By now the world has come to know of the passing of actor Leonard Nimoy, who inspired generations of souls to pursue a career in science and engineering, through his role in Star Trek.
Many of us at Apurba Technologies can cite Star Trek as the inspiration for first being interested in studying science as children, carrying this fire through school. Then studying science and engineering in college. Finally to bring this energy into our professional lives.
I can tell you now. This fire of inspiration has been lit in a new generation as I write this blog.
For those of you who never watched the show; which planet are you living on? It’s certainly not in the Alpha, Beta, Gamma or Delta quadrants of this galaxy!
Amongst the shows themes were exploration, the need tolerance in face of difference. The fact that mankind in the future would learn to appreciate one another and go out and explore the stars.
In Star Trek the intellectual scientist was the hero not the sporty jock. And that is precisely what resonated with all those young scientists and geeks at school. Star Trek showed them a future where they could make a difference. Where they can take center stage.
And the principle scientist hero in Star Trek was Spock, played so very wonderfully by the late great Leonard Nimoy!!!
I wasn’t even born when Star Trek came off the air. However when showed on Thursday nights on BBC2, my father (a scientist) and I tuned. I was absolutely mesmerized every week.
That was during my childhood and then into my teens the Next Generation arrived. However the topic of this blog is that first spark of inspiration given by the original series.
It was that first spark that fired the imagination of all those scientists and engineers to literally make life imitate art.
We see it every day in our mobile devices, voice recognition systems, user interfaces, so many the list is endless.
The title of this blog is, “The Undiscovered Country”, the name of a Star Trek movie. This movie in turn makes reference to Shakespeare’s hamlet.
“The undiscovered country from whose bourn, No traveller returns!”
Shakespeare is referring to those metaphysical questions of what happens to us after death. In the Star Trek movie, “The Undiscovered Country’, the reference is re-purposed to what the future may hold if we only had the courage and wisdom to shape it. For it is this future that is the undiscovered country.
And with this final word we at Apurba say a fond farewell to Leonard Nimoy and continue our journey to that undiscovered country!
To the future.
RIP Leonard Nimoy
LLAP everyone.