And all that remained!

Can you imagine a world without science fiction? Probably not! Almost everything we use and are working to design/innovate are inspired from science fiction stories. Three ubiquitous things that we all take for granted resulted from creative writing:

Cellphones: Captain Kirk used his communicator in the 1964 episode “The Cage” in Star Trek: The Original Series. The flip-phone design was created by Wah Chang who build props for the series. It took almost 10 years for it to step from fiction to fact.

Martin Cooper, a US Navy veteran and electrical engineer from Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), joined Motorola in 1970s and was worried that rival AT&T was leading the telecom revolution with their car phone technology. He wanted to challenge them and take a leapfrog. He wasn’t very creative though. But he led his team to create the first portable 800-MHz phone prototype – the precursor to today’s cell phone in 90 days after watched the Star Trek episode on television in 1973. He went on to credit the series for the motivation in subsequent years.

As of January 2023, 62.9bn people own cell phones globally, which is 86.41% of the world population (Statista).

Titbits: Though director John Lucas is most famous for creating the Star Trek franchise, the original Star Trek creator was Gene Roddenberry who was a US Air Force veteran with Dorothy Catherine Fontana expanding the franchise. Her name was abbreviated to D.C. so that people would not know that she was a woman!

Credit cards: The term “credit card” was coined by author Edward Bellamy in his utopian novel Looking Backward 2000-1887, published in 1888. It envisioned a world where U.S. citizens have their personal wealth loaded in credits cards and use them to buy what they need. Well, beats Nostradamus I say!

Though the concept existed as “credit coins” used by local grocery shops and department stores since the beginning of the 19th century. It was in 1928, that “charge-plate”, precursor to modern credits became the norm for large-scale merchants.

However, it was only in 1950s that Diner Club introduced the first general-purpose credit card and the rest is history. Now one can pay with not only pay with the favorite plastic of all time, but also from wallets on a smartphone. Today there are 2.8 billion credit card users in the world with 20% of people on average having one across all countries (Statista). Next time you shop on Amazon, remember it was inspired 135 years ago.

Titbits: Till 1974, when U.S. Senate passed the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, women needed their husband’s permission to get a credit card. Even today, women still need a man to co-sign lines of credits like loans including a credit card despite the law. Financial institutions discount as much as 50 percent of women’s wage when calculating credit card limits. P.S. My dad (retired pensioner) has 4 times the credit limit on his credit card than me (a working professional) even though we first got our credit cards in the same year!

Biometric: Though biometric traces its history back to 500 B.C. in the Babylonian Empire, it became famous from 1966 when, ta-da, once again featured in Star Trek. Wah Chang, once again, is the designer behind its various usage in the show. Today one cannot imagine a world without biometric, be it for smartphone security or credit card payments or even access to your apartment building and airport checks. Siri and Alexa, I hope you are listening!

Titbits: The world of technology would be amiss without Ada Lovelace who published the first algorithm as she recognized that machines have applications beyond mere data calculations. Youtube and Google, please say thank you. However, women are still under-recognized in science, technology and business despite their contribution from space technology (Katherine Johnson) to Whitney Ford founder of Bumble and more. In 2022, only two women were awarded Nobel prizes out of 14 awardees – one in literature (Annie Ernaux) and one in chemistry (Carolyn Bertozzi).

This history lesson coalesced today (i.e., 2 January) as it is National Science Fiction Day in the U.S. It all started from a simple short story I read in high school as part of ICSE English language syllabus called History Lesson by Arthur C. Clarke. It predicts a world freezing due to rising CO2. The last of the human habitants of Earth store a few things as relics of the civilization on this planet before they too ultimately perish. A seven-figure logarithm which didn’t have any use for generations, an atlas of the world and Sibelius' Seventh Symphony printed by H. K. Chu and Sons in the City of Pekin in 2371 among other things. Three most scared were - a beacon with a dying radioactive heart, a plastic film in a box, and a spaceship plaque from Auxiliary Igniter from Starboard Jet Spaceship "Morning Star" Earth-Moon, A.D. 1985. 5000 years later Martians, from an evolved-reptilian civilization, land on Earth drawn by the signals from the beacon. They figure a way out to watch the film. It featured a series of rapid events and left the scientific community enthralled. They were embarking on the task of deciphering the text “…World Disney Productions…” The story was published in 1949.

The end analysis: In 2021, UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres said that the "...climate crisis is a code red for humanity..." as the world will be unable to limit the rise of global temperatures to 1.5 degrees by 2030 or even 2050. Our inaction is about to make another science fiction story a reality soon. Race to build a human civilization on Mars might be too little too late. Star Trek fans and passionate Avengers, please read this article!

HAPPY SCIENCE FICTION DAY

#reflect #reimagine #reuse #nationalsciencefictionday #2023 #sustainability #sustainablelifeschoices