The curse of science fiction

especially in developed countries. Although there are authentic Arab roots to science fiction literature, our Arab world has not yet witnessed interest similar to, or even commensurate with, that importance. Many people still mistakenly believe that science fiction is a means of entertainment and amusement, while it is now considered one of the most important educational means
If you want to learn, closely, about the importance and role of science fiction and how it influenced science and contributed to changing the world, all you have to do is go to the British Library in London, which recently opened, for free to the public, an exhibition of science fiction, entitled: “Out of This World: Fantasy.” “Scientific, but not as you know it,” which continues until September 25, and through the exhibition you will explore many of the perceptions and predictions that sparked and stimulated the thought, imagination, hopes, and dreams of science fiction writers, which have today become actual scientific facts, and other ideas and fantasies that... Visions of the near future will constitute, and are still today, the subject of scientific experiments in many international laboratories and research centers, all of which testify to the value and importance of science fiction in anticipating the horizons of the present and the future. You will also see the first editions, drawings, designs, and covers of more than 200 of the pioneering science fiction novels, stories, and books that Thomas More's Utopias and the works of Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, and H. Gee. Wells and George Orwell.
 
The exhibition is considered an amazing history of science fiction literature that dates back two thousand years, and since the early attempts to write it dating back to the Syrian philosopher, orator, and lawyer Lucian, who in the second century AD wrote a book entitled “True History or True Story,” which It embodies the human dream of traveling to outer space, which is considered one of the first narrative attempts to write science fiction. In the exhibition, you will see the cover of the first issue of the American science fiction magazine entitled “Amazing Stories” in April 1926, which was edited by the American science fiction writer, publisher, and inventor Hugo Gernsback.

In a novel entitled “Deadline 1944,” the American science fiction writer Cliff predicted the invention of the atomic bomb. He imagined that it was possible to invent an atomic bomb that would explode with great force and could end World War II. This novel was so precise in its scientific details that it made... The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) suspects that the writer has infiltrated secret information about the manufacture of this bomb. The reason for this doubt and confusion is that the United States was at that time manufacturing the atomic bomb in an atmosphere of complete secrecy, but investigations have proven that The writer did not know the secrets of making the bomb, but that was the result of his ideas and fertile imagination, which helped him anticipate what happened in the real world.

Science fiction has played, and continues to play, an important role in the development of science and the discovery of the laws of nature. The amazing scientific and technological progress that humanity has achieved in the current era was, in many aspects, dreams and fantasies within the minds and consciences of many writers and scientists. They have tried, with their conscious and fertile imagination, to anticipate horizons. The unknown future and its closed worlds, which were, at first glance, contrary to the apparent facts of science. Who would have expected in the early fifties that man would land on the moon and that space travel would become commonplace? Who would have expected when he read the novel “The Time Machine” in 1895, by the famous British science fiction writer H. Gee. Wells, will time travel become a scientific issue that physicists research and find theories and mathematical equations for? Also, many of the scientific and technological discoveries that were made during the second half of the twentieth century were previously predicted in science fiction writings since the late nineteenth century. If we look at many of the inventions of the era and its modern sciences, such as laser beams, artificial intelligence, robots, the atomic bomb, human organ transplantation, and test-tube babies. Genetic engineering, gene therapy, cloning, nanotechnology, communications satellites, the Internet, mobile phones, and others.