Many recent developments in technology have come about after scientists and engineers were inspired to research ideas first proposed as science-fiction.  The very idea of space travel was conceived in the science fiction of the late 19th and early 20th centuries by writer such as Jules Verne and HG Wells. Both cloning and bionic (man-made) organ and limb replacements were originally concepts explored by science fiction authors in the 1940’s and 50’s as were L.A.S.E.R. weapons and jet packs on space suits. Robots and desktop computers also became mainstays of science fiction from this time and were exploited extensively in early Dr Who stories. Today’s mobile phone is the direct descendant of a Star Trek communicator and there have been serious feasibility studies into warp travel and matter transfer.

A recently published science book by a noted theoretical physicist has engaged with the possibility of the existence of white holes. These objects are the exact opposite of a black hole and are predicted by the same equations used in Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity to predict black holes. Einstein himself was unhappy about these predictions and came up with a universal constant in order to avoid having to deal with them but later theoretical physicists began to unpick the problems inherent in Einstein’s equations. One argument against the existence of white holes is that no-one has ever seen one or seen any effect that might be caused by such an object. The author explains his theory that white holes exist within the quantum sized singularity at the heart of a black hole and only after the mass sucked in by the black hole extends to its event horizon. Furthermore, because of quantum nature the white hole particles and patches of space become clouds of probability so that anything might happen. The author suggests that a potential white hole is allowed to “bounce” back through time and spew its contents out there. So a little different to the idea of a “Stargate”. The book has been criticised by other physicists because it has been written for the layman and not as a scientific treatise packed with mathematical explanations and formulae. What the book has done is open up yet another conversation aiming to turn science fiction into science fact.