Today, science fiction movies are a significant source of a Fiction world that exists in the beautiful brains of almost every teenager on Earth. Science enthusiasts, especially, not only watch but live sci-fi movies. But how reality and future science technology are affected by these directed Sci-fi’s are what we are going to understand here.
You might have heard people saying, “Today’s sci-fi is tomorrow’s real-life science,” But do all grand theories or inventions in the past are influenced by Sci-fi (comics, movies, etc.)? This statement can be valid for the technologies we are witnessing in the 21st century. But there were no Sci-fi movies at the time of Sir Albert Einstein or Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose, but yes, stories do exist (we will learn about those stories in this very article).
Today, Sci-fi is a genre of speculative fiction that typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced Science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, extraterrestrial life, etc.
Here is something we need to understand that every grand theory, possibility, or idea is fiction or just a hypothesis before it is provided with some experimental or mathematical proof. Many beliefs exist in present-day modern Science, from the De-Broglie hypothesis to the modern-day String theory, which are used today but will prove their greater significance in the future.
Talking of technologies, we see many techs which are part of the modern world today were part of fiction stories in the past, from Artificial Intelligence to Hyperloop tech, all were part of fiction stories. But there are some plots of movies that are taken too seriously and followed in real life, which is creating hard situations. Let’s understand it with reference to a Sci-fi movie.
Let’s take the example of Sir Christopher Nolan’s directed “Interstellar” British-American epic science fiction film with its incredible visual effects, it shows you the beauty of the universe (including the concept of Blackhole, Wormhole, Time as a higher dimension, etc.) that are only present in forms of some theories and some mathematical equations (Einstein’s General relativity equations and other) on this planet. The plot of this movie is as simple, crop blights and dust storms are threatening humanity’s survival on this planet, and they are searching for a new home, a new planet for survival. There was a famous line in the movie where cooper (lead character in the movie) says, “Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here.” This line sounds like it shaped our modern-day Science; every space agency today is busy searching for extraterrestrial lives and other favorable planets for the survival of Mankind instead of focusing on the condition of our own planet, a planet where we all were born.
Now let’s talk about the time before 1902 when the first Sci-fi movie was created; what fiction became the inspiration for scientific theories or inventions back then? As I said earlier there were stories existed back then and even now but these stories are not merely fiction but were the application of Science used by our ancestors. Let me share a story I heard from my grandfather in my childhood (we will only see the Science used in this story, not going to discuss the plot).
There was a Wizard named ‘Nagarjuna’ in the story who had this magical stone that can turn any metal into gold. And my grandfather told me this is not merely fiction, but the man existed for real in this world thousands of years back. When I opt for Science in my higher studies and did some research on this wizard story, I was shocked to found the name Acharya Nagarjuna; a wizard of chemical Science. Then after ,some time I read about this new scientific research called nuclear transmutation, which is the conversion of one chemical element or an isotope into another chemical element. Because any element (or isotope of one) is defined by its number of protons (and neutrons) in its atoms, i.e., in the atomic nucleus, nuclear transmutation occurs in any process where the number of protons or neutrons in the nucleus is changed.
Transmutation can be achieved either by nuclear reactions (in which an outside particle reacts with a nucleus) or by radioactive decay, where no outside cause is needed. Also, I read some experiments and research in some western countries to achieve this.
This all made me believe Everything that we call fiction today, and think that it is future Science is actually Science of the universe which existed thousands of years back then, exists now, and will exist when humans explain them by their own made theories and equations.
Today’s fiction is actually inspired by ancient science knowledge and the possibility of the existence of some events in our universe.
