It is ridiculous to think that physicists get any ideas from science fiction. It happens the other way around. All he did was use it in a presentation. I'm nerd raging like hell here.
As a physicist, I find sci-fi inspiring.
I'm reminded of a story about how the science fiction writer Katherine MacLean [1], who predicted the role of computers in communication and music in her 1947 novelette Incommunicado, accidentally stumbled into a conference of electrical engineers and found herself quickly surrounded by Bell Telephone researchers who were inspired by her ideas to build the next generation of communications equipment.
As a software engineer, I have to admit to being inspired by near-future software engineering fiction that explores new ideas, many of which are quite achievable.
I really just thought the original statement, that he "gets his ideas" for "a warp drive" from Star Trek, was kind of ridiculous. The author of the article actually edited it, so I guess they felt similarly.
What are some of your favorite examples of this genre?
> Physicist has an idea -> Science fiction author writes idea -> Future physicist now has (dumbed down version of) idea.
I'm curious what sorts of things the current twenty-somethings consumed while working on twitterscapes.
Its entirely possible "something" going FTL will eventually happen. For some peculiar value of "something" and some peculiar value of FTL. However, it will probably resemble stereotypical deus ex machina sci fi reimaginings of classic WWII battleship and aircraft carrier movies about as closely as a modern helicopter resembles a really big hummingbird.
Unfortunately, much like flight, preconceived notions will probably hold back R+D in FTL until long past its possible start. Possibly if we'd just focus on "something else" then in 2013 we'd already be 50 years into practical FTL deployment.