Let's Learn English! Topic: The Future! 🧑🏽‍🚀🤖 (Lesson Only)

Well hello and welcome to this English lesson about science

fiction. You may have expected this lesson because a couple

weeks ago we did one on medieval times and fantasy. So

this is the natural follow up. Science fiction is also

fiction. Stories that aren't true but they take place in the

future. I am a big science fiction fan. I love reading

science fiction and I like watching Science fiction

movies. Um so in this English I'll help you learn some words

and phrases that hopefully help you understand a science

fiction book if you read it or when you watch a science

fiction movie and there are a lot of them there are a lot of

science fiction movies in the world. So once again welcome to

this English lesson about science fiction. So science

fiction relates to stories about the future. Someone has

imagined the future and they've written a story about it or

they've created a movie about it. Um so we have a short form

though for science fiction and it's the word sci-fi. So if you

are a fan of sci-fi it means you really like science

fiction. I'm not sure why we do this in English so often.

Science fiction isn't that hard to say but for some reason we

shorten it and we sometimes say sci-fi. We even have a channel

here called the sci-fi channel although they spell it a little

differently. This is the most correct spelling. But sci-fi

once again about the future. Stories about robots and

spaceships and people travelling from planet to

planet. People living in futuristic cities. That is what

science fiction is all about. Stories about the future. And

sci-fi is the short version of it. Mostly these stories take

place in outer space. Most people who imagine the future

imagine us travelling from our planet to other planets.

Sometimes outer space involves our solar system. And maybe we

on Mars as well as the planet Earth but sometimes outer space

involves travelling far beyond our solar system to other parts

but the vast majority of stories that people write that

would be called science fiction take place in outer space or at

the very least on a very futuristic earth planet earth

and of course planets and stars make up the majority of the

places where people go. They might be travelling to a

distant planet. They might be travelling to a distant star.

They might be travelling to visit people who live on a

different planet. Planets would be things like earth and stars

would be things like our very own sun. The sun is actually a

star. A galaxy though is a whole bunch of planets and

stars and other space things together and spinning. We

actually are in the Milky Way galaxy. The planet Earth is in

the Milky Way. But a galaxy is a collection of planets and

stars and other things. Kind of spinning and connected to each

other through probably their own gravity. I'm not sure I'm

not an expert. But definitely a galaxy is a large collection of

planet and star planets and stars. And the one we live in

is called the Milky Way. So if you look up in the sky

sometimes on a perfect night you can see it looks a little

bit milky. It looks a little bit white because of all the

stars that are in our galaxy. And if you refer to everything

that includes every single galaxy. Every single planet.

Every single star. Uh everything that exists. We call

it the universe. And we do put the word the in front. So our

galaxy is in the universe. We all live in the universe. The

universe is huge. The universe is endless. I don't know a lot

about the universe but it's definitely really really big.

And everything that exists is in the universe. Hey the people

that go into space or outer space are called astronauts.

There are astronauts from many countries on earth and we tend

to work quite well together. It's one of the things where a

lot of different countries work well together in terms of

having a space station travelling to space. Things are

a little rough around the edges right now in terms of countries

relating well to each other in terms of going to space. But if

you were to talk about someone who goes to space we would call

them an astronaut. So a lot of astronauts will go to space.

They'll do some experiments on the space station and then

they'll come back. In the far future people who travel aren't

always called astronauts. Um I think when space flight becomes

common people are just passengers. You're no longer an

astronaut. And we also have theories that there might be

extraterrestrials or aliens that live somewhere else in our

galaxy or in the universe. People are going to ask this

question. I know. They're going to say Bob do you think

aliens exist? And all all I'll say is I don't think so. I

think they would have visited by now. But extraterrestrials

would be

creatures or I can't say people. They would be beings

from another planet. They would be people who are not human who

evolved or developed outside of our planet and solar system. So

it's hard to describe what an extraterrestrial is. Not a

human not from Earth. There that's my best explanation. And

we also sometimes talk about it in a broader term. We'll just

say intelligent life. There's the search for intelligent

life. They're looking for in Intelligent creatures from

other parts of our galaxy. And once again do I think

intelligent life exists? Um outside of the planet Earth. I

I don't know. I don't think so. But I don't I could be proven

wrong at some point in the future. But currently I think

that it's just us. That's that's my that's my feeling. Um

so when you travel in space you will use a spaceship. So a

spaceship is a vehicle that has been designed to go in space.

