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15 Inventions Inspired by Science Fiction

By Queuebot in Movies & SciFi, Science & Tech on Nov 16, 2009 at 9:34 pm


Some of these are obvious – cell phones, satellites and the atomic bomb – but I had no idea that Home Theaters and EBook readers had anything to do with scifi.

Probably the most famous scene in the second Aliens movie is when Ripley saves a little girl using a hydraulic exoskeleton. Someone in the military seems to have taken notice, since engineers recently unveiled an exoskeleton that helps a person lift 200 pounds like it was nothing at all. One inventor in Japan even went the extra mile and developed a functional suit almost identical to the one in the movie.

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  1. pwscott
    Nov 16th, 2009 at 10:13 pm

    Without human imagination where would the world be today. But what plants these seeds in our minds? :p

  2. Richard Meyer
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 2:47 am

    All inventions are the result of imagination. Look at the inventions that came from Jules Verne's imagination... sunmarines, scuba diving etc.

  3. B.M.
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 6:24 am

    Do you really believe the reality comes from the fiction? Don't you think it a bit possible the sci-fi writers guessed where the world was going. I doubt cell phones were inspired more by Star Trek "communicators", than by the logical extrapolation of existing phone technology. I guess we owe modern phone technology to old Dick Tracy comics too. This is stupid. Jules Vernes' ideas could also be passed back to, oh crap, what's that guys name who drew diagrams of the helicopter and stuff a long time ago. (Davinci?)

  4. MadMolecule
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 11:37 am

    I don't know if Robert Heinlein had the idea first, but his novel Starship Troopers envisioned powered exoskeletons and predates Alien by twenty years or so.

  5. MattC
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 12:15 pm

    Powered exoskeletons were talked about in science fiction long before Aliens. I believe they were described in Starship Troopers (the novel, not the movie) and possibly The Forever War before that. Kids these days. ;)

  6. Gauldar
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 12:44 pm

    @B.M.

    Are those dang teenagers on your lawn again?

    Like the quote says, "necessity is the mother of invention", many writers ask themselves "what people take for granted now, what would be the next step"? I think many ideas have been inspired by people picking up little tid bits in stories from the work of people like Ray Bradbury, and although the invention or idea may not be new, advancements in technology may lead to new applications and design for ways to improve on it.

    In the book Fahrenheit 451 he tells the reader that people in that society use little "seashell" transistor radios they put into their ear, which was unheard of at the time, but a common item to people today with iPods and Bluetooth ear pieces. I'm not saying that he deserves all the credit, but I think we can safely ask the question "would that type of technology be as advanced today if he never had the idea in the first place"?

    Many of the best ideas have started before they were even technologically feasible, no matter if it was a writer, artist, or architect who thought it would be "neat". When I was in New Zealand, I vested a power plant where in 1906, a guy found the perfect spot for a hydro electric plant, but it couldn't be made possible until 60 years later when they had the technology to dig through the hard of the mountain. If that guy turned around and said "Nah, it's a stupid idea", there's a chance they wouldn't have that power plant. Sure, maybe later someone else could think of the idea, but would it be the same?

  7. Dolly
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 2:00 pm

    The 1981 novel Century's End by Russell Griffin predicted among other things the Walkman and Viagra. It's a lost masterpiece and he's an unappreciated genius!

  8. G
    Nov 17th, 2009 at 8:48 pm

    You know, the line between fiction and reality is experiencing it. Proof makes what was once deemed impossible now possible.

  9. melissa digitalis
    Nov 19th, 2009 at 7:43 am

    These are great I think that the human imagination is definitely the best resource. Have you seen The Tomorrow Mural? It's a site where anyone can post their ideas for the future, check some of them out! http://tiny.cc/RVvuX

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