Jules Verne Would Be Proud

Lots of people believe that the science fiction genre was born in the  20th century. In fact, the writings of Jules Verne, in the nineteenth century were the real beginnings, with stories such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and From the Earth to the Moon. I remember reading these stories as a child of nine or ten and being amazed at the amount of foreknowledge that Verne seemed to have. I think that anyone who reads these stories today would feel the same.

It started science fiction as we now know it.

But it also started other things it seems. In a story on slashdot, we find that no less than the U.S.Navy was directed to begin a targeted search for extraterrestrial life long before anyone knew the letters, S.E.T.I.

“It seems that a SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) experiment happened decades before the Project Ozma occurred in 1960. The historians at the blog Letters of Note have uncovered a telegram sent in 1924 by then Chief of Naval Operations Edward W. Eberle instructing the United States Navy to listen for radio transmissions from the planet Mars.”

The funny thing about these findings is that, as with many things, once the possibility is found to exist, we tend to find evidence of other work toward certain goals.

Many people remember the things discovered, and also asked, by the early Greeks and Romans, and then lost later, in the dark ages. In the last 200 years, there have been no dark ages, but things discovered and demonstrated by some people (I’m thinking of Nikola Tesla right now, but there are others) have apparently been lost, only to have us rediscover them.

It would not be surprising to find efforts to locate life on Mars or its evidence, beyond the casual observations by astronomers, which once made us wonder if there were really canals with water flowing on that planet.

§

⌘

⌘
Quote of the day:

I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience.

- Mitch Hedberg