10 artilugios de ciencia ficción que desearíamos que existieran

La ciencia ficción puede ser un género poderoso. En libros como "1984", "Brave New World" y "Fahrenheit 451", podemos considerar los peligros que enfrentamos si ponemos demasiado poder en manos del gobierno. Estos libros también enfatizan la importancia de la individualidad y el pensamiento crítico. Si bien el escenario puede ser futurista e incluso fantástico, los temas son relevantes para la forma en que vivimos nuestras vidas. No descarte un cuento solo porque tiene robots y cohetes; puede haber más cosas debajo de la superficie de la historia.

Pero aparte de los profundos comentarios sociales, la ciencia ficción nos ha dado otros regalos: inventos sorprendentes que nos encantaría poseer. Algunos artilugios de ciencia ficción se hicieron realidad. "Star Trek" introdujo el concepto de un traductor universal , un dispositivo capaz de hacer posible la comunicación a través de las barreras del idioma. Hoy en día, puede usar un teléfono inteligente y Google Translate para tener una conversación con otra persona, incluso si no comparte un idioma común. Hay miles de ejemplos de artilugios e inventos del mundo real que alguna vez fueron solo cosas de sueños.

Pero no todos los artilugios y chismes de ciencia ficción están disponibles en la tienda minorista local. Vamos a echar un vistazo a 10 dispositivos introducidos en la ciencia ficción que nos morimos por tener en nuestras manos.

1. el hoverboard
2. El neuralizador
3. el sable de luz
4. El pulgar electrónico
5. Sr. Fusión
6. armadura de hombre de hierro
7. Máquinas del tiempo
8. El transportador
9. el replicador
10. El destornillador sónico

"Back to the Future 2" tenía mucho que cumplir. La primera película fue un gran éxito. Introdujo el capacitor de flujo, un componente que veremos un poco más adelante. También creó un mercado para los coches DeLorean , un vehículo que para 1985 iba camino del olvido. Y si bien podría argumentar que la segunda película carece del encanto y el ritmo que estaba presente en la película original, capturó nuestra imaginación con el hoverboard .

En pocas palabras, un hoverboard es una patineta sin ruedas. Desafía la gravedad, lo que permite al ciclista volar por encima del suelo. Para encender un hoverboard, simplemente te inclinas como si estuvieras en una patineta normal. Y como aprendemos en la película, los hoverboards no funcionan en el agua a menos que tenga energía.

¿Cómo trabajan? ¡Nos gana! La película en realidad nunca intenta explicar qué es lo que hace funcionar a los hoverboards. Sabemos que nos encantaría tener uno y recorrer la oficina. Poco después de que la película llegara a los cines, circuló el mito de que los hoverboards de la película eran productos reales, incluso tenían el logotipo de Mattel. Pero el mito decía que los grupos de consumidores y los padres preocupados presionaron a Mattel para que retirara las aerotablas de la producción por temor a que las tablas causaran innumerables lesiones. En verdad, nunca hubo hoverboards que funcionaran; todos esos efectos procedían de la magia del cine. Pero todavía mantenemos la esperanza de que algún día podamos deslizarnos junto con la música de Huey Lewis a todo volumen de fondo.

Para aquellos de nosotros que sufrimos de la fiebre aftosa, ningún dispositivo sería más práctico que el neuralizador . Un dispositivo importante en el arsenal de los Hombres de Negro , este dispositivo te permite eliminar los recuerdos de aquellos que miran fijamente la luz roja parpadeante. Con el clic de un botón y unas pocas palabras tranquilizadoras, puede borrar un recuerdo y reemplazarlo con otra cosa.

Para los personajes de "Men in Black", este dispositivo permitió a los agentes humanos encontrarse, negociar o combatir a los extraterrestres sin alertar a toda la Tierra de que no estamos solos. Pero en la oficina de .com, probablemente usaríamos esto de otras maneras. ¿Necesita un poco más de tiempo en ese plazo? Simplemente llame al director del sitio y dígale que la tarea vence la próxima semana. ¿Derramar accidentalmente café sobre el gerente general? Un zap rápido y la sugerencia de que uno de los chicos de Stuff You Should Know lo hizo y ya está listo.

