Impossible

Alice laughed. `There's no use trying,' she said `one ca'n't believe impossible things.'

`I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.' (Lewis Carrol, Through the Looking Glass)

I've always love science fiction and fantasy. It dreams up the impossible and makes it possible. My favorite reference for this is Star Trek. While it's not my favorite work of science fiction for my purposes now it more than illustrates my point. When Star Trek first aired cell phones, bluetooth technology, and voice recognition software were only ever dreamed of and automatic doors( H G Wells writes about this in 1899) were just hitting the market. Today we are on our way to creating realistic holograms, tricorders (devices to sense and analyse chemical elements and life forms, record massive amount of audio and video and shift through the materiel fairly quickly), universal translators, and LaForge's Visor.

The creators of Star Trek and many other sci-fi works dreamed the impossible and challenged science to make it possible.

I often find myself dreaming about the impossible, whether it is in the realm of science fiction or fantasy. I definitely think about it more than the half hour that the White Queen suggests and find that when I dream of the impossible I can see the world around me in a different light.

Don't shy away from ideas because someone says they are impossible. Make them possible.