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> Harold G. White, a NASA physicist, gets ideas for his warp field from a Star Trek starship concept. It is ridiculous to think that physicists get any ideas f

> Harold G. White, a NASA physicist, gets ideas for his warp field from a Star Trek starship concept. It is ridiculous to think that physicists get any ideas from science fiction. It happens the other way around. All he did was use it in a presentation. I'm nerd raging like hell here.

zethraeus 13y ago
Why? SciFi is great fodder for the imagination. Sure his technical details are unrelated, but for SciFi to trigger the thinking that lead to them is awesome!
- angersock 13y ago
  Hell, look what influence cyberpunk had on early internet work and culture. I'm curious what sorts of things the current twenty-somethings consumed while working on twitterscapes.
- VLM 13y ago
  I would provide the counterexample of tech coexisting with scifi, that crude hang gliders were well within the technological reach of the ancients... however centuries of daydreaming about mechanical flapping bird wings kept them solidly on the ground. Its entirely possible "something" going FTL will eventually happen. For some peculiar value of "something" and some peculiar value of FTL. However, it will probably resemble stereotypical deus ex machina sci fi reimaginings of classic WWII battleship and aircraft carrier movies about as closely as a modern helicopter resembles a really big hummingbird. Unfortunately, much like flight, preconceived notions will probably hold back R+D in FTL until long past its possible start. Possibly if we'd just focus on "something else" then in 2013 we'd already be 50 years into practical FTL deployment.
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    All FTL is is the wish to travel to other worlds that we think exist in the sky. This inspiration pre-dates not just science fiction, but also science and probably writing.
atondwal 13y ago
I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case here, but a lot of physicists were trekkies before they were physicists. > Physicist has an idea -> Science fiction author writes idea -> Future physicist now has (dumbed down version of) idea.
ISL 13y ago
Counterexample: geosynchronous communication satellites [1]. As a physicist, I find sci-fi inspiring. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_orbit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_orbit
moocowduckquack 13y ago
It would be more ridiculous to think they never got any ideas from science fiction. Or rock music. Or abstract art. Or obscure theatrical productions just off Broadway. Or stand up comedy. Or ancient religious texts. Physicists are not hermetically sealed away from the rest of culture in some kind of non-euclidian math-cave built of complex numbers.
simmons 13y ago
I don't know how much inspiration Star Trek provided in this case, but it's not unheard of for scientists and engineers to find some inspiration in science fiction. I'm reminded of a story about how the science fiction writer Katherine MacLean [1], who predicted the role of computers in communication and music in her 1947 novelette Incommunicado, accidentally stumbled into a conference of electrical engineers and found herself quickly surrounded by Bell Telephone researchers who were inspired by her ideas to build the next generation of communications equipment. As a software engineer, I have to admit to being inspired by near-future software engineering fiction that explores new ideas, many of which are quite achievable. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_MacLean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_MacLean
- fragsworth 13y ago
  I was generalizing too much when I said they don't get any ideas from science fiction. I really just thought the original statement, that he "gets his ideas" for "a warp drive" from Star Trek, was kind of ridiculous. The author of the article actually edited it, so I guess they felt similarly.
- Niten 13y ago
  > As a software engineer, I have to admit to being inspired by near-future software engineering fiction that explores new ideas, many of which are quite achievable. What are some of your favorite examples of this genre?
  - jrarredondo 13y ago
    Minority Report? The Matrix? Office Space?
  - simmons 13y ago
    My favorite examples are from several years ago -- Charles Stross's Halting State and Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End. The technology portrayed probably doesn't seem quite as amazing today in 2013, but I'm always reminded of how technology seems to be converging on those futures whenever I read over the latest APIs from the Khronos Group. More recently, Ramez Naam's _Nexus_ from earlier this year is pretty awesome, although a little more out there than the other two.

zethraeus 13y ago

Why? SciFi is great fodder for the imagination. Sure his technical details are unrelated, but for SciFi to trigger the thinking that lead to them is awesome!

angersock 13y ago
Hell, look what influence cyberpunk had on early internet work and culture. I'm curious what sorts of things the current twenty-somethings consumed while working on twitterscapes.
VLM 13y ago
I would provide the counterexample of tech coexisting with scifi, that crude hang gliders were well within the technological reach of the ancients... however centuries of daydreaming about mechanical flapping bird wings kept them solidly on the ground. Its entirely possible "something" going FTL will eventually happen. For some peculiar value of "something" and some peculiar value of FTL. However, it will probably resemble stereotypical deus ex machina sci fi reimaginings of classic WWII battleship and aircraft carrier movies about as closely as a modern helicopter resembles a really big hummingbird. Unfortunately, much like flight, preconceived notions will probably hold back R+D in FTL until long past its possible start. Possibly if we'd just focus on "something else" then in 2013 we'd already be 50 years into practical FTL deployment.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  All FTL is is the wish to travel to other worlds that we think exist in the sky. This inspiration pre-dates not just science fiction, but also science and probably writing.

atondwal 13y ago

I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case here, but a lot of physicists were trekkies before they were physicists. > Physicist has an idea -> Science fiction author writes idea -> Future physicist now has (dumbed down version of) idea.

ISL 13y ago

Counterexample: geosynchronous communication satellites [1]. As a physicist, I find sci-fi inspiring. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_orbit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_orbit

moocowduckquack 13y ago

It would be more ridiculous to think they never got any ideas from science fiction. Or rock music. Or abstract art. Or obscure theatrical productions just off Broadway. Or stand up comedy. Or ancient religious texts. Physicists are not hermetically sealed away from the rest of culture in some kind of non-euclidian math-cave built of complex numbers.

simmons 13y ago

I don't know how much inspiration Star Trek provided in this case, but it's not unheard of for scientists and engineers to find some inspiration in science fiction. I'm reminded of a story about how the science fiction writer Katherine MacLean [1], who predicted the role of computers in communication and music in her 1947 novelette Incommunicado, accidentally stumbled into a conference of electrical engineers and found herself quickly surrounded by Bell Telephone researchers who were inspired by her ideas to build the next generation of communications equipment. As a software engineer, I have to admit to being inspired by near-future software engineering fiction that explores new ideas, many of which are quite achievable. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_MacLean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_MacLean

fragsworth 13y ago
I was generalizing too much when I said they don't get any ideas from science fiction. I really just thought the original statement, that he "gets his ideas" for "a warp drive" from Star Trek, was kind of ridiculous. The author of the article actually edited it, so I guess they felt similarly.
Niten 13y ago
> As a software engineer, I have to admit to being inspired by near-future software engineering fiction that explores new ideas, many of which are quite achievable. What are some of your favorite examples of this genre?
- jrarredondo 13y ago
  Minority Report? The Matrix? Office Space?
- simmons 13y ago
  My favorite examples are from several years ago -- Charles Stross's Halting State and Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End. The technology portrayed probably doesn't seem quite as amazing today in 2013, but I'm always reminded of how technology seems to be converging on those futures whenever I read over the latest APIs from the Khronos Group. More recently, Ramez Naam's _Nexus_ from earlier this year is pretty awesome, although a little more out there than the other two.