By Jason Ellis, STC 06
One of the most profound lessons I learned at Georgia Tech is how science fiction influences nearly everything we do. When Irving Flint “Bud” Foote introduced the first sci-fi course at Tech in 1971, he did so in part because he recognized it as more than mere entertainment. He saw science fiction as a way of guiding future engineers to find innovative technological solutions and discover new scientific knowledge by relying on their humanity to distinguish themselves and their work.
At that time, sci-fi was relegated to a cultural ghetto. However, Professor Foote and his students knew that it was far too important—especially in regard to the work that we do at Georgia Tech—to ignore. They knew that science fiction’s power derived from its ability to inspire wonder, excite the imagination, and illustrate possibilities through stories built around extrapolated science, technology and future history. Listening to his students and the accounts of scientists and engineers, he knew that sci-fi launched many of their technical pursuits. Observing the world around him, he also knew it had influenced the imaginations of those responsible for modern inventions, including the submarine (Jules Verne), debit cards (Edward Bellamy), nuclear energy (H.G. Wells), robotics (Isaac Asimov) and interplanetary travel (Arthur C. Clarke). In effect, science fiction was a prime catalyst for scientific and technical innovation, because it inspired many to create reality from fiction. If it could do all of this and potentially more, it could enrich the experiences of future Tech engineers and scientists in significant ways.
Sci-fi bridges the invisible gap between science and technology, and the individual and society. The thought experiment at the heart of all science fiction simultaneously asks readers to imagine as yet unknown science or undeveloped technology, and conceptualize how those new sciences and technologies will affect human beings and their social relationships. Sci-fi challenges its readers to rethink the boundaries between disciplines of knowledge and the boundaries between scientific and social domains. Its power to bring together these seemingly separate domains into an entertaining narrative for an audience’s enjoyment and contemplation fulfills an increasingly important aspect of any scientist or engineer’s work—the effect of their work on their fellow human beings.
Put another way, science fiction is always—explicitly or implicitly—a commentary on the here-and-now, because it extrapolates an imagined future (or alternate present) from what is currently known. In doing so, sci-fi safely reflects the world’s social triumphs and failures through a veiled narrative. Thus, sci-fi is as much about the people and their social relationships as it is science and technology. Thus, sci-fi encourages its audience to understand their relationship to others, build connections with people unlike themselves and respect the diversity of human experience. Works that exemplify this include James Cameron’s Na’vi-human hybrids in Avatar, William Gibson’s unevenly distributed future in Neuromancer, Ursula K. Le Guin’s diversely peopled worlds in the Hainish Cycle, and Gene Roddenberry’s boundary-breaking, multiethnic cast in Star Trek.
It is encouraging to me that Georgia Tech has long recognized the importance of science fiction and continues a strong sci-fi teaching and research program. Science fiction helps develop future engineers’ imaginations, prepares them for recognizing our world’s complexity and expands their respect for others in an increasingly globalized world.
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