So we all know that Chuck Hull of 3D Systems invented 3D printing in his spare time whilst working at a UV radiation company right in 1984? WRONG!
Superman invented it a whole twenty years earlier just take a look at the picture above! Superman worries about the creation of a machine that creates busts (you know, like the Yoda one) from photos.
Although it is a slightly silly subject what is impressive is the fact that the cartoon does sort of guess at how it could be done using a light and some powder not too unlike the SLS process.
As one of the comments on the Weird Universe piece suggests this is not the first invention to come out of Science Fiction.
S/F has been dreaming up stuff for over a century! Jules Verne wrote Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in 1,870. A Czech writer coined the word 'robot' around 1920.
What gets me is inventors rarely mention them and literary critics dismiss the whole field.
Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece
