For reasons I will never understand, it
seems like science fiction gets a bit of a bad rap. In bookstores it's usually
relegated to a back corner not far from where the vampire and werewolf romances are. Sometimes, ah, usually, the folks browsing this section have a whiff of nerdiness about them. I should know because I'm one of them and if you're watching this, maybe
you are, too. But to relegate sci-fi to some kooky niche is to sell short its
influence, its innovation, and its boundless potential to contribute to
real hard science fact. Many sci-fi authors are known for the hard science
behind their fiction and have serious academic chops. Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote 2001: a Space Odyssey, had degrees in mathematics and physics, and iRobot
author, Isaac Asimov, had a PhD in biochemistry. These writers and countless
others were inspired by the existing theories and technologies as much as
they in turn inspired new ideas in science by expanding the imagination of
their readers, many of whom went into careers in science. In fact, there are
plenty of modern-day innovations that were originally inspired or even made
possible by science fiction. That cellphone in your pocket for one and at
least three others that I could think of right off the top my head. (Music) These days you can't swing a lightsaber
without hitting a cell phone. You'd be increasingly hard-pressed to even find a
person in the U.S. that doesn't own one. But it wasn't always so. The first mobile
car phones showed up in the mid 1940s. But 20 years later they were still
operated more or less like expensive radios and they didn't work very well
because the operating network could only support a few users at a time and they
were still tethered to a home base, in this case a vehicle. Phone companies like
AT&T were working on improving this kind of technology but Martin Cooper, an
engineer and executive at Motorola, was thinking about a new way to communicate
that allowed even more freedom. In the 1970s he was thinking and thinking about
this stuff and one day decided just to take a break, put his feet up and catch an
episode of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. Captain Kirk was in some kind of
trouble, naturally, and he pulled out a small handheld pocket communicator to
call the bridge. A light went off in Cooper's head. Kirk didn't have to call a
switchboard to direct his call: his nifty little communicator wasn't attached to
his transport shuttle; it was just, just right there, on his, in his hand. Cooper knew
that the future of phone communication had to be in small, handheld,
person-to-person devices supported by a large network. To others, that kind of
Star Trek technology was way fantasy. But to Cooper, someone at the forefront of
mobile communication technology, it was an objective, and he made it happen. Cooper
himself made the first call from a handheld cell phone in 1973 on the
sidewalks of New York City from a huge brick of a device called the DynaTAC. Who
did he call? His chief competitor at Bell Labs, just to rub it in! The DynaTAC hit
the market in the mid 80s with a charge that lasted 30 minutes. You'll remember
them as those huge beasts that Wall Street execs and pastel-clad drug
dealers used in many 80s movies. Obviously, we have come a long way since
then. This is currently controlling my teleprompter! So thank you Star Trek.
Going back a century or so, inventive minds were thinking about ways to travel
underwater. Most concepts for submersible vehicles never left the drawing phase
and ones that did were often made of leather and wood and couldn't move or
stay underwater for any length of time which is not very practical. In 1864, the
Confederate army launched their hand-cranked
submersible, the CSS Hunley, which successfully sank the USS Housatonic, but
it also sunk itself in the process, so the world was still waiting really for
the first submarine. It wasn't until 1898 that the Argonaut, the first truly
successful submarine to operate out in the open ocean, slipped under water and
creeped from Norfolk Virginia to Sandy Hook New Jersey without sinking or
crashing or killing her crew. Bonus! No doubt its American inventor, Simon Lake,
known as the father of the modern submarine, got plenty of handshakes and
back pats, but his real triumph came in the form of a note from Jules Verne, the
French novelist who captivated Lake with the notion of undersea travel with his
famous book 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, first published in 1870. Now, Verne may have
gotten his idea for Captain Nemo's Nautilus from some of those earlier
submarine plans but his research was impeccable, his imagination was
tremendous, and his design was feasible, especially considering that he was no
engineer. Verne actually had an uncanny skill for crafting and expanding upon
emerging technologies in his writing, sometimes creating sound solutions to
ongoing real-world challenges. In the case of Lake's 11 meter, gasoline-powered
Argonaut, it had many similarities to Verne's fictional Nautilus: both vessels
were cigar shaped and both achieved submersion through the flooding of
ballast tanks. The Argonaut was the first vessel to allow men equipped in diving
suits to pass through doors, back and forth between the sea floor and
submarine, collecting things from the bottom of the ocean in the way that
Nemo's crew did. Yes, Captain Nemo's rig was pimped out with an organ, extensive
library, and fine art collection, but still, for a non specialist Verne was
really well-informed as a visionary. In his autobiography, Lake wrote, "Jules Verne
was in a sense the director-general of my life." Of course, we can't talk about
sci-fi without mentioning the extremely influential, popular, but controversial
author Robert Heinlein who, along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, is
known as one of the Big Three of science fiction. His writing provided the
namesake and inspiration for "Waldoes," also known as remote manipulators or
telemanipulators used today, especially in the nuclear industry. Originally published in 1942, Heinlein's short story "Waldo" detailed the life
of a mechanical genius born with severe neuromuscular disease who could barely
lift his own head. Using his intellect and the family money he invents the great
Waldo F. Jones' Synchronous Reduplicating Pantograph, which is
essentially a giant robot arm that he controls with his hand.
