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40 YEARS OF GIZMOS AND GADGETS
“It’s amazing to see how science fiction style gadgets have so quickly become a reality and part of our everyday lives!” said Sima Adhya, Space Mission Scientist and NOISEmaker for the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC’s) New Outlooks in Science & Engineering initiative. “Who would have thought when Star Trek was devised that in less than 40 years people would be walking around with portable hand set ‘communication devices’ on which they can talk to and see each other.? The real life rate of progress of science and technology has far exceeded the imaginary world of the Star Trek writers and TV producers whose stories were set much further into the future than where we are now. ”
She explains how science is catching up with science fiction at an ever increasing pace: “One of the first devices Star Trek portrayed was a small space vehicle. In the ‘Star Trek’ series, the USS Enterprise used a shuttle craft which could travel from a ship or starbase to a planetary body and vice-versa. Today, NASA uses the space shuttle travelling from earth to the International Space Station.
“Just two weeks ago, one of the Voyager craft reached the edge of our solar system – 100 times the distance Earth is from the sun. Still a small distance to Kirk and crew, but well beyond what was thought possible 40 years ago.”
More…
Star Trek was one of the first TV shows which introduced the futuristic gadget. These gadgets are beloved by ‘Trekkies’, but the Star Trek influence can be seen in much of the technology we use daily.
These include:
- The Transporter: One of Star Trek’s most famous concepts, a device which could beam characters as energy patterns to a specific place. It may have once sounded the work of fiction, but physicists recently carried out teleportation of live particles across the 600m wide river Danube in Austria.
- The Holodeck: Today’s arcade Virtual Reality games, effectively a merging of imagination and technology, now allow us to interact with a computer simulated environment through sensory experiences.
- The Communicator: The most successful device ever featured on Star Trek has to be the Communicator. With its black plastic body and flip-up grid antenna, this small device translates as today’s mobile phone. The design has been so popular that a fully functioning Bluetooth Star Trek Communicator is now available for purchase online. Star Trek gadgets are suddenly retro-chic.
NOISEmaker
 Sima Adhya
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