Science Fiction: The Road to Science

Science fiction is one of the most popular genres of contemporary literature and movies. Though it’s pretty hard to define science fiction, this particular type of fiction deals with the futuristic illustrations that contain advanced scientific and technological endeavors in a reality which is somewhat/completely changed from our one. Here’s how the Encyclopedia Britannica defines science fiction: “a form of fiction that deals principally with the impact of actual or imagined science upon society or individuals” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014).

Commonly abbreviated as sci-fi or SF, science fictions can include both hard and soft science. ‘Hard science’ depicts the topics explaining core science such as physics, chemistry, biology etc. Soft science illustrates less obvious, somewhat blurred and mostly non-measurable sectors of scientific practice – e.g. social science, political science, anthropology etc. (Stableford, 2006). For instance, world’s best-selling sci-fi classic novel, Dune, is basically a soft science fiction where the author Frank Herbart illustrated the future of humanity, carefully avoiding the technological extravaganza from the storyline.

Science fiction genre, with quite an enriched historical background, specifically popularized in the 18^th century – thanks to the industrial revolution. This era is glorified with the inception of great science fictions, pioneered by legendary writers like H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. However, it’s the 19^th century that presented us with most of the sci-fi classics. With great writers like Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert, George Orwell, Hugo Gernsback (the prestigious Hugo awards for sci-fi and fantasy genre is named after him), Isaac Asimov (known as the grandmaster of science fiction) and numerous others, the world surely experienced the most memorable sci-fi spectacles during this era (Roberts, 2006).

Originally intended to be the futuristic literary pieces, sci-fi books accurately predicted future in numerous instances. Predictions such as traveling to moon, submarine, video conferencing and Scuba Diving (Jules Verne), video surveillance – CCTV (George Orwell), atomic bomb, genetic engineering, lasers and tanks (H.G. Wells), virtual reality, online newspapers and space stations (Arthur C. Clarke), radar and solar energy (Hugo Gernsback), internet (Mark Twain), debit cards (Edward Bellamy), earbuds (Ray Bradbury) have already come true (Easton and Dial, 2010), (Johnson et al., 2011). Pretty impressive, right? It seems that these writers knew exactly what the future would look like!

Well, if we think about movies, the list of predictions that eventually become true is also remarkable. Video calling (2001: A space odyssey), Digital billboards (Blade runner), smart spectacle – Google glass and Smartphones (Star Trek franchise), touchscreen (Minority report), artificial intelligence (Her), Robots (I, Robot, the terminator) and many more depictions such as overpopulation, reality game shows, self-driving car, genetic profiling and nanotechnology are the modern reality now-a-days (Scalzi, 2005).

From the instances above, it’s obvious that science fictions paved the way of future science. Following the famous quote of Albert Einstein – “Imagination is more important than knowledge”, the scientific endeavors of post-industrial revolution era are largely inspired by the imaginations of our ancestors. It’s true that we don’t know the future, but it’s us who shape the future through ideas, experience and knowledge.

Apart from books and movies, modern day science fictions are boosted by another great source – video games. As more and more people (both young and adult) are being involved with video games, the messages from such games are becoming stronger with every passing moment. So, video games can play a vital role in the evolution of next-generation science fictions, with extravagant visuals, striking virtual reality, super realistic game plays and of course, fictional components.

Disclaimer: This article was written for Project EduGaming. It’s republished here as the project website is not accessible these days.

References:

Easton, T. and Dial, J. (2010). Visions of tomorrow. New York: Skyhorse Pub.

Encyclopedia Britannica, (2014). science fiction | literature and performance. [online] Available at: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/528857/science-fiction [Accessed 24 Dec. 2014].

Johnson, B., Doctorow, C., Warner, C. and Perkowitz, S. (2011). Science fiction prototyping. [San Rafael, Calif.]: Morgan & Claypool.

Roberts, A. (2006). The history of science fiction. Basingstoke [England]: Palgrave Macmillan.

Scalzi, J. (2005). The rough guide to sci-fi movies. London: Rough Guides.

Stableford, B. (2006). Science fact and science fiction. New York: Routledge.