Star Trek Tech That Exists Today

Esther Schindler writes "When Star Trek hit the air waves, talking computers were just a pipe dream. While teleportation remains elusive, several once-fictional technologies are changing the way people live and work. Here are some ways in which we're approaching the gizmos that Star Trek demonstrated. Speech recognition? Check. Holodeck? Sort of. Replicator? Workin' on it."

It goes both ways.

[aurashift]

This article made me think of all the technology that came before Star Trek. I'm not an old timer, but you had sliding doors and turbolifts (A.K.A. elevators) back before the sixties didn't you?

Pipe Dream

[Beardydog]

If by "pipe dream" you mean computers were synthesizing speech five years before Star Trek came out, then sure.

Re:nothing like a holodeck

[TFAFalcon]

What we're missing is force fields. I think that's how holodecks are supposed to work - holograms bordered by force fields.

Re:Teleportation remains elusive

[iBod]

Once we are able to?

We would need to record the quantum state (spin, polarization, momentum, position) of every particle of matter in the thing being 'teleported' and then reproduce that state at the other end.

As we all know from Quantum Mechanics 101, it is impossible to to measure the state of a particle without affecting it (the Uncertainty principle).

Teleportation experiments to date have involved the reproduction of state between a particle pair (quantum entanglement). This is an impressive feat but the amount of information need to convey the particle states of say, a bacterium, and encode and transmit it to some notional receiver would take more time than the universe has existed for.

Outside of computing, not much.

[Animats]

Outside of computing, not much Star Trek technology works. Antigravity? We have no clue. Fusion or better power sources? Still struggling. Transporter? No clue.

In the 1960s, the previous 50 years had led to enormous gains at the high-power end of engineering. Aviation had gone from the Wright Brothers to the Saturn V. Power generation had gone from local steam plants to mammoth dams and nuclear reactors. Ships had gone from coal to nuclear power. The 1964 World's Fair had a General Electric nuclear fusion exhibit with actual brief bursts of fusion. It was generally expected that such progress would continue in the next 50 years.

It didn't.