Out of this World Ideas: And the Inventions they Inspired : Edward M. Wysocki, Jr.
Works of science fiction contain many strange and fantastic concepts. Have any of these concepts served as the inspiration for inventions that have been used to solve real-world problems?
Various people have claimed that a particular invention was inspired by a work of science fiction. Out Of This World Ideas looks at a number of cases where such inspiration has been claimed to determine the validity of the claims.
Was a type of holography inspired by a story of the discovery of an alien artifact from the time of the dinosaurs?
Was the Combat Information Center inspired by a story that contained a system used to manage massive battles in space?
Was a problem that arose from the Suez Crisis solved by a device inspired by a story of submarines in a future conflict between Eastern and Western powers?
These are just some of the cases analyzed and presented in Out Of This World Ideas. Also considered are science fiction authors who were able to start with an idea and develop it not into a work of fiction but into an actual invention.
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