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The digital watch -

Can you guess what the world's first digital watch was? Hint: The prototype was presented in 1970 on 'The Tonight Show' with Johnny Carson and paved the way for a new breed of watch that is still in vogue today. But it all began a few years before the show...

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The first digital watch -

The idea began in 1966 when the company Hamilton started to work on a prop/prototype for Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' On April 4, 1972, Hamilton put the first digital watch on the market—the Pulsar Time Computer. 

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Discovery One -

The United States Discovery One is the fictional interplanetary nuclear-powered spaceship from the classic film. It's crewed by two humans and controlled by an AI onboard computer. 

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Thermonuclear propelled rocket -

In July 2023, NASA and DARPA, together with industry partners, announced their intention to develop the design and construction of a nuclear-powered rocket, very similar to the Discovery One. The DRACO program plans to test this rocket in space by 2027.

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Video call -

There's a scene in the movie where Haywood Floyd, played by William Sylvester, is talking to his daughter over a video call. AT&T had already developed a device for video calls: the Picturephone. However, the one in the movie was much more modern and elegant.

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Moon landing -

Kubrick brought his imagining of the moon landing to life in his film, before the real moon landing took place. A year later, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin successfully walked on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 11 mission. This was Kubrik's preview of the "big step for mankind!"

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Moon Bus -

Long before the Mars Rover started to cruise the red planet, Kubrik came up with this very special 'moon bus.'

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Vision of future technology -

When the film was released, artificial intelligence was still far from being a tangible concept and existed only in the realm of science fiction. But Clarke's depiction of this futuristic technology is very similar to our reality today.

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HAL 9000 - In the film, the computer assures us that "The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error"... it seems that the HAL 9000 was way ahead of our chat bots, right?

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AI robots -

Our current AI technology may not be as precise as the HAL 9000, but despite their flaws, AI robots can be found in all kinds of places in some countries: from high-tech laboratories to fast food restaurants. 

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Space robots -

Robots play a big role in the movie. You can see them helping the crew in space. But it wasn't until 1981 that NASA used a space robot on the STS-2 mission. A robotic arm unloaded the spacecraft's cargo. The robotic arm in this 1994 picture was part of the Space Shuttle Discovery.

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Human Cryopreservation -

According to Newsweek, the United States government has been studying the possible use of this technology in American soldiers. This is an idea that comes up again and again in sci-fi movies, and '2001' is no exception.

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Voice-user interface -

The film shows the voice-recognition technology that became a reality after years of research. Today it is widely used with Siri and Alexa, from Apple and Amazon.

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Space Clipper Orion III -

The Orion III Pan Am 'Space Clipper' is a fictional 213-foot-long commercial spaceship operated by Pan Am and launched from Earth to Space Station V. Space travel is now a reality, but the plane also looks very familiar...

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Futuristic aircraft -

The spacecraft in the film has a modern design and is often compared to the Concorde, which had its inaugural flight in 1969, one year after the '2001' premiere.

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Tablet -

In the movie, Keir Dullea plays Dave Bowman and is seen watching the BBC news on a compact, portable device with a narrow screen. Some claim that this scene predicts the future iPad.

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Glass cockpit -

As flickfeast.com reports, at the time of the film's release in 1968, planes still had a conventional cockpit with analog displays. It wasn't until the 1970s that the glass cockpit with LCD screens and other electronic devices was introduced in commercial airplanes. Kubrick's film also anticipated this technical progress.

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Seat-back screens -

Nowadays, it is common for screens to be integrated into airplane seats. However, this technology only emerged in the late 1980s, about two decades after Kubrick introduced it in his movie.

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Space station -

Before there was even a space station, Kubrick had a vision of what it would look like. The first space station, launched in 1971, was called Salyut and had a much less futuristic design than the one the filmmaker had invented. This is a picture of the Russian space station Mir.

Now, here are some fun facts about the iconic movie!

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Inspiration -

The short animated documentary 'Universe' was one of Kubrick's greatest sources of inspiration, according to Mental Floss. In the film, Kubrick shared his vision of what a journey through the Milky Way might look like.

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NASA help -

Kubrick wanted his science fiction film to be as truthful as possible, so he worked with experts from NASA. This may be the reason why his technological predictions were so accurate.

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No audition -

Actor Keir Dullea, known for his role as David Bowman, got the part without having to audition, SYFY Wire reports.

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Valuable help -

One of the greatest challenges for Stanley Kubrick was to convey his vision of an encounter between humans and extraterrestrials. The director asked the writer and astrophysicist Carl Sagan for help, according to Mental Floss.

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Alien insurance -

Kubrick feared that the existence of alien life would be proven shortly before the premiere of the film. To ensure that '2001' would not become obsolete in this case, Kubrick tried to take out insurance to protect him from the financial losses he would suffer if the existence of extraterrestrial life was proven. However, the insurer rejected his request stating that the probability of discovering extraterrestrial life was minimal in the 1960s.

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Alternative film titles -

According to the blog 2001Italia, which is exclusively dedicated to the film, Kubrick and Clarke had alternative titles for the movie, such as 'How the Solar System Was Won.'

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A familiar voice -

HAL 9000, the robot that wipes out almost the entire crew of Discovery One, was voiced by Canadian actor Douglas Rain. He was also the narrator of 'Universe.'

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Critics -

The movie was not a great success at first. Interestingly, however, it was a big hit with younger viewers. According to Vanity Fair, Kubrick said that the movie was especially poorly received by New York City audiences.

Sources: (Mental Floss) (Wired) (NASA) (Vanity Fair)

See also: Are these true crime movies really accurate?

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