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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.
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
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
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.
"Doc, Doc... what the hell is a jiggawatt?!"
I don't know about you, but I tend toward this word whenever the possibility arises.
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.
My wife says "grok", and she normally only kisses one girl at a time. :-P
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
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.
"Earthican" is better. /futurama
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
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
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.
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
Flash Crowd - which a web site being slashdotted is a form of.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
The term "avatar" as a representation of a person in virtual space was coined in Snow Crash.
"Ethernet" - Douglas Adams - Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy
"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.
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.
Grok is an old maritime word. It means watered down rum, and was served the Royal British Navy to keep sailors from mutineering and to give them some essential vitamins. Sailors could demand a minimum of two cups of grok every day.