The influence of science fiction films on the development of biomedical instrumentation

The question of whether science imitates art or if art imitates science has for long been a subject of debate in educational circles. In this project, we want to analyze the question of how science fiction movies influenced biomedical instrumentation and how has the development of biomedical instrumentation influenced science fiction movies. Our work is aimed towards production of a video to be used as an educational tool in biomedical engineering courses. We analyzed this question in detail, by dividing the history of the cinema into four sections and then drawing parallels between the development of ideas on film and the development of instrumentation in real life. We viewed and analyzed more than 50 science fiction movies covering all four historical cinema areas. From each movie, we extracted clips that contain biomedical instrumentation, analyzed the instrument from a presently existing level of knowledge and technology, and compared it with the instruments available nowadays. Our conclusion is that there is a definite nonlinear correlation between the bioinstrumentation shown in science fiction films and the development of biomedical instrumentation.