Star Trek Inventions
Joe Katzman says Star-Trek (and sci-fi in general) is responsible for the creative genesis of more cool inventions than it's given credit for.. First there was anti-gravity, then there was warp drive (well, ok, not yet an invention, but getting serious attention). Now there's reports of
transparent aluminum, which lets in 50% of the light striking the surface, yet three-times stronger than an equivalent thickness of steel!
More like
translucent aluminum, if you ask me. But it's eerie how closely this mirrors the script from ST-IV, where a grinning Scotty explains the properties of transparent aluminum to a bemused plant engineer!
Joe left out medical tricorders, possibly the single most ubiquitous device on ST, except perhaps for phasors... As it turns out, we are much closer to having a whole range of
non-invasive diagnostic instrumentation than we think...