Zapping personas para alterar los recuerdos podría no ser la opción más responsable. Tal vez sea bueno que el neuralizador realmente no exista. Pero si ve a un escritor de .com caminando con gafas de sol, es posible que desee desviar la mirada, por si acaso.

Putting aside the legitimate argument that the "Star Wars" series is really more of a fantasy than science fiction, we come to the lightsaber. It's an elegant weapon from a more civilized age. The final part of a Jedi knight's training is the construction of his or her own personal lightsaber . The films taught us that these magical swords could cut through nearly anything and were capable of deflecting blaster fire. Plus they make that really cool voom-whoosh sound.

If you explore the expanded universe -- that includes the various novels, video games , comic books and other media that relate to Star Wars but aren't part of the official story -- you'll learn that a lightsaber consists of a handle, a power source and some crystals. The crystals give the lightsaber its color as well as other attributes. Those who use the light side of the force tend to rely on crystals they find in natural settings like caves and caverns. Dark side force users tend to use synthetic crystals, which always seem to give a lightsaber an ominous red glow.

While we don't foresee the need to put a lightsaber to any sort of combat use here at .com, we admit it would be really handy for yard work. With a couple of quick swipes, you could cut down trees, bushes and any plastic pink flamingoes that are between you and the perfectly manicured lawn.

Legend has it that Douglas Adams thought up the idea for "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" while lying in a field, recovering from drinking a bit too much during a trip through Europe. It wasn't uncommon for students and other travelers to hitch a lift now and then as they crisscrossed the continent, visiting new cities and phoning home for more money. What if, thought Adams, the same thing happened on a universal scale? He constructed a tale of a befuddled human named Arthur Dent and an alien in disguise with the vehicular moniker of Ford Prefect and the rest is history.

But how do you hitch a ride with an alien? You use an Electronic Thumb. Adams explains that there is a communications channel called the sub-ether network. The electronic thumb taps into this network and signals nearby spaceships to hitch a lift. Adams wrote multiple versions of his story and no two are exactly alike. It's not entirely clear that the thumb requires the spaceship's driver to give permission before the hitchhikers zap aboard using a matter transference beam.

It's true that for the electronic thumb to really be useful we'd need to have some aliens flying around first. But even if there aren't any bug-eyed monsters in the nearby galaxies, it would still make a lovely paperweight.

We're going back to "Back to the Future" for this one. The trilogy introduced lots of cool gadgets: time machines, flying skateboards and self-tying shoes are just a few examples. But Mr. Fusion could revolutionize everything.

It's a throwaway visual gag at the end of the first Back to the Future film -- Doc hurriedly sorts through Marty's garbage can, pulling out banana peels and beer . He feeds it into the Mr. Fusion port on the back of the time machine. The big joke is that this relatively tiny device can generate the awesome power -- 1.21 gigawatts' worth -- that the flux capacitor needs in order to make time travel possible. Throughout the entire film we've watched Marty and Doc try to harness lightning to get Marty back to 1985 and by 2015 the same power can be generated by an off-the-shelf appliance.

But imagine how different our world would be if Mr. Fusion were real. We could generate all our power needs just by feeding in some garbage. A couple of nuclear reactions later and we'd have plenty of juice to run our homes and vehicles. It solves recycling problems and energy conservation all in one fell swoop! Sure, there are lingering concerns about using a nuclear reactor in such a casual way, but without risk there's no reward, right?

Many comic book superheroes possess amazing powers. A few, like Batman or Iron Man, are relatively normal human beings who rely on their training and gadgets to get the upper hand on villains. Iron Man's suit is the Swiss Army Knife of the super gadget world. It can fly, it's impervious to most forms of damage and it features repulsor beams that can blast holes in masonry.

Throughout the history of the Iron Man appearances in comics, television shows and films there have been many versions of the armor. Some are large and bulky, resembling a tank more than anything else. Others are sleek -- one suit even had the ability to fold up into a suitcase. How Stark managed to carry around a suit like that without his back giving out remains something of a mystery.

With an Iron Man suit, casual Friday at the .com office would take on a new meaning. And it sure would be handy to step out onto our balcony and fly off to grab lunch -- there'd be no need to wait on those pesky elevators!

