|
|
 |
In My Mind's Eye How Science-Fiction Helped Me Choose My Future Career |
He saw sci-fi as his dream world,
but also as an ideological stimulus
|
|
By
DON CHILDERS
Special for TheColumnists.com
IN THE EARLY 1950s, when I wasn't chasing girls or playing basketball, or working on cars, I read a lot--including Mickey Spillane (for blood, guts and sex), Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and H. G. Wells (for science fiction).
I
also listened to the old radio serials--I Love A Mystery,
The Shadow and The Green Hornet--and went to the
movies (usually with a girl friend) where I enjoyed the old Saturday
serials, such as Buck Rogers.
But I loved school, especially mathematics, which was taught
by Alpheus P. Green, a man of Greek extraction and, thus, of
the old school, which implies strict discipline and hard work.
My classmates and I were influenced by his views of how the future
world would need scientists, engineers and mathematicians. So
I became a sci-fi addict, not so much for the stories or the
plots, but for the dreams the stories created in my mind's eye.
|
|
 |
The stories didn't have to be classics. They only had to provide an imaginary landscape and a setting in time with a problem to be solved. I supplied the rest, imagining that I was the scientist or engineer who traveled through space or invented a new machine or solved a problem.
So, science fiction became both a recreational dream world as well as a stimulus to study the basic science and mathematics that would allow me to become an engineering problem solver. As a self-motivator, I sought a college education, while my mother wanted me to join the Army.
While attending college at the University of Southern California, almost every weekend my wife and I would attend a 50-cent movie. One of our first science fiction movies was the 1954 Disney film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I was studying engineering, so I could identify with Capt. Nemo, who was an engineer and inventor.
Another stimulating entertainment was the 1956 movie Forbidden Planet. Who were the inventors of the machines that could bring dream creatures to life? How were these machines created?
Does anyone recall The Incredible Shrinking Man? This 1957 B movie had the weak scientific premise that an atomic cloud changed the molecular structure of the hero, causing him to start shrinking. The problems he faces as he becomes smaller and smaller are the heart of the show's special effects, which were good for the time. The real imaginative stimulus came at the end, where the hero has survived attacks from cats and spiders, but is still continuing to shrink. Will he fall amongst the molecules? the atoms? What will his body structure become? What will he see?
That also was the year the Soviet Union launched the first orbitting satellite, Sputnik. This event really stimulated this country's interest in engineering and the race for the moon, and, of course, more science fiction.
In 1958. I was graduated from USC with an electrical engineering degree and found employment in the aerospace industry in Southern California, working on defense projects. I continued my graduate studies at night, finally finishing my PH.D. in electrical engineering in 1964. I now switched careers from aerospace to academia, becoming a professor.
By now television was in nearly every home and science fiction was an influence on the tube via Star Trek. I taught courses in information theory, coding and similar subjects and often would use characters from sci-fi movies and TV series to enliven my homework and examination questions. While I found this amusing, homework is still homework. I believe my students frequently did not enjoy decoding a message from Spock to Capt. Kirk as much as I thought they should.
Then in 1966 came the film Fantastic Voyage, in which members of a medical team are reduced to microscopic size and injected into an ailing scientist's bloodstream, so they can try and save his life. This was a story for an aspiring engineer. Here was a setting where engineering could be used to save lives, to provide a means to improve health giving.
 |
|
 |
I've been trying to distinguish between entertaining science fiction and career motivational science fiction. I consider the British Doctor Who science fiction series from 1963-1989 to be very entertaining and humorous. And, of course, Lewis Carroll's stories about Alice and other characters are considered classics. I collect first editions of Carroll's works and think of them as a branch of science fiction. But neither Doctor Who nor the Alice Stories provide career motivation for a future scientist or engineer. They are entertaining trips to other worlds, but fail to excite the problem solving ambitions of budding engineers.
As the years have transpired, such fantastic science fiction books, movies, and TV series have had their influence in ways that were usually small for most people, but often much more so for engineers. That's because they continue to provide both a dream world for us to escape to and the inspiration for some of our future inventions.
This impetus for imaginative engineering is what I think has been a major contribution of science fiction to our world.
© 2001 by Donald G.
Childers. The main illustration is from IMSI's Master/Clips Collection,
1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA 94901-5506.
 Don Childers is
a retired professor of electrical engineering from the University
of Florida, who hasn't lost his life-long affection for science
fiction. He's proud of his sci-fi video collection, which includes
a full run of 'Star Trek,' 'Doctor Who' and the British series
'Tripod.' He now lives in Texas with his wife, Barbara, one of
the girls he used to drag to sci-fi movies while growing up in
Santa Cruz, Calif. |
You can contact Don Childers with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
| Home | About Us | Archives | Talkback | Shopping Mall |