hope.

[T'mynn]

Ive a favorite saying.."Scifiction becoming science fact."

it's shocking amazing and sometiems frightening.

Huxley's "A Brave New World." predicted things that happen now. In all reality I don't really think it's prediction pre se, a great imagination yes. Then some tech minded person reads the book/s then goes"Hey, That sounds awesome I think I can build that."

ST had flip com units, bio beds and hyposprays. We've those items. Cell phones,Protatble battle feild bio-bed, Hypos have been around since the 50's or 60's. Maybe farther back.

It makes you wonder what books has Anne read that had inspired her writting?

[granath]

Well, if hyposprays were around in the 50s, they predate Trek by quite some margin!

[T'mynn]

Only 17 years.:-D

[granath]

Yeah.

And I really do wish people would stop harping on about how Trek invented the cellphone. As I said in an earlier post, Robert A. Heinlein did that in 1939, almost 30 years before the first Trek episode was written.

[T'mynn]

Trek didn't 'invent' anything, not evne the campy acting. Their technology came from the minds of the writters who grew up reading Heinlien, and other scifi authors.


What other devices were written of in the various AMC books?

[granath]

The goosegg, a primitive sort of EEG, although that did develop later. Of course, Anne wrote about that in response to its use by Apollo astronauts, so it's not her original idea. In Pegasus in Space it's less obtrusive than the stuff used by doctors today.

The Tower and the Hive has portable spectrographs. Today's machines are big things in labs.

I would argue that Trek may have invented the matter transmitter and the replicator. I certainly don't remember reading about any such tech pre-Trek. But I haven't read it all, so...

[T'mynn]

Trek only made it popular with the communicaitor probaly because the prop guy/girl read Heinlein's books and decided to make one.

The Tech on the trek pre-queall Enterprise- is smaller and more 'advanced than TOS. only cuz of time real life time frame.

[jube]

Look at Leonardo da Vinci - he invented lots of things that didn't get off the ground until the last 100 years or so.

[T'mynn]

AHh yes the master painter/inventor. His creations were ahead of their time.

[granath]

Indeed. And he about single-handedly developed the science of anatomy. At least human anatomy. There's an awesome series of pictures he drew of the development of human fetuses, so he must've cut up a lot of dead pregnant women at various stages of pregnancy...

[Cheryl]

Originally Posted by granath

Indeed. And he about single-handedly developed the science of anatomy. At least human anatomy. There's an awesome series of pictures he drew of the development of human fetuses, so he must've cut up a lot of dead pregnant women at various stages of pregnancy...

Ummm, no. He may have made good advances in it, but Da Vinci certainly wasn't the first to study anatomy. Back in the 2nd century Greek physician Galen made great advancements in anatomical knowledge, and his work furthered that of Herophilos and Erisistratus in 4th and 3rd BC centuries. And the Egyptians were drawing hearts and other organs in 1600 BC.

Da Vinci wasn't even close to single-handedly developing anatomical science.

[GinnyStar]

Well, the E.G.G. testing today reminds me of a contections for the shellperson, or what the Talent use, with out all the gel gule too! LOL

A short term one use some like a showercap which is somehthing like the net the Talents use. LOL

[granath]

Thanks Cheryl! Teach me to look things up. But da Vinci did contribute to the debunking of the old Greek homunculus idea, i.e. that the mother is just a vessel to carry the seed fully contributed by the father.

[Cheryl]

I wouldn't normally know such things, but since I named my son Galen I'm a little knowledgable about him.

[granath]

OT: did you also know that Galen means insane in Swedish?

Now there are people with bionic arms and some quadriplegics are able to use a computer through electrodes in their brains. Anne did get the brainstem wrong, since it seems that the cortex suffices. We may not have brainships anytime soon, but I would expect to see quadriplegics move when they manage to bypass the spine and pass nerve signals using electrodes and wires.