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Nine Words From Science Which Originated In Science Fiction
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Apr 06, 2009 04:37 PM
from the science-emulates-science-fiction dept.
from the science-emulates-science-fiction dept.
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?"
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Submission: Nine words from Science which originated in SciFi by Anonymous Coward
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other potential things (Score:5, Funny)
Re:other potential things (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Informative)
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 [reference.com]
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Insightful)
Science Fiction is just a subset of Fantasy.
Is it? I remember Arthur C Clarke saying that Sci Fi is something that could happen, while fantasy is something that could never happen.
It always baffled me how the two genres (at least in my mind they're quite different) were always lumped together in bookstores. I was always a sci fi fan but wasn't much into the dungeons, dragons, wizards and trolls thing.
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember Arthur C Clarke saying that Sci Fi is something that could happen, while fantasy is something that could never happen.
Only if you use the word "could" to means "sometime in the future, but not with what we currently know." By that reasoning, fantasy could happen as well, assuming that we find some source of power that would grant people abilities indistinguishable from magic. Is that any crazier than assuming that at some point we'll be able to travel faster than the speed of light?
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Interesting)
>>>Only if you use the word "could" to means "sometime in the future, but not with what we currently know."
That's not quite accurate. If you read true *science* fiction (as opposed to future fantasy), most of the things described CAN be built. For example Robert Heinlein's "The Roads Must Roll" describes an automated people mover (like an escalator), but scaled-up to the size of interstates with ~100 mph speeds. Theoretically possible. And then there's Isaac Asimov's "Blow Up" about massive nuclear plants that use fusion to generate heat/electricity - that too is a real world technology that's theoretically possible.
>>>fantasy could happen as well, assuming that we find some source of power that would grant people abilities indistinguishable from magic.
There's a huge difference. Harry Potter (and other wizards) do magic without using any technology. So I would describe Science Fiction as relating to technology "sometime in the future, which we have the theoretical knowledge to create, but haven't yet learned how to build the machine to enable it". Like fusion reactors. And I would describe stuff like Star Trek or Stargate as Future fantasy where the wands are replaced with rayguns, and the magic with technomagic, and lacking true science.
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Interesting)
Science fiction and fantasy are both thought experiments of the form: if the rules (or the state of things) were different in this way, what would happen.
Some Science Fiction writers like to suggest or imply that the state of the world or the rules might possibly change in the way that they describe, and therefore serve as an explicit warning/encouragement pointing out the good or bad that could come of such a change.
Fantasy tends to use metaphor and parallel to make this same sort of point.
If there are no real rules, and anything can happen, this is called "deus ex machina", and it's pretty lame.
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Funny)
"deus ex machina" is latin for "machine from god"
God from machine! What the Hell do schools teach these days? Originally, in Greek theater, a crane used to lower an actor from the sky to take the role of a God and ruin the ending of a play. Now used to describe how a Michael Crichton books ends.
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Interesting)
If you read true *science* fiction (as opposed to future fantasy)
All true Scotsmen wear kilts.
There are certainly differences between sf and fantasy, but I think you're trying to draw a line in the sand that doesn't exist, or if it does it's probably fractal and not at all straight or easy to delimit. As a faster poster wrote, both are subsets of speculative fiction, and IMO they have much more common ground than difference. Someone else wrote of the hard/soft SF distinction which seems a closer match to the concept you've presented. Even so, there's enough mingling between SF and fantasy that makes it hard to pin down the genre of many stories and a lot of it depends on what you, individually, think is possible or plausible. I don't believe that "mind uploads" or strong AI are plausible, so going by your categories I would call them future fantasy even though they are staples of SF. In everyday conversation I would also call them SF because that is their flavor. Where would a lunar base fall? A lunar society? A medieval society that unearths advanced technology?
Harry Potter (and other wizards) do magic without using any technology.
If you can't BS a tech history for Harry Potter, then you're not trying hard enough.
