neille cryptography: 10 Crazy Sci-Fi Gadgets That Actually Got Built

Science fiction legend Ray Bradbury died earlier this week at the ripe old age of 91.

Bradbury

Bradbury was one of the ?Big 4? sci-fi writers of the post-War era, an elite group that included Robert Heinlein (?Stranger in a Strange Land?), Isaac Asimov (?I, Robot?) and Arthur C. Clarke (?2001: A Space Odyssey.) Generations of high schoolers cut their literary teeth on Bradbury?s ?The Martian Chronicles? (1950), ?The Illustrated Man? (1951) and ?Fahrenheit 451? (1953). Motion picture adaptations of his work include ?Fahrenheit 451? (1966) directed by the great Francois Truffaut, ?The Illustrated Man? (1969) starring the sometimes great Rod Steiger, and Disney Studios? ?Something Wicked This Way Comes? (1983). NBC aired a highly rated three-part miniseries adaption of ?The Martian Chronicles? starring Rock Hudson in 1980. Between 1985 and 1992 he adapted 65 of his own short stores for the syndicated ?Ray Bradbury Theater? TV series, which he hosted.

L.A.'s famous Bradbury Building (No relation).

Bradbury was a ?soft? science-fiction writer, a poet concerned more with exploring the human condition than the nuts-and-bolts of technology. He rarely bothered to explain how an advanced technology might work ? he likely had no idea ? only its affects on his characters. Even so, Bradbury?s stories contained many fanciful gadgets that, more than a half-century after they were birthed on this manual typewriter, we can now find at our local Best Buy.

Of course, Bradbury is hardly the only sci-fi writer to ?invent? products or systems that later became real. Science fiction writers as a whole have had a pretty good track record when it comes to predicting where technology is headed. In some cases, a wily writer will extrapolate on established tech to make an educated guess on where things are headed (Art Imitating Life). In other cases, engineers and designers will be inspired by what they read in a novel or see on TV to invent what some writer could only previously imagine (Life Imitating Art).

Art Imitating Art

In honor of Ray Bradbury?s passing, here?s a Friday Fun Facts look at 10 sci-fi gadgets someone actually bothered to build:

1. SCUBA. French sci-fi author Jules Verne described divers using antonymous breathing gear in his classic ?20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? (1870). The first Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA) was created 72 years later by Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan. (They were French, too!)

Ooo-la-la!

2. Communications Satellites ? Radio waves travel in a straight line. But the earth is curved, which makes long-distance electronic communication difficult. Repeating towers work to a point, but you can only build a tower so high. And they?re really hard to build on water. In 1945, British sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke, writing in the U.K.?s Wired World magazine, popularized the notion of putting a communications relay in a stationary, geosynchronous orbit 26,000 miles above the earth. This was 13 years before Sputnik was launched and 18 years before a communications satellite was actually put in geosynchronous orbit.

So now the whole world could watch Benny Hill!

3. Flat Screen TVs -Giant flat-screen TVs played a key role in Ray Bradbury?s 1953 classic ?Fahrenheit 451.? The screens were used to placate the masses by televising, among other things, police chases.

Like anyone would be interested in watching THOSE!

4. Flip Phones. The first clam shell-like ?flip phones? appeared in the late 1970s. Their designers freely admitted they were inspired by the flip-up communicators seen in the original ?Star Trek? TV series 10 years earlier.

Beam Me Up, Scotty!

5. Tablet Computers. Apple calls them iPads. In 1968?s ?2001: A Space Odyssey,? Arthur C. Clarke called them ?news pads.?

No difference!

6. Touch Screens. Today, we take for granted computer screens whose touch-sensitive graphic interfaces change with the needs of each application. But when they appeared in ?Star Trek: The Next Generation? (1987-1994), they were still science fiction.

"Defeat the Borg? There's an app for that!"

7. Laser weapons. ?Ray guns? have been part of sci-fi lore ever since H.G. Wells flattened the earth with his Martian heat rays in ?The War of the Worlds? (1898). Although lasers have been used for sighting and ranging for decades, building one with enough firepower to actually blow up something has proved more problematic. It wasn?t until 2009 that a truck-mounted laser successfully shot down a test missile. Airborne and laser field weapons have been tested successfully since. Now it?s only a matter of years before laser weapons are a part of America?s operational arsenal.

For when you're really pissed at Santa's elves.

8. The Internet. It?s Arthur C. Clarke again, discussing personal computers, telecommuting, Google and Fandango?in 1974.

9. Credit Cards and Cable TV. Predicted by Marxist/futurist Edward Bellamy in ?Looking Backwards? (1888).

However, he failed to predict late fees or HBO's "Girls."

10. CDs. Compact discs were developed jointly by Sony and Phillips beginning in the late 1970s. Several Phillips engineers later admitted they were inspired to encrypt data on silvery discs by the silvery ?Verism Tape? discs shown in the ?Star Trek? Season 3 episode ?All Our Yesterdays?, first broadcast in March 1969.