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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?"
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)
And I'm pretty sure portals existed before sci-fi.
Warpspeed and hyperspace aren't really used outside of science fiction though. Space elevator and grey goo I'll grant you. A portal is just an opening or a doorway.
Geostationary satellite?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It's probably for the best. If you open the link in Firefox on Ubuntu 8.10 (32- or 64-bit), gnome-panel will segfault, restart, segfault, restart... until you change the tab that firefox is showing.
Bug report, and here
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.
A portal is just an opening or a doorway. A portal as a connection between to two points that are not contiguous in normal space is a concept exclusive to science fiction.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Dear sweet child. (/pats head).
Doc Smith was writing about hyperspace and hyperspatial tubes about 70 years ago.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
According to Webster's portal dates back to 14th century. While there may have been some sort of science fiction back then I don't think it's anything close to what we consider science fiction.
Portal - n. Origin: 1300-1350
1. a door, gate, or entrance, esp. one of imposing appearance, as to a palace.
2. an iron or steel bent for bracing a framed structure, having curved braces between the vertical members and a horizontal member at the top.
3. an entrance to a tunnel or mine.
4. Computers. a Web site that functions as an entry point to the Internet, as by providing useful content and linking to various sites and features on the World Wide Web.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/portal
I strongly disagree. As with any pair of genres there is overlap between the two BUT I would say that Science Fiction and Fantasy are both sibling subsets of Fiction.
"Frag" comes from military usage, ca. the time of the Vietnam War, not from science fiction.
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.
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
"Cybernetics" was invented/discovered by Norbert Wiener (a mathematician) that deals with the study of control systems (One subset of which might be replacing/enhancing/comparing biological contol systems with mechanical/electrical ones). Your "body part prosthetics" idea sounds like Biomechatronics (the integration of mechanical, electronics, and biological parts). As for a crude example: Cybernetics would be something like "We've developed a replacement heart, now how do we get it to change its pumping rate in response to stress like a real one", whereas biomechatronics would be something like "Let's go develop a pump that can replace a heart".
The terms you are looking for are hard and soft science fiction.
Star Wars (and Star Trek) are what we call 'Space Opera,' which is a romanticized outer space story, not necessarily science fiction. Both Science Fiction and Fantasy are part of a greater term called 'Speculative Fiction,' which is what that section should be called...
Karma is for whores
Warpspeed and hyperspace aren't really used outside of science fiction though. Space elevator and grey goo I'll grant you. A portal is just an opening or a doorway.
That's just not true. Google has 974,000 hits on "warpspeed" including:
http://www.warpspeedperformance.com/ - Exhaust and chassis upgrades
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/02/hiv-evolving-at.html - Article about evolution of HIV
http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2009/04/02/ - Apparently Opera allows you to browse the web quickly. (Admittedly that's rather science-fictiony.)
And many others.
Granted, not used currently in *science* but it's certainly used outside science fiction!
Since when is German based on Latin?
The wii is the revolution, comrade!
E.E. Doc Smith...
Lensman series and Skylark Series...
Important stuff excluding the sexist and technological lackings that made it acceptable for societal absorbtion at that time.
They were saying "gigawatt" correctly, it comes from "gigantic", and it was only in the '80s and '90s that a lot of people saw the "giga" prefix in print, probably in relation to computers, without having ever heard it, unlike people who dealt with radio frequencies in the billions of Hertz (cycles per second) or power in the billions of Watts had done, and proceeded to mispronounce it and spread that mispronounciation to others.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Run Magazine printed an article about LucasArts' Habitat (which was commercialized as Club Caribe on QuantumLink - think Second Life for the Commodore 64) that referred to your user-created graphical persona as an avatar. In 1986. Reference: http://thefarmers.org/Habitat/2004/09/the_avatar_is_legal_voting_age.html