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Nine Words From Science Which Originated In Science Fiction
An anonymous reader writes "Oxford University Press has a blog post listing nine words used in science and technology which were actually dreamed up by fiction writers. Included on the list are terms like robotics, genetic engineering, deep space, and zero-g. What other terms are sure to follow in the future?"
Grey goo, space elevator, portal, warpspeed, hyperspace. Scyance. Oh sorry, that last one's not from science fiction, it's from that channel (what's it called?) that shows wrestling.
Qxe4
... Kudos (Iain M Banks, The Algebraist). He also said that money was a sign of poverty (The State of the Art). And yes, this was WAY before the current economic crisis.
Let's just hope klingon isn't added to a future revision of this list.
Contra Terrene (or CT/seetee) is such a great word, and is technically more correct than "antimatter" (since positrons and such aren't the "opposite" of matter, but rather another state of it). For some reason I just love that one. Also "Tellurian" as a word for people from the planet Earth (Tellus). Earthling is weaksauce.
Slashdot effect
As exemplified by that poor website everyone is now clicking on.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Sure, SF writers named things that had no name, but that were theorized (by themselves or others).
Some of those names stuck.
But what about all the names that sucked and never stuck? In other words, throw a million darts and surely some will hit the bullseye.
I'm coming up empty right now, but there have to be some obvious ones... like pretty much any scifi term that begins with "med-" or "medi-".
And, of course, as we all know from xkcd, the quality of the fantasy [sci-fi?] novel is inversely proportional to the number of made-up words.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Oh yes...maaaarrrrdoc
Cyberspace. William Gibson, Neuromancer
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
It's an engineering term for a remote controlled robotic arm, derived from a Heinlein story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldo_(device)
"My God, it's full of stars!"
Geostationary satellite?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I predict Frack, Frell and Frag are coming soon...
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
They aren't really really, but scientists have been discussing the reality of them for a while.
We were pretty excited around here when Brave New Words won the Hugo Award. Now that Brave New Words is available in paperback we asked Jeff Prucher, freelance lexicographer and editor for the Oxford English Dictionaryâ(TM)s science fiction project, to revisit the blog. Below are Prucherâ(TM)s picks of words that may seem to come from science, but really originate in science fiction.
In no particular order:
1. Robotics. This is probably the most well-known of these, since Isaac Asimov is famous for (among many other things) his three laws of robotics. Even so, I include it because it is one of the only actual sciences to have been first named in a science fiction story (âLiar!â, 1951). Asimov also named the related occupation (roboticist) and the adjective robotic.
2. Genetic engineering. The other science that received its name from a science fiction story, in this case Jack Williamsonâ(TM)s novel Dragonâ(TM)s Island, which was coincidentally published in the same year as âoeLiar!â The occupation of genetic engineer took a few more years to be named, this time by Poul Anderson.
3. Zero-gravity/zero-g. A defining feature of life in outer space (sans artificial gravity, of course). The first known use of âoezero-gravityâ is from Jack Binder (better known for his work as an artist) in 1938, and actually refers to the gravityless state of the center of the Earthâ(TM)s core. Arthur C. Clarke gave us âoezero-gâ in his 1952 novel Islands in the Sky.
4. Deep space. One of the other defining features of outer space is its essential emptiness. In science fiction, this phrase most commonly refers to a region of empty space between stars or that is remote from the home world. E. E. âoeDocâ Smith seems to have coined this phrase in 1934. The more common use in the sciences refers to the region of space outside of the Earthâ(TM)s atmosphere.
5. Ion drive. An ion drive is a type of spaceship engine that creates propulsion by emitting charged particles in the direction opposite of the one you want to travel. The earliest citation in Brave New Words is again from Jack Williamson (âThe Equilizerâ, 1947). A number of spacecraft have used this technology, beginning in the 1970s.
6. Pressure suit. A suit that maintains a stable pressure around its occupant; useful in both space exploration and high-altitude flights. This is another one from the fertile mind of E. E. Smith. Curiously, his pressure suits were furred, an innovation not, alas, replicated by NASA.
