Hollywood, Fiction, Science and Innovation

How many times have you sat watching a film intently when someone sitting next to you says "that couldn't happen?" and then launch in to some scientific rant of hawkingesque proportions about black holes, gravity and theoretical physics. This kind of talk always takes me back to the Deathstar blowing up and the noise that reverberated around the cinema as empirical scum were blown to pieces and I overheard someone say oh you can't hear that sound if you're in space. I then recall the smart ass tagline of Alien in 1979 which seemed to echo these comments where it said in space no one can hear you scream. Now I ain't going to fall into their trap and explain the principals of sound transmission in a vacuum but needless to say John Hurt squealing like a pig at the dinner table lets you know that the theory was pretty much thrown out the window fairly early in the film.

I know, I know, you think I am ranting again. So where are am I going?

Well I am reading an article the other day about TALOS Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit and it got me thinking. The TALOS has been dubbed Iron Man suit which is reported to be an exoskelton covered in some form of liquid armour, al very clever stuff and adding the Hollywood name to it for media purposes gives it a little edge for interest but what other innovations lend them self to the movies for the idea and vice versa?

Lets go back a bit, in 1865 Jules Verne wrote De la terre a la lune (from the earth to the moon) and with this began the early (loose) connection with Hollywood, fiction, science and innovation. Verne had the idea that he could use a cannon to fire a capsule containing three passengers to the moon. Seemed a decent enough idea for a book, and along with the H.G.Wells novel First Men in the Moon in 1901 it inspired the first science fiction movie A trip to the Moon................. ......... however.....with that came the first recorded science pedant, no they never made reference to anything about screaming in space but in 1903 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky shattered the dreams of every Victorian planning to take a break from Brighton for the summer and head to the moon. Tsiolkovsky said such a cannon would have to be of lengthy proportions and subject to thousands of g etc etc etc.......didn't stop him from going on to be one of the founding fathers of space flight. So early inspirations came from written work and movies and more has followed over the years, learning off the job if you like.

Now it's also worth noting that although Iron Man has been around for years in comic form, it was only with the movie releases in the last few years that the link is now being made with advancements in infantry armour from science fiction but of course this like most of what I say can be subject to interpretation.....after all, Colonel Steve Austin was a man barely alive after a test flight went horribly wrong when for the princely sum of $6million dollars was rebuilt faster and stronger to fight crime for a covert off the radar type operational unit.....although for a few dollars more it could have perhaps helped to add some improvements as his bionic limbs were a tad problematic when the temperature dropped.....All the bad guys needed to do to outwit him was take a fridge with them or stick to robbing banks in Alaska during winter.

So what else is there?

Well the Lightsaber is a good place to start. Top notch weapon of choice for Jedi and aspiring Jedi alike but as soon as the amateur starts to have a bit of fun making vemmming and vooshizzing noises with a stick along comes the debunker..... ...."oh how can you stop the beam being longer than a couple of feet?" "why doesn't the handle melt?" "oooh what about the power source?" ........For the love of the force, did mummy trade you to Qui Gonn Jinn? Get over yourselves...oh and for the record, a couple of dudes from Harvard and MIT have made a discovery that sees a certain molecule behave in a similar way to the fictitious lightsaber. Yes fictitious.....but someone is thinking about the physics of it and saying, hey this could happen.

That's how it works, you think about it and you develop it.

Teleportation.....ah yes. You were expecting me to talk about Star Trek and the idea of this happening in the 60's? No chance.....Willy Wonka developed the idea to transport chocolate (large bar of it at that) from one side of the room to the other, total genius, I mean at the moment I have to get up and go to the kitchen cupboard to get one and aside from the side effects suffered by Mike TV it sounds like a great plan but oh no look out...here they come "Oooh suicide machine" " Ooooh scanning and replicating at an alarming rate" Oh yeah......well here's hoping a fly gets into the mix when your popping down the shops in a few years time. Again in theory and in the lab it has been shown it can be done so who are we to debunk it just yet? (although I'm busy if they ask for some UAT)

I could go on, and usually do but be it the tractor beam, invisibility cloak, time travel and the rest there are a number of examples where something from the movies has been written off as impossible and in theory or in some cases in reality people prove it can happen.

Now I know it's just the movies and I ain't completely debunking the debunkers but to be Innovative you have to dream it can happen, think that the impossible is not unreachable and have the will and desire to prove the doubters wrong. If you do that then who knows?

That Learning Dude @learningXDude