Space has a near vacuum or vacuum. There's nothing in

space. There's no air around you. So you need a special ship

that can go in a vacuum. You need a ship that can travel

safely through space and we would call that a spaceship. We

might also call it a starship. Uh if you have watched Star

Trek at all they have starships like the Starship Enterprise.

So a starship is simply a spaceship that is able to

travel between stars. Okay so a general term Would be

spaceship. A specific term for a spaceship that can go really

far really fast and travel between stars would be a

starship. Uh very cool. If you've ever watched Star Trek

you will enjoy many episodes of people travelling from Stars to

Star. Um and I do want to mention I'm not a Star Wars fan

or a Star Trek fan primarily. I am a fan of both. Some Star

Wars fans don't like Star Trek and some Star Trek fans don't

like Star Wars. I like both. And I really do enjoy both of

them. And of course we on Earth here are still sending up

rockets. A rocket is a vehicle designed to travel from the

Earth into space. Um well some are designed to travel from

earth into space but a rocket is usually just a long tall

vehicle with a big rocket engine at the bottom and we

count down ten, nine, eight, 7, six, five, four, three, two,

one, zero, blast off. When we were kids, we would often do

that like we would count backwards and when we got to

zero, we would say blast off because the rocket when the

countdown hits zero, the engines ignite, the rocket

engines ignite and it will take off. So, rockets are one the

ways that we travel from earth to space or just to send up a

satellite. Uh we have another kind of vehicle called a UFO.

This is an unidentified flying object. I didn't put the full

term on the screen. But a UFO would be anything flying that

we can't identify. Usually it ends up being a satellite or a

weather balloon or something else. Uh some people believe

that aliens come in UF FOs to the earth and visit secretly at

night. I'm not so sure about that. And then we have what's

called a shuttle. There's a couple different kinds of

shuttles. This is a space shuttle. As soon as you use the

word shuttle it means it can travel back and forth. Um so a

shuttle is something that can take you from one place to

another. At the airport you can take a shuttle from the parking

lot to the airport. And then from the airport to the parking

lot you can take the space to the space station and then you

can fly back down and then take it again. In science fiction

sometimes a starship or spaceship will send a shuttle

from their ship to another ship. And it's just a shuttle's

just a smaller spaceship that you can fly back and forth

between one ship to another. Space Station. So this is a

very advanced looking space station. Uh the current space

stations do not look like this. But one of the theories is that

as we move into the future we will eventually have space

stations. A lot of Science fiction books and movies. Um

they either visit a space station or they stop to refuel

at a space station or to take on supplies. Maybe they need

food and water. So a space station is just a large base or

station in space somewhere that humans have built where they

can visit with spaceships to resupply to I don't know hire

new people if they need more astronauts not sure. And then

if we build something on the moon or another planet the very

first structures we build will be called a base. So when we

travel to the moon eventually we'll build a base on the moon.

When we travel to Mars we will eventually build a base on

Mars. So a base is simply a way to refer to the first thing

that humans build when they get to another planet or moon in

the case of our moon. A light year. So once again Bob the

Canadian teaches English not science. But a light year is

the distance that light can travel in one earth year. So

the distance that light can travel in one year would be one

light year. That means that if you wanted to travel to the sun

if you went at the speed of light it would take you 8. 3

minutes to get to the sun. When the sun emits light it takes 8.

3 minutes for that light to get to earth. If you wanted to

travel for those of you who live in the north to the North

Star. It would take you 320 years. If your spaceship

traveled at the speed of light. It's very very far. So anyways

a light year is a unit of measure. It's a way to measure

a very long distance in space. Um and we do it by saying it's

the distance light can travel in one year. By the way we

cannot travel at the speed of light as of yet. I'm not sure

what the fastest speed a human has gone. But definitely we

have gone faster than the speed of sound. But we cannot At the

speed of light or beyond it yet. So faster than light

travel this is often something you hear about in science

fiction. In order to travel these great distances we will

need to develop a way to travel faster than light. In science

fiction they have solved this in almost every type of science

fiction. They will have hyperspace drive or hyperdrive

or faster than light engines or some way of travelling faster

than light. Um to get from one part of the galaxy or universe

to another. Of course in sci-fi there are almost always robots.

