Things Star Trek got right, things it got wrong, & things yet to be.

[seamonkey]

Staying in the Star Trek mode, what if we meet and form relationships with intelligent species on other worlds (who have some kind of language)? That would get interesting.

[traLika]

I used to love Star Trek and Lost In Space when I was a kid!

Star Trek was spot on about our society being more multicultural.

On the technical side:

Cloaking devices – man has already developed adaptive camouflage systems that can make objects blend in with their surroundings. Active camouflage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Mediated-reality-easel.jpg" class="image">

Transparent aluminium – this has now been made. http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stori.../090727_2.html

Universal translators – Google Translate is a step in the right direction! http://translate.google.com/#

It's just a shame that interstellar travel looks impossible from where we're standing at the moment...

[traLika]

Staying in the Star Trek mode, what if we meet and form relationships with intelligent species on other worlds (who have some kind of language)? That would get interesting.

Yes, but could be risky. As the great scientist Stephen Hawking recently pointed out: "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans".

[serial138]

Actually Blade Runner probably got that right in a way. The streetspeak is a mix of languages. If you watch Hindi movies you regularly pick up English words spread through common conversation. In all likelyhood english will remnain the language of commerce worldwide so it will become the Human language but Hindi and other Asian dialects from places like China will start to slip in as India and China become economic powerhouses over the next 100 years. English is full of German, French and Spanish words now and in all likelyhood will have more slang plus Asiatic terms spiced through it over the next few hundred.

I think Firefly was going in the right direction as well, with English and Chinese being mixed fluently together in conversations. Granted, Firefly had to cater to an English speaking crowd and resorted to swearing in Chinese, but the idea is the same.

[Richctdude]

computer disks!!

[seamonkey]

computer disks!!

Yes! Those "tape disks" in the original series presaged these, more like the old Zip disks, which have already come and gone!

[msbhaven]

The cloaking tech I knew about but not the transparent aluminum. THAT is bad ass!!! Comments on the evolution of language remind of that South Park Gooback episode. LOL

Ashlee

[NRT]

one thing start trek got wrong. How come they never had seat belts? They clearly needed it in the future all the rocking and throwing about that happened the ship was hit.

We have not had any vulcuns or aliens working with us. Teleporting. and it is probably unlikely humans could survive on another planet without space suits

[liam]

Holodeck Porn.... when masturbate actually could be better than the real thing?

[Caff_Racer]

Here's something to consider: what will English (or any language) actually sound like in 400 years? If you think about what it was like 400 years ago (16th and 17th centuries, Shakespeare's time), you can sort of extrapolate into the future. I'm guessing it would be mostly understandable to us today, though it would take a lot of concentration, and there would be many slang and vernacular additions, corruptions, and other changes made in the centuries in between.

I'm not in agreement on that point. I think that in 400 years time, English will sound as alien to us as Anglo-Saxon does today, although Anglo-Saxon is the direct ancestor of what we know today as English.

Anglo-Saxon: éala éarendel engla beorthast, ofer middangeard monnum sended*

Modern English: Hail Eärendel brightest of angels, over Middle-earth to men sent.

As you can see, familiar, albeit totally alien to most people today, I'm sure.

(From the Old English poem "Crist" by Cynewulf)

*Much to my regret I don't have a keyboard that can reproduce the language-specific letters of the Anglo-Saxon alphabet.