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I am not a Trekkie, despite my older brothersâ countless attempts to make me one. But the first time I saw a Bluetooth receiver, I just couldnât help but think of Lieutenant Uhura and her iconic earpiece communicator.
With the release of the newest Star Trek movie, articles are pouring out of media outlets like Scientific American, U.S. News & World Report, the San Francisco Chronicle and Newsweek, examining how much modern technology has been influenced by the sci-fi juggernaut.
When Star Trek first premiered on NBC in 1966, earpiece communicators and needle-free hyposprays were just some of the quirky innovations developed for the futuristic series. âThe fun in Star Trek didnât come from copying science, but from having science copy it,â wrote Leonard Mlodinow, a former writer for the âNext Generationâ series and former physics faculty member at CalTech, in the April 25 issue of Newsweek. âMy job wasnât to put real science into Star Trek, but to imagine new ideas that hadnât yet been thought of.â
And, as several of the articles pointed out, many well-respected scientists and inventors have credited their innovations and influences to Star Trekâs forward-thinking technologies. WebTV founder Steve Perlman has been quoted as saying, âEpisodes like âThe Menagerieâ contemplated technology that could create an artificial reality. This was hugely inspiring to me, and itâs one of the things that drove me into exploring computer graphics, motion capture, audio perception.â
Throughout decades worth of television episodes and movies, the crew used a number of technologiesâflat screen televisions, transporters , tractor beams, universal translators , non-invasive surgeries in the sickbayâthat have real, modern day parallels. It was amazing stuff, and all the recent Trek-tech coverage amounts to an impressive record of just how influential science fiction can be.
But there are some Star Trek technologies that are still a bit too far-flung for modern science. According to Lawrence Krauss, author of The Physics of Star Trek and a theoretical physicist at Arizona State Universityâs School of Earth & Space Exploration (who was interviewed for nearly every article exploring Trek technology), transporters and time warping may be out of the question⌠for now.
âGee-whizâ pop-science journalism is nothing new, of course. In the past two years, for instance, countless news outlets have treated their readers to stories about the quest to develop a Harry Potter-esque âinvisibility cloak.â Itâs certainly not the most consequential type of reporting, but some of it can be useful. Take, for example, numerous stories in recent years about the development of bionic prosthetics, which often couldnât help but mention The Six Million Dollar Man.
Whatever the social relevance of the technology at hand, pop-science coverage usually piques the publicâs interest in engineering and technology. Of course, itâs best when it has some grounding is practical application and doesnât flirt too heavily with pure fantasy. Journalists can leave that part to Star Trek and watch where it goes.
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