While the neuralizer from "Men in Black" would be handy for making folks forget the last few moments, what happens when you make a major mistake? That's when you hop into your handy-dandy time machine and risk introducing a paradox that could rip apart the very fabric of time and space in order to prevent yourself from an embarrassing situation. Sure, you might encounter a younger version of yourself or somehow set into motion a series of events that will prevent your own birth, but that's half the fun!

Time machines come in all shapes, sizes and styles. You could have a living creature that inhabits a multi-dimensional construct like the TARDIS in "Doctor Who." You might plop down on a comfy chair and manipulate dozens of levers and dials like the time machine in H.G. Wells's famous story. Or maybe you want to give that flux capacitor a real workout and zoom into time at 88 miles per hour (141.6 kilometers per hour) with the famous DeLorean from the "Back to the Future" films. No matter what your sense of personal style, there's a time machine out there for you.

Obey Time: It's the Law

Is time travel possible? It's still a matter of debate. If the universe behaves the way Einstein predicted, time travel may be impossible. But scientists in 2011 were surprised when they discovered neutrinos -- sub-atomic particles -- appeared to travel faster than the speed of light. While that may have been an error in measurement, if the neutrinos really did exceed the universal speed limit, time travel might just be a reality on a sub-atomic scale.

Do you live in one of the worst cities for commuters? If you do, you know the frustration of having to sit in traffic that's at a standstill for what feels like hours on end. In the worst of these cities, you might spend more than 70 hours every year in traffic delays. But what if you could skip the commute entirely? That's why we want to install a "Star Trek " transporter in the .com office. We just have to invent it first.

The transporter was the device that could dematerialize you, shoot you across vast distances and reassemble you at your destination. You didn't even need two of them -- a single transporter could plop you down from a starship to a planet below and scoop you back up again once your mission was over -- or when enough guys in red shirts had shuffled off the mortal coil. A popular term for the act of being transported is "beaming."

In "Star Trek" lore, the transporter originally only moved non biological cargo. Disassembling atoms of a non-living target and putting them back together on a ship isn't as scary as the thought of having all your own atoms ripped apart and squished back together. Some famous doctors in the "Star Trek" universe took great pains to avoid having to use the transporters, preferring shuttles to dematerialization. Still, it beats an hour-long commute through gridlocked traffic!

"Star Trek" also contributed this gadget: the replicator. As you might guess from its name, the replicator can create stuff as long as it knows what that stuff is made of on a molecular level. If you have the molecular recipe for lasagna, the replicator can whip up a nice batch for you on the spot.

Could we ever build an actual working replicator? Scholars like K. Eric Drexler think it might be a possibility with nanotechnology. We may one day be able to construct machines that measure only a few billionths of a meter across -- so small you can't even see them with a light microscope. These molecular machines could, in theory, assemble material one molecule at a time. With billions of these assemblers, you could create practically anything as long as you had the raw materials at hand. But before you throw away your microwave and toss out your oven, you should know that there are other scientists like Richard E. Smalley who think that there are fundamental barriers that make devices like molecular assemblers a virtual impossibility.

For the time being, we here at .com have to make our hot Earl Grey tea the old-fashioned way. But we're still hoping nanotechnology brings the replicator to reality!

There may be no gadget as versatile and useful as the Doctor's sonic screwdriver from "Doctor Who." It can open (or engage) locks ranging from rusty old padlocks to digital keypads. It can reprogram computers and repair old wiring. In a pinch, you can use it as a weapon and knock people unconscious with it or pair it with a power source to zap Daleks or Cybermen. What can't it do?

Well, it can't open anything that has a deadlock seal on it. What's that? It's a plot device designed to make it harder for the Doctor to escape a situation. In other words, a sonic screwdriver works in any situation except when it's not convenient to the plot. We'd love to have this kind of device. Most of the time, it will work perfectly. When it doesn't work, you know you're in a really important situation.

While the Doctor has had decades to become adept at wielding the sonic screwdriver, his human traveling companions have also put it to use in a pinch. That gives us hope that this incredibly flexible tool would still work in the hands of a novice. We eagerly await the full-scale production of the device -- no toolkit should be without one.

Did we leave out your favorite sci-fi gadget? Let us know what your pick would be!

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