Science Fiction Math Became Real

 Up until I read an article in the Atlantic, I didn't realize how much Science Fiction contributed to the space program.  Yes, you read that right.

Imagine, you are watching a movie released back in 1929.  You see someone board a rocket ship and fly to the moon.  Their trip follows a figure eight trajectory to the moon. You shake your head because you know it could never happen.

If you were to compare the flight of Apollo 11 to the one from that movie, it would be the same.  The trajectory was calculated by Hermann Oberth one of the first scientific advisors to films and known as the father of rocketry.  In addition, he designed a rocket ship for the movie that was so realistic, the Gestapo confiscated all his drawings in the 1930's.

Although he was paid to create a real rocket ship, he was unable to do so at that time but a year or two later, he ended up working with Wernher Von Braun to create the well known V-2 rockets.  Eventually they came to the United States to help with their space program.

This is not the only case of real life imitating Science Fiction.  Scientists have used Hollywood to foster support for possible or developing technologies such as driverless cars or targeted advertising, in addition to testing new theories that could end up as real world such as Kip Thorne who worked as a scientific advisor for the film Interstellar.  

He struggled figuring out the mathematical way black holes and worm holes worked for the film and managed to get them to use CGI to create visualizations of his theories.  This lead to his writing several papers on the topic.  Another scientific advisor involved with the Stargate series came up with a binary system to explain the radio active event needed for the story line.  A few years later, such a system was found.

Sometimes, scientists have a theory they get Hollywood interested in using as a way of promoting it.  For instance, the man who consulted for Jurassic Park, integrated his theory that dinosaurs were warm-blooded into the story. At the time, the theory was controversial but now its accepted.

The one thing all of these people had in common was their ability to use mathematics to explain events prior to them actually happening.  All of these scientific advisors had strong enough mathematics or knew a mathematician who could verify the calculations.

So often we see the results of mathematics but not the mathematics themselves.  I'll be talking about that another day.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.