Um sometimes we call them Androids if they look like

humans. But robots would be a mechanical creature with a

computer for a brain that can do some of the same things as

humans. An android is simply a robot that has human like

qualities. So usually two legs, two arms, a face and eyes so

that they look kind of human. This would be considered an

android. Uh this would be considered an android. Um a

robot like R2D2 in Star Wars would just be considered a

robot. Actually do we call them a droid? They call them droids

don't they? Interesting. So I guess that's a Star Wars

specific reference. But my understanding is a robot is

anything mechanical with a computer brain. An android is a

robot that has some human qualities.

Ai is what we use is the short form for artificial

intelligence. So AI refers to any machine that can think. So

when we develop computers sometimes we program computers

so they can learn on their own and so that they can analyze

huge amounts of data quickly. And we sometimes say we use AI.

Currently there's a really cool AI in the world called Dali

which can make images. And so we have something that isn't a

human brain but we've programmed a computer to think

a little bit like a human and we call it AI or artificial

intelligence. A cyborg in science fiction often we have

merged technology with humans to create cyborgs. So a cyborg

is a human who has parts of their body that are robotic. So

maybe they have a robot arm or they have a computer chips

connected to their brain. Anytime a human is enhanced

with technology. We would call that a cyborg. So often in

science fiction you will run into humans who been enhanced

with technology or merged with technology and we would call

that person a cyborg. Time travel is a common thing in

science fiction as well. The ability to travel forward or

backwards in time when you talk about the movie Back to the

Future. They traveled back in time and then forward in time.

I can't remember all of the time travelling that they did.

But time travel is the ability to travel either back in time

on earth or forward in time on earth. Or forward in time and

place. Depends on the kind of machine you use. Um but often

Science fiction show will involve some element of time

travel. It's not always common. In Star Trek they have done

some time travelling. I don't think anyone in the Star Wars

movies has time traveled but in Star Trek they flew the ship

around the sun wants to travel back in time. And I think even

in one of the early Superman movies there is a little bit of

time travel. Anyways the ability to travel through time.

That would be really cool. In order to you would need a time

machine. A time machine is obviously a fictional device

that you would use to travel through time. You get in a time

machine. You punch in the date where you want to go and you

push the button. I'm talking like I've used a time machine.

And then it takes you where you want to be in time. If you

wanted to know whether I would prefer to travel back in time

or forward. I think both. If I could do some time travelling

that would be super super fun. I would love it. So I mentioned

faster than light travel in order for a ship to get through

to travel quickly. But also sometimes they'll talk about

wormholes. Where a ship flies into a wormhole in one location

in space and it pops out. From the other end of the wormhole.

And the distance between each end can be many many light

years. So often when you're watching a science fiction

movie they'll say we're going to take a wormhole to travel to

the next galaxy and then they'll go in one end and pop

out other and quickly travel hundreds or thousands of light

years in the blink of an eye. Sometimes in science fiction

they'll have a force field. There will be people who are

fighting battles. There will be wars in the future. And you're

watching a science fiction movie and the person is about

to get hit by a bullet or something and it gets stopped

by this somewhat invisible field of energy. We call this a

force field. So this person activated their force field.

The force field will stop bullets. It will stop

projectiles. It will protect them. So they are protected

because they have a force field. By the way I don't think

this technology exists either yet. Um almost everything I'm

talking about doesn't exist. That's why it's called sci-fi

right? Tractor beam. So this is something that allows one

spaceship to pull another spaceship towards themselves.

So sometimes in a movie they'll say engage the tractor beam and

a beam of light shoot out from their ship and it'll pull the

other ship towards their ship. Um I think this has happened in

almost every science fiction movie. At some point someone

says engage the tractor beam and bring that ship closer.

That's how captains of spaceships talk by the way. Um

let's see here. There are many types of weapons that will be

used in science fiction movies. Uh sometimes it's called a

phaser. Star Trek would use phaser on in Star Wars they

would use blasters. In old movies they might call it a ray

gun. They might simply call it an energy weapon. This is any

kind of weapon that does not fire bullets. But instead fires

a beam of energy. Maybe it's a laser. Maybe it's a like a a

bolt a laser bolt. Maybe it's I don't know. It's the future.

