Things You Would Never Know

Science Fiction VS. Technology: The Ultimate Battle

Science Fiction VS. Technology: The Ultimate Battle

Some individuals believe that technology inspires contraptions or devices we see in movies. Others believe the complete opposite. So this is how it's gonna go. I am gonna post three different technologies/science fictitious devices and see which came first, the invention or the story. Let's see who wins the ultimate battle.

Round One:
Touch screen tablets and phones are considered to be a relatively new technology, right? Wrong! The idea has been around longer than most people even realize. Did you know that Apple made their first touch screen back in 1983? It was remarkably similar to the popular IPAD; only this one had a stylus that you used to enter in information or see the ID of the caller, and attached to it is a phone to take such calls. But Apple was not the first to develop the technology you see today. In fact, the technology goes even further back than the 80's!

In 1974, the first true touch screen incorporating a transparent surface came on the scene developed by Sam Hurst and Elographics. In 1977, Elographics developed and patented five-wire resistive technology, the most popular touch screen technology in use today. On February 24, 1994, the company officially changed its name from Elographics to Elo TouchSystems." But wait! It goes even further back in time.

This just is plain impossible right? Think again. It took over 30 years for the technology of the "mouse" to find it's way from a thought to in the hands of consumers world wide. Let's go back to 1965. The setting is Malvern, UK. Our protagonist? E.A. Johnson of the Royal Radar Establishment. He not only developed the technology of the first touch screen, but this technology was still in use in the 1990's as it was considered to still be the cutting-edge technology. Who was using it? None other than air traffic controllers in the UK.

Is there a film, TV show or book dating prior to 1965 containing at least the idea of a touch screen?


Round Two:
We have all seen the movies like StarTrek that involve a "hyperdrive" or some other means of deep space and/or time travel. But is time travel a possibility? Yes, it is. There are a number of theories, and one of these was even proposed by Einstein himself!

Let's start with Isaac Newton's theory of time before we get to Einstein as he went off Newton's theory when he developed his. Now Newton believed, as we all generally see time in this way, that time is a constant flow. It doesn't stop, rewind or fast-forward just because we want it to. But the theory behind gravity was also the same, wasn't it? What goes up must come down. At least on our planet that is... Then as we began our glorious pursuit to travel beyond our own planet, we slowly began to develop the technology to put men on the moon. That's when our perception of gravity changed, and once our perception changed, so did the possibility of defying gravity. Astronauts and NASA test and train in air vacuumed contraptions that permit them to simulate the moon's atmosphere, including it's lesser hold of gravity.

His theory is called "time dilation," which involves two subjects; one subject is going relative to the speed of light (look up the Twin Theory by Einstein) and the other is competing with the speed of light. Of course, the other will never catch up to the speed of light, but it is still able to move relatively faster through space than the first subject. So let's say the other is able to travel 100 lightyears away from our current location. He would technically be considered to have traveled to the future as had the first subject traveled to his location, he would be long dead as our first subject's speed capabilities are much slower.

It's pretty much the same concept as two people driving across the country. One in a Corvette and the other in a minivan. The minivan might still be in the Pacific time zone while our man in the Corvette is already in Eastern Standard time. He has technically traveled through time, no?

Now the "time travel" as we see it today, is a little more close to impossible due to our technologies right now. Most scientists scoff at the idea of a "hyperdrive" or machine that can put an entire spaceship through time. However, there is one suggestion that came out of it from scientists today. We all know about the Big Bang Theory right? The universe began by one giant explosion that caused all the debris and material to expand to the vast edges of space and technically "time." So why can't a spaceship do the same thing? Technically all you need is a type of force and a type of fuel-efficient energy on the spaceship; and just like the aerodynamics taken into consideration during the development of newer car bodies and how it breaks through wind, the spaceship should be able to expand space in front of it an shrink space behind the ship, allowing it to actually launch itself faster and still manage to realistically maintain enough energy to maintain the ship for several years as it makes it way through deep space.

So here's the question: did the theory of time travel begin with scientists or was it written about in stories first?


Round Three:
Intergalactic, interstellar and interplanetary travel is theorized as a means of not only time travel as discussed in our previous round, but it is also considered to be a future form of travel for humans. You have seen that little tube a captain on some ship has stepped into and in a flash, he's popping up on some planet for a meeting with the senate of some galaxy, yes? Basically the theory behind this form of travel is particle acceleration. It takes all of the particles that make you... well you, and then stretches them and launches them forward at a superluminal (faster than the speed of light) force.

Did you know particle accelerators have already been invented? Did you know that scientists have already used these accelerators to create an environment controlled black hole in some laboratory? It's not very big, but the fact that we have begun to create things that were once believed to be random accidents in the universe caused by a massive crash between atoms, dictates what else can be created or used with similar machines. While I personally feel like messing with black holes and creating them could potentially cause us to lose control over the experiment and POOF our planet has been disintegrated in a black hole to only pop up somewhere else without a sun like ours... That's going on the idea that we are all traveled to the same location and not spit out backwards.

So here we go again: did the story come before the science? When was the particle accelerator thought up and created, and when was the first version of this idea seen in a story on film or on paper?