Ideas can come from all sorts of places, and inspiration can hit in a flash—think of Archimedes supposedly yelling “Eureka! Eureka!” in the bath when he realized that irregular items could be accurately measured through water displacement. But sometimes, it’s fiction, not reality, that provides the spark of inspiration. There are sci-fi tales, for example, that have gone beyond predicting technological advancements to directly inspiring scientific progress, from robotics to rocketry and everything in between. Here are 11 advancements inspired by works of science fiction to read up on while we wait for teleportation beyond the quantum level.
Actually, though, HG Wells does precede Arthur C. Clarke’s book that included the global interconnected telephone network. In Men Like Gods (1923), Wells invites readers to a futuristic utopia that’s essentially Earth after thousands of years of progress. In this alternate reality, people communicate exclusively with wireless systems that employ a kind of co-mingling of voicemail and email-like properties.
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