Science is based on facts while science fiction is based on imagination. Where exactly is the fine line that separates them? What I really find interesting is that sometimes imagination becomes science. Many innovative products, inventions, and ideas began as a thought and turned into reality. The telephone, television, and even the social Internet were born in the imagination, but brought to life through clever innovation.
Writers, especially science fiction, create places, people, and things (vampires, heroes, creatures) that have some basis of truth. There are vampire bats that suck blood. This came to mind because years ago I was writing a story called EARTH
This means Experimental Action to Achieve Terrestrial Harmony. It was about Captain Hendrick, leader of the Star Ship Nabin, who learns of the death of his father at a scientific laboratory station. An explosion nearly wiped out the outpost, except for a file he locates about an experiment his father was working on called EARTH.
After obtaining permission from the Intergalactic Council, he sets out to finish the evaluation of this project in memory of his father.
Landing on the far side of the moon, Hendrick and his crew send out an infrared camera to take pictures of life on Earth so they can duplicate things and blend in unnoticed with the inhabitants.
The story details their findings showing a planet still in primitive social development and without a peaceful environment. Many crew members develop relationships with the Earthlings and there is mixed opinion on whether this experiment is a success or a failure.
At the end of the story and his return home, Captain Hendrick, now in love with a human from Earth, has to persuade the Intergalactic Council not to destroy the planet. He learns that Earth was created as an experiment, combining all the unique creatures from other galaxies to see if they could cohabit peacefully. The Intergalactic Council deems EARTH a failed experiment and Hendrick is ordered to destroy it. The story has a surprise ending.
Although this story is science fiction, today there is a camera that can fly, but is invisible to the eye. It was written in 1990, but some of this science fiction is now science.
It is a fact that other galaxies or even universes are in space, although we cannot see them, we know they are somewhere in outer space.
Although science and science fiction may be worlds apart, the line between them can be small and narrow. Think of the movies Origin, Avatar, and The Matrix, which used advanced technology that may one day become a reality. What if one day some of these concepts turn out to be true? It would rock our world.
Then there are creative science fiction writers like Stephen King, HG Wells, Ray Bradbury, Jules Verne, and George Orwell. They took us to imaginary worlds that prompt our minds to wonder what is possible.
I remember reading George Orwell’s book 1984 and there was a Big TV in every house, looking at the citizens of Oceania. Just think about it, isn’t that what the internet does today?
We all have untapped creativity in our brains. Add a little imagination and you never know what can manifest. Many talented people in the arts, music and film industry deserve credit for crossing these lines with their unique and open imagination.
Even illusionists and magicians test our minds to determine what divides reality. Maybe that is the purpose of our mind, when we dream. Because in this human state they cannot detect the difference between the real and the illusion.
Why not reflect on the brotherhood of science and science fiction and the possibilities that are offered when those lines are crossed?