Heinlein describes the device as working like a robotic extension of a human hand,
not controlled by levers or buttons, but rather a glove that you put your hand
into and manipulate the arm as if it were your own. He envisioned different
sized Waldoes: tiny ones for micro- manipulations and huge ones for building
construction. Naturally this technology could allow a person to work remotely in
an environment that was dangerous to humans, so soon both the need and the
engineering behind these fictional robotic arms proved to be valid in the
non-fictional world. In 1945, Central Research Laboratories was asked to
develop a remote manipulator for the Argonne National Laboratory that was
just starting work on the nuclear reactors for the Manhattan Project. The
idea was to replace existing devices that access radioactive materials from
above a sealed chamber or hot cell with a remote arm that could be manipulated
through an adjacent wall. The resulting device was given the dubious name the
Master-Slave Manipulator MK-8 but they lovingly nicknamed these handy robo-arms
Waldoes, a nod to Heinlein. And one final example of how science fiction has made
our lives kind of awesomer is the TASER. Hopefully you've never personally
experienced the acute displeasure of being tased so if you want to live
vicariously through countless victims just search for "TASER" on YouTube and
you'll get an inkling of what it feels like to have jolts of unwedded
electricity running through your body. Invented by aerospace scientist and
physicist Jack Cover in the early 1970s, the TASER was designed as a non-lethal
weapon that could be used by law enforcement officers as a type of stun
gun. Apparently Cover was inspired by two things: one, an article in the newspaper
that described a man running into an electric fence and being temporarily
immobilized; and two, by an old Tom Swift sci-fi adventure book he read as a kid.
Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle was published in 1911 as the tenth volume in
a 100 book series written by the Stratemeyer syndicate, a group of ghost writers
publishing under the pen name "Victor Appleton." That same group also
wrote the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series. The Swift books promoted
benevolent Science and Technology through the glories of heroic invention
in the spirit of teen adventure. In this particular book, main character Tom Swift
heads out on an African safari to, yeah, kill some elephants and other megafauna.
It was the 19-teens, they were all doing that. Things get crazy when his friends
are held captive by some red pygmies, oh my gosh, whereupon Tom unleashes his
newest invention, the electric rifle. The gun pretty much looked like any other
old rifle but shot bolts of electricity instead of bullets and could be set to
varying levels of intensity from tickle to kill! 60 years later, Cover brought the
first version of this electroshock gun into reality, giving Tom Swift mad props
by naming the device the Taser for Tom Swift's Electric Rifle. Rather than
blasting through solid walls and bringing down angry whales like Tom's
magic gun, the real-life TASER works by shooting electrified darts tethered to
the gun by insulated wires and flooding the target's body with current that
causes uncontrollable muscle spasms. Up until the mid-90s tasers were classified
as firearms because they required a small amount of gunpowder to fire the
darts. Nowadays they use compressed nitrogen instead of gunpowder and are
sold and used freely in most states. Yay! Now while small amounts of electrical
current are not necessarily dangerous and TASERs can provide a good
alternative to firearms they can also be seriously dangerous so
don't go TASERing your friends for fun! And also, just in general, leave
elephants alone. But still pretty cool. Life imitating art. Art imitating life. It
makes a lot of sense. So much sense in fact that in 2000 the European space
agency, looking to remain competitive with the U.S., asked the public to submit
promising ideas from old and new sci-fi novels that might warrant a closer look
with the advent of new technologies and materials. So you see, science and science-fiction can be very cooperative when done well. The Nerds
shall inherit the earth, and as Jules Verne once said, "Anything one man can
imagine, other men can make real." So let's get going on those hoverboards I've been
waiting since 1989, people!. And thanks for watching this episode of SciShow. If you
have any questions or comments or suggestions for us you can find us on
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