[–] 2 points 4 months ago

Here's a video of gunpowder burning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcT0c_ZzKUM

You can see it's not very dangerous in this form. This would have been the first experience with something that could potentially make an explosive device. Compressing the gunpowder inside a container and then lighting it is what makes the explosion. That was learned through trial and error. No doubt people killed themselves messing around with gunpowder, and that is why there are plenty of written rules about it now.

All of this was learned long before TNT was purposefully invented.

  • source
  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago* (5 children)

    TNT wasn't the first explosive, in fact it's basically just nitroglycerin absorbed into a medium. People ready knew how to handle explosives when Alfred Nobel invented TNT.

  • source
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    Sure, when they're adults, the science fiction writers get ideas and knowledge from the scientists. But when they're kids, before they become a scientist, those future scientists (and future science fiction writers) are often exploring their love for science through the medium of science fiction! And those visions of possible futures that those kids encounter shapes the perspective they carry with them in to adulthood

  • source
  • parent
  • context
  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 child)

    EDIT: Retraction. I've believed this to be true since the '90s, but it is apparently wrong.

    Michael Crichton came up with idea of looking for dinosaur DNA inside biting insects in amber. Scientists tried it and it worked! They didn't get even close to enough DNA to clone a dinosaur. The molecules were super degraded. But there was something there!

  • source
  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Verne didn't invent it, not even close. It was first conceived in the 1500s and the first working submarine was built in the 1600s. There were diving bells, diving suits, submarines and everything else.

  • source
  • parent
  • context
  • [–] 26 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    Science fiction is full of examples like that, because it's authors extrapolating what future science might look like. Sometimes they make accurate predictions, and sometimes, their predictions are the reason the technology is developed in the first place!

    Communications satellites, mobile phones, robots, video chat, the internet...

    All of them appeared in science fiction long before they actually existed!

    As for how many of them exist because of the science fiction? Who knows... I don't think it's even possible to know, because so many scientists become scientists after growing up on science fiction, and at that point, the lines are pretty blurry :)

  • source
  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago

    Arthur C. Clarke was writing about geostationary orbits in the 1940s. The first satellite was put in one until the 1960s. But I don't think he conceived it, more popularized it.

  • source
  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago

    This is straight wrong. There is little to no real evidence pointing to men being the primary hunters. In essentially all found sites, women showed the same level of hunting participation as men.

    So, in conclusion, your premise is wrong, makin your question useless.

  • source
  • view more: ‹ prev next ›