Science fiction is what happens when we’re not paying attention

Ant-sized radio/controller.

Popular science fiction often pictures a world that is radically different. Domed cities, flying cars, undersea communities, and colonies on the moon. All that may happen, but don’t hold your breath.

In the meantime, a much more prosaic but enormous revolution has occurred.

Take a look at 30-year-old pictures of your home town. And look again today. You will find many more similarities than differences. The same roads, buildings, schools, and hospitals for the most part. There are differences, no doubt, but the sameness is palpable.

But peel back the covers and take a closer look. Today, the people in those buildings carry personal supercomputers capable of many billions of operations per second. What is possible with that unimaginable power which, just a few decades ago, would have required a room-sized behemoth?

These magical devices are capable of assuming many roles. Camera, video recorder, music player, high-res movie viewer, GPS navigation device (land, sea, and air), detailed weather and radar station, foreign language tutor, voice directed personal assistant, capable game console, and much, much more. That this tiny device can speak to you and understand your spoken commands is alone beyond the fond desires of computer scientists of the last century.

But all this is nothing compared to the most important function: personal communicator. This tiny device which slips into a pocket can be used to talk to any one of billions of other people on earth. Or send and receive emails and text messages instantly. This interconnectedness, which drives social media, overcomes tyrants, and ties far-flung families together, is the most revolutionary change in communication in human history.

Over many millennia, since humans first developed the ability to speak, the speaker and the listener had to be in close proximity in order to communicate. Hunters talked and planned tactics. Leaders spoke to assembled citizens. Romans were entertained in the Coliseum. But all this required physical proximity in real time. If you arrived late, you didn’t hear the message.

The next wave arrived with the invention of writing, which was slow and expensive, but much improved with the invention of the printing press. Once information could be recorded either by writing or printing, the requirement of adjacency was removed. A writer could record her thoughts in London and send them via schooner and coach to Paris, where the words would be read and appreciated. So while proximity was no longer a requirement, the time for transmission was often days or weeks or months.

It wasn’t until the harnessing of electricity that we began to make real progress. Initially the telegraph and then the telephone allowed us to send information across the continent, first in minutes but soon in seconds.The time dimension of communication was being greatly reduced. But there was still a nagging proximity requirement. If you wanted to send a message, you must go to a Western Union telegraph agent, or find a telephone to use. Telephones were, at first, relatively rare. Perhaps there was one at the local druggist. Even when more commonplace in the home, how did you make a call when stuck on the road with a flat tire?

Finally, a huge event. The cellphone, based on wireless radio technology, effected a tectonic shift in personal communication. Suddenly, you could call anyone from anywhere. The barriers of time and space were both overcome. Add supercomputer capabilities and now we really had something. Star Trek stuff for real.

So what’s next?

The Internet of Things. Your thermostat, refrigerator, stove, car keys, toaster, even light bulbs will all come online. Groceries ordered automatically. Nutritional meals cooked while you’re commuting home. The car driving itself, you sleeping or reading on the way. This may seem farfetched, but it is not. Stanford University has invented a tiny wireless radio controller the size of an ant. These (or similar) devices, each costing pennies, will allow millions of objects in our homes and businesses to form intelligent networks. Not just us, but all our stuff will be able to communicate across vast distances in real time. The possibilities are mind boggling.

So while the buildings on Main Street will look much the same, what’s going on inside is purely magical. Science fiction is what happens when we’re not paying attention.

And it’s happening fast.