Works of science fiction contain strange and fantastic concepts. Have any of these concepts served as the inspiration for inventions that have been applied to real-world problems? Various people have claimed that a particular invention was inspired by a work of science fiction. Out Of This World Ideas looks at a number of cases where such inspiration has been claimed to determine the validity of the claims. Was a type of holography inspired by the story of the discovery of an alien artifact from the time of the dinosaurs? Was the Combat Information Center inspired by a story that contained a system used to manage massive battles in space? Also considered are science fiction authors who were able to start with an idea and develop it not into a work of fiction but into an actual invention.