Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggleton
I think you have it slightly backwards, new technologies are first dreamt of, then written about, then put into practice, then their use is further explored in more texts...
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Not always.
Quite a few technologies and developments have come about that nobody would've dreamt of before the fact.
Before the PC, computers were always big hulking things and personal computing was terminals accessing the central boxes. The internet and the web as an aggregate of widely scattered resources never showed up before ARPANET and rarely before the Internet.
Rocketships? Not before Goddard and the other early pioneers.
(Verne sent folks to the moon with a cannon. We may yet get to space that way, but it turned out rockets were easier.)
Generally you need a spark to imagination before fiction can start exploring.
Sometimes fiction gets there first, technology-wise, but more often than not fiction is working off an existing concept, even if it is just a thought experiment.