From: rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold)
Subject: Re: Telecom and Science Fiction
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1992 03:07:06 GMT

rune@pandora.nta.no (Rune Henning Johansen FBA) writes:

> We're collecting information about the role of science fiction within
> telecom.  We're investigating how authors and film makers describe
> telecom networks, both technologically and sociologically -- and how
> their views may have influenced the use and development of tele-
> communications.

The most obvious example is Arthur C. Clarke, the inventor of the
telecommunications satellite.  A week after Hiroshima, he wrote an
article proposing a network of such satellites at 22000 miles altitude
above the equator.  22000 miles so they'd remain fixed over the same
spot on the Earth.  This piece was published in {Wireless World},
October, 1945.

He said that he didn't think that celestial mechanics would ever be
turned into anything commercially feasible (yet another example of
underestimating the speed of technology), so he didn't even attempt to
patent it.  However, he did keep plugging the idea in his books and
short stories.