It's hard to describe the projectiles. But what we're

talking about is something that uses energy to shoot a

destructive beam of light or a destructive laser or ray. Um so

once again phaser is something they say on Star Trek. Blaster

is something they say on Star Wars. Uh and Raygun if you

watch a movie from 1950 they'll probably call it a ray gun. So

sometimes in the future they have the ability to teleport

from one location to another. When you use a transporter or

when you teleport you step into a machine and then you

disappear and it sends you Somewhere else and then you

reappear. It's kind of wild. I would never use a transporter.

In Star Trek they're called transporters. In other science

fiction movies they're called teleportation devices or

teleportation machines. Uh it's when like you see in the

picture you disappear in one location and you appear

somewhere else. So again if they invented this machine I

don't think I don't think I would use it. An asteroid an

asteroid is not a planet. It's not a star. It's just a big

rock in space. It probably orbits something. It probably

like we have asteroids that orbit our sun. Sometimes an

asteroid will approach earth. But an asteroid is a giant rock

in space. Um and if you have ever played the video game

asteroids you would have had a chance to blow up a lot of

asteroids. By the way we didn't talk about video games but

there are a lot of video games. That take place in the future

as well. Science fiction video games. A comet is just a

collection of gases and dust and it's usually luminous. It

usually gives off light and it usually when it approaches

earth sometimes we can see it. So Haley's comet would be an

example of a comet that we were able to see. Um but a comet is

just a large collection of dust, small rocks, gases flying

through space and giving off some light. Very Cool. A black

hole. So there are a lot of theories about black holes. Um

but a black hole would be a place where there is an

extremely high amount of gravity. Such that time and

space all compressed together. This is not a science lesson.

If I'm describing this wrong. But a black hole in science

fiction is usually very dangerous. Ships if they get

pulled into a black hole they can't get back out. So a black

hole is an extremely high area of gravity. Gravity is what

pulls you down to earth. So a black hole has a lot of gravity

as well. A clone. So a clone is a complete replica of one

person or animal. So if you took my DNA and you took it to

a lab you could make another Bob the Canadian. You could

make a clone of me. In science fiction clones are often used

in armies or clones are used when people want to this is

going to sound kind of weird but in science fiction people

sometimes they grow a clone themselves so that they can

transfer their consciousness to a younger body in the movie or

in the TV show foundation. The ruling people are all clones of

each other. So a clone is when you take someone's DNA. The

information that makes them who they are. And you grow another

version of them I guess. Maybe I I should clone myself so I

have more time. But then there would just be two of me. Never

mind. I don't think that would work. Interstellar is anytime

we talk about travelling between stars. So interstellar

the word stellar is another word for star. So if you go on

an interstellar voyage it means you're travelling between

stars. If you go on an interstellar spaceship it means

it has the ability to travel between stars. Terraforming

terraforming is when you find a planet and then often I think

on avatar they terraforming the planet I can't remember but

it's when you change a planet usually to be more like earth

so you see here this is I think they're taking a planet it

could even be Mars and once it's terraforming it has water

and land masses and plants and things growing on it so when

you terraform you change a planet to be more like earth.

That's probably why it has the word terror in it which is

another word or earth terraforming. And I talked

about how when we first start living on the moon or on Mars

we will start by having a base. Once that base expands and

people start living there we would call it a colony. A base

is used temporarily. And people would probably only be at the

base if they were in the military or something like

that. A colony is when normal people start to live on another

planet or moon. So if we had a colony on the moon. People

would probably live in domes. I think this is supposed to be

Mars though. Uh people would probably be get married and

have children in a colony. Whereas a base would just be

you know a temporary place to stay for a bit. But a colony is

a little more serious. And in the future we might have

holograms. Right now I am just on a flat screen. You can only

see me from one side. But if I was a hologram I would be On

your desk and you would be able to look at my ear and my other

ear it would be kind of strange but in the future and in a lot

of science fiction people will have holograms. So they'll have

in Star Wars there's a little hologram of Princess Lea that

the R2D2 android shoots out droid sorry droid not Android.

Um so you can see her in three dimensions. Very