Via Making Light’s Particles comes this astonishing list: A Timeline of Science Fiction Inventions (I’d have called it Imaginations), from weightlessness in 1638 (Francis Godwin) to Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (in 2000 — Larry Niven, and under development even now).

It’s damned amazing. Heinlein thought of a cellphone in 1953 in Assignment in Eternity.

“How come,” he asked as he came abreast, “they had to search for you?”

“Left my pocketphone in my other suit,” Coburn returned briefly. “Did it on purpose – I wanted a little peace and quiet. No luck.”