Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Science Fiction Turned Into Fact

There's a link in the title to an article that I thought was really interesting. It's basically just a list of a few different gadgets from the world of science fiction that are becoming a reality. The list includes a portable machine created by researchers at Yale that will indicate signs of sickness from a blood test in just twenty minutes, which resembles the "Medical Tricorder" from Star Trek. To be honest, I've never actually watched Star Trek, but this seems pretty cool. Also, there are 3D holograms (from many examples in Sci Fi, perhaps most famously when R2-D2 projected one of Princess Leia in Star Wars), which a group of researchers at Arizona State are currently working on. According to the article, it might not be long before we have our class sessions with a 3D hologram of Andy in the room with us. My favorite, though, being the Harry Potter fan that I am, is the cloaking device, which the article compares to Harry's invisibility cloak (naturally). It has something to do with material that bends light in a way that makes it look as if the object weren't there at all... I don't really get it. But it sounds awesome.

2 comments:

John Harris said...

I also think that, since this article was published, there have been some more advances in tractor beam technology. Using multiple and lasers, they have stepped it up and can move things above the microscopic level. All of these shouldn't be too far on the horizon. It is kind of crazy to think about where technology will be 20 years from now...

Bailey Carpenter said...

This is awesome! I don't care if it all isn't exactly like in the media, it just blows my mind how far we've come with technology in my mere 20 year lifetime so far.