7. Virus. Computer virus, that is. Dave Gerrold (of âoeThe Trouble With Tribblesâ fame) was apparently the first to make the verbal analogy between biological viruses and self-replicating computer programs, in his 1972 story âoeWhen Harlie Was One.â
8. Worm. Another type of self-replicating computer program. So named by John Brunner in his 1975 novel Shockwave Rider.
9. Gas giant. A large planet, like Jupiter or Neptune, that is composed largely of gaseous material. The first known use of this term is from a story (âSolar Plexusâ) by James Blish; the odd thing about it is that it was first used in a reprint of the story, eleven years after the story was first published. Whether this is because Blish conceived of the term in the intervening years or read it somewhere else, or whether it was in the original manuscript and got edited out is impossible to say at this point.
That one seems to have entered the popular lexicon.
I'll create an amusing sig when I have something meaningful to post.
"Doc, Doc... what the hell is a jiggawatt?!"
I don't know about you, but I tend toward this word whenever the possibility arises.
Whole article for just 9 words?
"Shai-Hulud."
I have foreseen it.
Geeks like science fiction? STOP THE PRESSES!!!
What about waldo, coined by Robert A. Heinlein? That seems like a good candidate for this list.
/. should start keeping track of times to server-meltdown for these linked stories.
Improving /.'s uptime would be good, but I guess knocking down other sights until the bar is lowered to our level works too
It seems unlikely to me that the first time anyone put the words zero and gravity together in a sentence was in a work of fiction. Even if that were true, I doubt that was the inspiration for the term as it has come to be used, since it is an obvious/accurate description of a physical condition. Not a lot of sourcing to show that any of these were the first usages...
I guess a couple of these probably always existed, just took a long time before the need was there. Asimov didn't realise he invented the term Robotics until he was credited with in in a dictionary. He just assumed that was the correct term.
It makes me wonder whether we'd still have these terms if these particular writers hadn't used them.
Scyance.
That's Scyence you insensitive clod! :)
Unless of course you mean communicating with the dead. In that case mea culpa.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Oops, I think we just killed the website. Wash your feet before you come into the house.
Sounds very much like an article from Cracked.com.
http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?w=e16423fa,86a464f5&d=75760312196694
It may be invented so far in the future that everyone has forgotten the term, but I think it is a great name for a VR room.
I'm hoping for ARNist from Dan Simmons (RNA Artist, play fast-and-loose with genetic manipulation). In fact, Dan Simmons has a bunch of nice new words.
Quark is partially based on James Joyce's work, Finnegan's Wake, though it seems to be a retro-explanation by Gell Mann.
What's interesting is that they don't note the origin of the word "robot," itself, which is most likely the Karel Chapek play "R.U.R". Robota means drudgery in Czech.
Not from science fiction, from "Finnegans Wake" which is certainly not your usual brand of fiction.
Three quarks for Muster Mark!
Sure he hasn't got much of a bark
And sure any he has it's all beside the mark.
I gotta say it... I was pretty shocked to see "Thagomizer" excluded from the article!
It's a term for the tail spikes of a Stegosaurus, which comes from this Far Side cartoon.
My bicyles
From Matrix!..errr..
They're going to rename the high-school subject to 'Syence', in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience.
I hear the English department is considering renaming one of their courses to "Fyction", too.
Mother-Frakker.
I'm rather surprised that the term taser isn't on the list. After all, it stands for Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
What other terms are sure to follow in the future?"
Spleefcushion.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Sorry! [ducks]
Flash Crowd - which a web site being slashdotted is a form of.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Larry Niven's Rishathra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishathra
The term "avatar" as a representation of a person in virtual space was coined in Snow Crash.
How about some Fracking Battlestar Galactica slang?
Its slashdotted! Is slashdot considered Science Fiction?
Said the man accompanied by others with a similar interest in building a device that would escalate payload into space, but mis-titled the proposal as "space elevator." I however welcome my Space Escalator to this reality, even rendering my Jacob's Ladder obsolete.
[/goose]
"Ethernet" - Douglas Adams - Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy
Capek 9
What'd agent Smith get his doctoral now?
