7 Ways Star Trek changed the world

[Trekfan12]

I thought this was an interesting article

http://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/7-ways-star-trek-changed-world.html/?a=viewall

 

[TwoJakes]

If Star Trek never happened, I'm pretty sure we'd still have cell/smartphones.

 

[at Quark's]

I agree with that. Mobile phones were simply too convenient or obvious an invention to pass up once technically feasible.

In fact I think most of the items on the list would have happened with or without trek. It was already projected by (some) experts that computers would become available to ordinary households (6) and social change (7) was also already happening (though trek might have helped to speed things up a bit). The benefits of non-invasive medical technologies would be too great to forego and would have been thought of sooner or later. Our propulsion technology is barely adequate, even for interplanetary (manned) exploration and so Nasa is bound to do some research into that. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster , ion propulsion was played with long before Trek aired (and it's little more than a simple name drop in Spock's Brain anyway). Anything more advanced such as warp is little more than a dream today, even though there are some fringe theories and experiments.

But I do agree with the number 1 on that list. I'm certain that Trek has inspired a lot of people to do something in science, and that we've reaped benefits from that.

 

[1001001]

I've gotten reports from posters with concerns about the safety of the link. I'm going to close this for now until we can figure things out. Thanks for your patience.

 

[1001001]

Okay I checked this out and my system says the site is safe. I am reopening this and putting the link back. Just know some have had warnings from the site. I did not.