From fiction to reality: Engineers in film

What do movies like James Bond, Iron Man, or Back to the Future have in common? In them, as in many other science fiction films, an electronics developer plays a crucial role. Don't believe it? Then just think about how long James Bond would have survived without his weapons, and where Marty McFly could have traveled with the DeLorean! Not to mention Iron Man, who is nothing more than a brilliant electronics developer himself.

And these are by far not the only films that probably would never have made it to the screen without electronics developers. Even if they are not always the heroes of the plot, they often play an even more important role and are always brilliant, sometimes even cool, and above all always ahead of their time.

A journey through the fictional world of electronics developers

Therefore, I want to introduce you to my personal electronics developer heroes in the near future. For this, I would like to take you on a journey through film history from Duckburg to Springfield, into the past and back to the future, where we will visit geniuses, nerds, and superheroes. I want to bring you closer to the innovative inventions and developments of these heroes. And, to stay true to my physicist soul, I will also address the tiresome topic of 'reality,' although this often does not lag as far behind fiction as I initially thought.

Here you will find all my heroes at a glance, but I have also dedicated a separate post to each hero, which will follow gradually.

Gyro Gearloose (Walt Disney) - "Nothing is too difficult for an engineer"

Our first stop is Duckburg, where an inventor lives whom I have known since my childhood: Gyro Gearloose, the engineer for whom nothing is too difficult, was my first contact with electronics development. He is the creator of ingenious inventions like an intelligence cannon and a phone that can also iron. Someone should have suggested that to Steve Jobs!

Q (James Bond) - "I think you ignore my recommendations, 007, but I urge you to return the equipment intact."

Next, we head to London. There we visit MI6 - no, not James Bond, but the man without whom 007 would not have survived any of his missions - the weapons master Q. He himself is not quite as well-known as his double-zero colleague, but his inventions definitely are. Or have you never dreamed of diving through a river with the world's most famous car? But beware: you better not steal the cars developed by Q, because the anti-theft devices are quite something. Because of such features, James Bond almost never manages to fulfill Q's biggest request: to return the equipment intact.

Professor Frink from Springfield (Simpsons) - "I must warn you, this device carries an alarmingly high risk of catastrophe..."

In Springfield, we visit Professor Frink. Not only is he the creator of my favorite invention, the sarcasm detector, but also one of the most effective home security systems. But in Professor Frink's name, I must warn you here, because "this device carries an alarmingly high risk of catastrophe..."

Howard Wolowitz (Big Bang Theory) - "I'm an engineer. I see problems and solve them. That's what I do."

Our next developer is actually not an electrical engineer, but an aerospace engineer and doesn't even have a doctorate. Nevertheless, I would also like to stop by Howard Wolowitz in Pasadena, Los Angeles. Because in this context, we can look at an absolute trend topic: quantum sensors. And basically, engineers all do the same thing: they see problems and solve them.

Iron Man (Marvel) - "I built a suit with a box of scraps."

We stay in California, leave Los Angeles, and go to Malibu. Thus, we leave the nerds and move on to a superhero. Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man, is one of the few electronics developers who made it to superhero status himself - and all with just his brain and, of course, electrical engineering. Unfortunately, he doesn't take reality too seriously, which is why it's good that he lives in the Marvel universe. In the real world, he would have long since died from his inventions.

The Doc (Back to the Future) - "Can you imagine what this means? It means this damn thing doesn't work!"

Even though I'm not sure exactly what Dr. Emmett Brown's doctorate is in, I want to go back to the future with you to look at the other probably most famous car in the world: the DeLorean, of course in the time travel special edition, with a nuclear reactor, Van de Graaff generator, and of course the flux capacitor. Unfortunately, I can't subject the latter to a reality check, as I haven't figured out how exactly the damn thing actually works. But at least

I have examined the other technology and can say (warning: spoiler alert): even if I knew how to build a flux capacitor, I still couldn't travel to the future with Doc's technology.

From fiction to fact - What we can learn from movies

What surprised me is how much of what was “science fiction” at the time of filming is now reality, or at least similar to it. This is no coincidence, as many filmmakers are inspired by actually existing current technologies. That's why Bond producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli referred to Q's inventions, the weapons master of James Bond, as “science facts.”

Unfortunately, not all ideas from movies can be implemented, because electrical engineering has limits - but our imagination does not. But maybe we can also see this as an incentive to eventually make the impossible possible.

I am curious about what the future holds, both in film and in reality. Maybe your next visit to the cinema will inspire you to a groundbreaking development? And feel free to write to me if you come across an electronics developer in a film with interesting ideas that are worth taking a closer look at (even from the future, if this fiction is reality in your time)!