"warp drive" is now being used in some speculative General Relatvity research papers about, well, warp drive.
In fact the term is so well known from Star Trek that there really isn't any other good word to describe it, and it is scientifically description.
Of course Gene Roddenberry knew what GR had to say about such things from the get go.
Example: the thagomizer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer
Robota is a Czech version of the Russian Rabota.
Rabota means "work" or "labor" in Russian, but the root of the word is "Rab" or slave.
http://www.jessesword.com/sf/.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
...
One word I would like to see get more use is "Sophont", coined by Poul Anderson (actually by his wife, I believe, but his name is on the books) to mean any life intelligent enough to share what we currently call "human rights" but will have to stretch when we meet intelligent ETs.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Amazing Stories Feb. 1964
Planet of the Apes 1968
Is it? I'm pretty sure that ideas like opening the a portal to hell existed _long_ before science fiction, and nobody would imagine Hell to be contiguous with some house's inner walls.
As early as Ancient Egypt they had stuff like a fake stone door in the mortuary chamber, as a portal to the netherworld, through which the souls of the deceased could go back and forth between real world and netherworld. And they didn't conceive the netherworld as a different direction, but as a place deep below in normal place. (E.g., Ra sailed his solar barge through the netherworld each night to complete the circle.) Obviously it can't be contiguous with a room in the middle of the pyramid, and the egyptians knew more geometry than that. But their stone portal supposedly did just that: connected that room to the netherworld.
So, no, SF didn't invent that. It's a concept that's literally thousands of years old.
And generally a lot of the things that SF fans claim as their own, is just some old concept dressed in a pseudo-science explanation. Whereas it previously used to be just magic or divine intervention. But at some point giving it a science-sounding explanation became a viable genre, and SF is just that.
E.g.,
- teleportation? Summoning is a concept that's as old as belief in magic and demons.
- robots? Karel Capek's robots were more like what today we'd call clones, a race of mass-produced human serfs, than the nuts and bolts kind we think of today. But if we look at the concept of a robot, it can be traced back to the concept of a golem... and now that's a concept that's really old.
- genetic engineering? Now that's just tacking the "genes" explanation on another notion that's as old as humanity itself. E.g., when the Bible explains the creation of blacks, that's just what God does: turns one race into another. And there are other myths all over the globe where a race or species is deliberately modified by someone or something with the power to do so. Tacking "genetics" onto it just gives it a different explanation, doesn't make it a new idea.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.... When I was in university I had to write a paper for English lit. My chosen subject was : "Does Science Fiction Predict Future Technology, Or Do Readers get their Ideas For Technology From Science Fiction". Discuss
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Yes, but the list was about who invented the _term_, not who came up with an implementation concept.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horrendous_Space_Kablooie#Social_criticisms
General Motors got a NSF grant as part of the stimulus package, and the 1G SMs are being used now to cut apart "Bugs" Bin Laden's Tora Bora hideaway.
Gently reply
According to Wikipedia, "teleportation" was coined by Charles Fort so whether that's "science fiction" is a matter of opinion, but the term was certainly popularised by science fiction long before it was applied to a real physical phenomena (which is, admittedly, more boring than the SF version).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
The ansible has yet to be invented, but when it is, we'll know what to call it. There are probably scores of comparable examples.
I would be surprised if GR didn't know what GR has to say about such things, because, after all, he was GR himself. :-)
(Yes, I understand that GR in your post actually meant General Relativity, but I just couldn't resist.)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
assuming that we find some source of power that would grant people abilities indistinguishable from magic
Marge:"It's great! We can do *anything* now that Science has invented Magic."
Last night I played a blank tape at full volume. The mime next door went nuts.
I'm from the maritimes you insensitive clod!
Grok is a made up word by Robert A. Heinlein that roughly translates from Martian to "Understand".
Does anyone remember Asimov's hyper-jump?
I remember coming across this while flicking through Nature to find physics stories, it seems scientists initially decided to call it "POK erythroid myeloid ontogenic factor" gene, in homage to the game. The wiki page also mentions a "Sonic the hedgehog" protein and "Pikachurin", a retinal protein.
xterm -n 8