Just for fun (mine, mostly):
Harry Potter and his ilk lost the knowledge of the nanomachines that they carry, and by the fourth centuray AD had developed the ritual incantations and wizardly trappings upon which they have come to rely in order to use them. These self-replicating machines (and they are machines, though they were bio-engineered and so have yet to be rediscovered) were created long ago in an event more monumental than the Singularity because reality itself became malleable to the extent that the user understood how--not all the nasty math and quantum psych/physics, but how to pass one's intent on to the machines. Like any complex system, it took some effort for most people to get even small results and a lot more to master, and the unforeseen consequences of a closed beta becoming open (through sexual promiscuity, naturally) resulted in the demise of the advanced global civilization that had created it. Survivors eked out a living how and where they could and, for the most part, passed on the information in story form to their offspring, as well as the nanomchines. The stories changed over the years and many wrote them off as mythical; even more forgot them entirely. You can still find some dedicated users; some wizards but many more mystics, who have guarded themselves against the colossal forces at their command by constructing elaborate belief systems that govern their usage. There is a reason for the strict rules at monastic orders and Hogwarts.
The truth is that we all have this power. I fear the day when the men of science begin to convince us that it is so.
There's Harry Potter explained, with Jesus and all miracle-workers thrown in for free. I might as well have called 'em Midichlorians and gotten Jedi in the mix. It's not a very good or original backstory, and it's certainly not hard SF, in fact it has a fantasy flavor (not surprising given the task), but the technological elements are there.
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Funny)
I remember Arthur C Clarke saying that Sci Fi is something that could happen, while fantasy is something that could never happen.
[ducks!]
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Funny)
I remember Arthur C Clarke saying that Sci Fi is something that could happen, while fantasy is something that could never happen.
Pfft, what does he know? Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Interesting)
Science Fantasy said the sky was purple.
Science Fiction said the sky was purple, but gave a scientifically plausible reason as to why.
I know it's simplistic, but it's been my litmus test thus far. My dad originally attributed the distinction to a John W Campbell quote, but I have never been able to find it published anywhere.
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter how advanced a civilization is, their space fighter's engines won't make noise in vacuum nor will move like an atmospheric plane.
You know, very few sci-fi TV shows get this right. Firefly did. Stargate SG-1 occasionally tried (they didn't have that many space battles, but although I remember a few times when they tried to get it right, they often didn't). Babylon 5 made a deliberate choice to have sounds for dramatic effect, but they were VERY good at paying attention to physics otherwise.
On the other hand, it *can't* be sci-fi. All we know sci-fi is about the future, while Star Wars is about a long time ago, in a far far distant galaxy (grin).
That would rule out Stargate as well, since that's set in the present.
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Insightful)
Star Wars had a lot of fantasy elements like magic, knights, trolls, princesses, etc, and had a lot less scientific jargon than something like Star Trek. I would still consider Star Wars a blend of sci fi and fantasy, but definitely more in the future fantasy camp.
Star Wars also had lightsabers, blasters, giant robot walker things, space ships that can jump to hyperspace, a planet in a binary system where moisture farming is a legitimate occupation, an army of clones let by an evil villain kept alive by the technology in his suit, and let's not forget all the droids. Oh, and it didn't really have trolls in the fantasy sense, it had aliens. But the Force is definitely a fantasy thing, not a sci-fi thing (midichlorians be damned); I'll grant you that.
The great thing about Star Wars was that all the technological stuff wasn't pristine and shiny, it was old and beat-up. The droids each have a function and serve a purpose (although C3PO never seemed especially useful). Futuristic technology was used as common tools, rather than something impressive to be marveled at. This, combined with a non-futuristic musical score, shifted the focus away from the technology and to the story, which is what great science fiction is about anyway.
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Re:other potential things (Score:4, Insightful)
Star Wars (and Star Trek) are what we call 'Space Opera,' which is a romanticized outer space story, not necessarily science fiction.
Space opera is usually considered a subgenre of science fiction. I've met and talked to a _lot_ of science fiction fans, but never one who doesn't consider space opera part of the genre.
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Text from Google cache (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:Text from Google cache (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting that "Belgium" wasn't in the list.
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Re:Text from Google cache (Score:5, Informative)
The corpse of Karel Capek seen sulking nearby.
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Re:Text from Google cache (Score:5, Informative)
The corpse of Karel Capek seen sulking nearby.
Karel Capek's variation of the Czech "robota" was not mechanical in nature, so I'm not sure if it would apply for this list as a scientific term.
Asimov's Robotics however, was about the science and technology of electrical-mechanical devices.
It's nit-picking, for sure, but in reference to this particular list, Asimov's usage is the correct one.
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But what about Karel Chapek? (Score:5, Informative)
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" [wikipedia.org]. Robota means drudgery in Czech.
