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The Submarine
The first operational submarine, called the "Argonaut" was put into service in 1898. It's inventor, Simon Lake, claimed fascination with the creation of this technology after reading Verne's novel. He even received a congratulatory note from the writer after the submarine's first voyage. -
The Rocket
Robert H Goddard was built the first liquid fueled rocket, which launched on March 16, 1926. He claims his passion and inspiration stemmed from his reading of "War of the Worlds" in 1898, a classic novel by H.G, Wells detailing an invasion of Earth by Martians. The novel was one of the earliest stories to center around a conflict between humans and extraterrestrials. The ideas of space flight in the novel "gripped [his] imagination tremendously". -
The Credit Card
In the 1888 novel "Looking Backward", author Edward Bellamy describes a Utopian society that uses cards as money. This is a concept that as been accepted with full force in our society since the invention of the plastic credit card in 1950. -
Antidepressants
In the 1931 novel "Brave New World", written by Aldous Huxely, citizens of dystopian society take a mood-altering drug called soma to make them feel better about their lives. This idea is remarkably similar to the use of antidepressant drugs today, which were not developed until the early 1950's. -
The Mobile Phone
The Motorola Director of Research and Development, Martin Cooper, worked with his team to develop the first commercially available hand-held mobile phones. He made the first call on the phone on April 3, 1973. He acknowledged that his inspiration for the design came from the hand-held communicator seen on the television show "Star Trek". He references this inspiration when he explained, "That was not a fantasy to us, that was an objective." -
The Taser
Jack Cover, the NASA physicist, who invented the taser, took inspiration for his invention from the Tom Swift book series he read as a child. The books chronicled the adventures of an inventor, with one story in particular describing "Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle." The name of his invention, the taser, is even an acronym for the title of the story that inspired it's creation. -
QuickTime
Steve Perlman, a scientist working at Apple, developed the QuickTime media player in 1991. He has explained that his inspiration for this came from watching and episode of the television show "Star Trek: The Next Generation", which shows one of the crew members, listening to various music tracks on his computer. -
Scanadu Scout
The Scanadu Scout is a small hand-held device that, when held to the temple, can read vital signs such as heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, blood oxygenation levels, and respiratory rate in as little as 30 seconds. The inventor of this device, Walter De Brouwer, modeled this device in the medical tricorder utilized to diagnose disease in the show "Star Trek". He further explained, "I’m a baby boomer, so we looked at ‘Star Trek’ as a business plan, not as a movie." -
Self-tying Shoes
The idea of the self-tying shoe was most notably seen in the movie "Back to the Future Part 2" when used by the main character, Marty McFly. The idea has since become a reality as Nike released shoe called HyperAdapt 1.0 equipped with self-tying laces that tighten or loosen according to pressure sensors in the shoe. The shoes were released for a limited time for the 30th anniversary of the movie, but have since been released in select Nike stores.
