wex@ittvax.UUCP (Alan Wexelblat) (08/16/83)
Here is the collected list of SF-inspired science items. Thanks to all who sent in suggestions: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- bunker!bunkerb!garys: 1) Arthur C. Clarke, "I Remember Babylon," communications satellites. 2) Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, long range submarines. 3) The two way wrist radio was invented in Dick Tracy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Earle T. Fettig: 1) Heinlein, "Double Star", waterbeds, using them as high-G acceleration couches -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David D. Levine: 1) Arthur C. Clark, ? , geosynchronous communcations satellite 2) The first nuclear-powered submarine was named the Nautilus, after Verne's submarine in "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea." 3) And, of course, there was the prototype space shuttle Enterprise. 4) There is a company called U.S. Robotics, which makes modems, which is probably named after Asimov's United States Robots and Mechanical Men. (I have heard a rumor that that IS the full name of the real company.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From Mary-Anne Wolf: 1) In the movie, "the Man who fell to Earth", the protagonist made a fortune by selling (among other things) an instant color film. Polaroid has an instant slide film which can be developed, as a roll, in 65 seconds, and then immediately mounted and projected. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From David Levine Verne, the heavier-than-air flying machine, "The Master of the World" (but his helicopter/dirigible concept was dead wrong) Did you read a recent newspaper article which presented evidence that Arthur Conan Doyle was the perpetrator of the Piltdown Man archaeological hoax? If true, talk about SF influencing science! (Doyle was the author of "The Lost World", the prototypical lost-world novel, and therefore was an SF writer.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From Lew Mammel, Jr. Jonathans Swift, Mars's two moons, Gulliver's Travels (These are supposed to have been discovered by the astronomers of Lagado - the island in the sky.) He gives distances and periods which are off by something like 20 to 50 percent. This is 150 years before their discovery! He mentions Keplers third law relating the periods and orbital radii. The correct application requires a knowledge of Mars's mass, so Swift must have had some astronomer friends. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From Larry Seiler Carl Kapek, R.U.R. ,the robot. The term "robotics" was introduced by Isaac Asimov in his robot stories. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From Len Tower Isaac Asimov, Foundation, the hand-held calculator -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From John Platt Arthur C. Clarke, the communications satellite. He first published the idea in an article named "Extraterrestrial Relays", in the magazine "Wireless World", in October 1945. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------