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Re:But what about Karel Chapek? (Score:5, Interesting)
In Russian, yes; not in Czech - same root, different meaning - in Czech the standard verb for "to work" is "pracovat," or more generically, "delat" (the e should have a hacheck over it - Slashdot's support of anything but ASCII sucks), which is the same as in Russian.
Actually, Russian and Czech are a fun pair of languages, in terms of false cognates. "Stool", meaning "chair" in Russian is "table" in Czech, and "krasny" is "red" in Russian, but "beautiful" in Czech (same root, and the origin of "krasivy" in Russian) - if you've ever seen the movie Kolya, there's a pun about the latter pair cognate as little boy is saying "Nash krasny" ("our [flag is] red") and the main character wonders what's so beautiful about it.
Also, sorry about my choices for Russian transliteration - I don't write Russian very often, and particularly not in roman characters, so I don't know how the kids do it these days.
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Informative)
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Was I the only one? (Score:5, Funny)
I gotta say it... I was pretty shocked to see "Thagomizer [wikipedia.org]" excluded from the article!
It's a term for the tail spikes of a Stegosaurus, which comes from this Far Side cartoon [wikimedia.org].
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Informative)
Doc Smith was writing about hyperspace and hyperspatial tubes about 70 years ago.
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Re:other potential things (Score:5, Funny)
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The currency of the future is ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The currency of the future is ... (Score:5, Interesting)
He also said that money was a sign of poverty (The State of the Art).
Nope, it's a sign of TERRORISM! [boingboing.net]
Man detained, threatened and abused by TSA for flying with $4700 in cash
Here's a recording of Steve Bierfeldt, a US citizen who tried to board a domestic airplane while carrying $4700 in cash, and was detained by the TSA and subjected to abusive language and threats [...] The TSA agents threatened to turn him over to the DEA. He was returning from a Ron Paul event in St Louis, MO, and worked for the campaign. The cash on his person arose from sales of t-shirts and stickers at the event.
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Re:The currency of the future is ... (Score:5, Funny)
Iain M Banks
Speaking of which, let's not forget the term Meatfucker.
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Re:The currency of the future is ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, if you haven't heard of it, Cory Doctorow's Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom [craphound.com] goes into much more detail about a possible post-scarcity society, where the currency is kind of like
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Not a word, but a phrase (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot effect
As exemplified by that poor website everyone is now clicking on.
Re:Not a word, but a phrase (Score:4, Informative)
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 [launchpad.net], and here [launchpad.net]
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Futurists (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Forgot to mention (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Forgot to mention (Score:5, Funny)
They said "science", not "online wankery".
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Re:Forgot to mention (Score:4, Insightful)
So why are 'worm' and 'virus' (in the context of computing) on the list?
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Re:Forgot to mention (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Forgot to mention (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Forgot to mention (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, in True Names it was never called cyberspace, if I recall. Though it was the first fully thought out description of it, I think they called it Other Plane or something like that if my memory serves me correctly.
But Neuromancer wasn't the first book to use the term cyberspace anyway... That was the short story Burning Chrome, written by William Gibson in 1982, which takes place in the same universe as the Sprawl Trilogy (Neuromancer and it's sequels) as well as the short story Johnny Mnemonic.
So really it's:
Cyberspace. William Gibson, Burning Chrome 1982
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How about Waldo? (Score:5, Informative)
It's an engineering term for a remote controlled robotic arm, derived from a Heinlein story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldo_(device)
Re:How about Waldo? (Score:5, Funny)
It's an engineering term for a remote controlled robotic arm, derived from a Heinlein story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldo_(device) [wikipedia.org]
Yes, but what good is such a thing if you can never find it? It will never catch on.
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What about Arthur C. Clarke (Score:5, Informative)
Well the way things are going (Score:4, Funny)
I predict Frack, Frell and Frag are coming soon...
Re:Well the way things are going (Score:4, Informative)
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Quark - James Joyce, Finnegan's Wake (Score:5, Informative)
Quark is partially based on James Joyce's work, Finnegan's Wake, though it seems to be a retro-explanation by Gell Mann.
Quark (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Grok? (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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Re:Grok? (Score:4, Funny)
My wife says "grok", and she normally only kisses one girl at a time. :-P
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Re:Great Scott! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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