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There are a lot of technologies which we would consider to be 'iconic' to the Star Trek franchise, such as the Warp Drive and transporters. When I consider these though, they are merely mechanisms were proposed to provide a technological basis of older ideas. Consider warp drive - it's really just a particular mechanism by which faster-than-light travel is accomplished. Yet, the concept of faster-than-light travel has existed long before Star Trek. Same with the transporter - it's just a mechanism by which teleportation, a fairly old idea, is accomplished.

So, what I'm looking for is what technologies in the Star Trek franchise are not merely new mechanisms for old ideas but are new ideas? Note, I'm basically looking for what technological concepts are introduced for the first time in the Star Trek franchise at some point (e.g. if nowhere before had the idea of a 'replicator' i.e. a machine which can produce just about anything, was an idea first introduced in Star Trek, then that would count). This is not seeking individual's opinions. Rather, I am looking for new technological concepts (not mechanisms) that were first introduced in the Star Trek franchise, specifically the TV series' and the films (i.e. TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT and all the motion pictures (yes - including the 2009 reboot))

Often Right
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    Well Samsung & Apple have been locked in a patent war for the past decade or so regarding tablets and phones, and one of the arguments raised at some point was 'prior art' with Star Trek Padds being the 'art' in question – Robotnik Jun 23 '15 at 00:44
  • @Robotnik great call on tablets – Often Right Jun 23 '15 at 00:48
  • Neither of which Star Trek invented, it's just the most popular Example. –  Jun 23 '15 at 01:25
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    Tablet computers (iPad size) were used in 2001: A Space Odyssey way back in 1966. That's even before the internet. – paul Jun 23 '15 at 02:50
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    What's with the downvotes on OP's question? Feedback? – Praxis Jun 23 '15 at 03:41
  • Cheers @Praxis was about to ask that myself - can't see what on what criteria this question would be considered a 'bad' one – Often Right Jun 23 '15 at 03:42
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    @N_Soong Any answer is unverifiable without knowlege of the entire corpus of science fiction prior to Star Trek. So speculation will be rife and we'll have no way of knowing if answers given are correct. – Kyle Jones Jun 23 '15 at 04:00
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    @KyleJones : It is a difficult question, that's certain. But in my reworked answer below, I may have found something that fits the bill. – Praxis Jun 23 '15 at 04:19
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    @KyleJones on the contrary I don't see how this question is any different to questions asking about the first reference to a concept in science fiction - it is based on a similar premise i.e. identifying sources of a concept – Often Right Jun 23 '15 at 04:21
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    I also can't see how this question is too broad; there are a limited number of technologies introduced in Star Trek, so there are limitations. The answer from @Praxis shows that this is indeed an answerable question – Often Right Jun 23 '15 at 04:22
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    If the question is too broad, why is there exactly one concept that actually fits the requirements of the OP? A single thing is not particularly broad. – Wad Cheber Jun 23 '15 at 05:21
  • When this site first kicked off, I asked the same question. It was closed, then deleted, as being too broad. – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE Jun 23 '15 at 06:43
  • @Wikis thanks for that interesting point! – Often Right Jun 23 '15 at 06:43
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    You're welcome (I didn't downvote though, FWIW :) )! – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE Jun 23 '15 at 06:44
  • I think foldable cellphones were inspired by the communicators they used on field missions. – Thomas Jun 23 '15 at 13:17
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    @Thomas : That was in a previous version of my answer. But portable communication devices weren't really introduced exclusively by Star Trek, and the flip communicators that appeared in Star Trek were just a new format for an older concept. – Praxis Jun 23 '15 at 13:25
  • Earl Grey tea?? – Daft Jun 23 '15 at 13:26
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    @Daft : You mean Tea Earl Grey. :-) – Praxis Jun 23 '15 at 13:52
  • I can't find any sources right now, but I remember hearing that the first "hospital monitors", the screens full of data readouts by the side of a patient's bed, were inspired by the similar displays in McCoy's sick bay on ST:TOS. – Nerrolken Jun 23 '15 at 17:44
  • It's worth mentioning that both transporters and replicators (and their huge impact on society, which Trek only barely danced around) were described in George O. Smith's "Venus Equilateral" stores, decades before Star Trek or even The Jetsons. (no, not Doc Smith. Different Smith.) – Jamie Hanrahan Jul 10 '15 at 20:30
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    "When I consider these though, they are merely mechanisms were proposed to provide a technological basis of older ideas." I don't think this very clear. A horse, car and train are all mechanisms to allow people to travel between two or more points... does this mean they are all one technology? – NPSF3000 Jul 11 '15 at 14:01
  • Star Trek...invented...EMPHATIC...staccato type...dialogue...by over-acting...captains... – iMerchant May 01 '16 at 08:20
  • @NPSF3000: A horse is not a technology. Animal domestication is, but is not relevant here. I would say that a car and a train are the same basic technology, or rather that the automobile uses internal combustion, and so is a successor to the locomotive, which uses external combustion. In the same way that telephones are successors to telegraphs, and are arguably beginning to be in turn succeeded and phased out by use of internet services (email, Skype, VoIP, etc.) – sharur Aug 11 '16 at 19:00
  • @NPSF3000: But the OP does not liken the transporter to any other means of "allow [ing] people to travel between two or more points", but specifically to "teleportation" (which, in my understanding, refers to the fictional capability of making someone or something disappear in one place and, seemingly immediately, appear elsewhere. – O. R. Mapper Mar 26 '18 at 15:22

4 Answers4

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As OP pointed out, the warp drive and transporter are just new mechanisms for older ideas in science fiction. The replicator and holodeck don't count either — The Jetsons had both, only a few years earlier. Wonder Woman's invisible plane had cloaking technology in 1942, well before The Original Series ever did. The medical hypospray also existed in the real world before it did in Star Trek. Phasers ("ray guns"), artificial intelligence, and androids were also the stuff of sci-fi lore prior to Trek. Nanites aren't original either.

After ruling out nearly every technology that appears in Star Trek, here is the one concept I could find that actually appears to have been introduced for the first time via Star Trek:

Transparent aluminum

In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Scotty gives a commercial polymer expert the formula for transparent aluminum, thereby creating a transparent metal for the first time on Earth in the Star Trek universe. There may be transparent metals in other science fiction works (in various short stories — thanks @user14111), but this seems to be the first reference to transparent aluminum in particular.

Also, this may be the first reference to an ability to permanently transform a pre-existing real-world metal into a transparent form of the same metal.

I can find no earlier references in science fiction to transparent aluminum, and many journal articles on recent scientific advances toward transparent metal make reference to Star Trek's transparent aluminum.

Praxis
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    Another thing is the idea of a combadge, not sure if that started in ST but they've made one of those – Often Right Jun 23 '15 at 01:28
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    Re: flip phones - I believe the main character in Get Smart had a sort of flip phone in his shoe, although I don't know if Get Smart predates ST – Wad Cheber Jun 23 '15 at 01:35
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    @WadCheber : See Motorola fact in updated answer. – Praxis Jun 23 '15 at 01:36
  • I was wrong about the shoe phone. It didn't flip open. It was basically just a shoe with a speaker in the heel and a mouthpiece in the toe. Which means that if you stepped in dog shit, then had to call someone, you had to hold dog feces a few millimeters from your cheek. – Wad Cheber Jun 23 '15 at 01:40
  • Don't forget the shush shush automatic doors. –  Jun 23 '15 at 01:42
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    @wadcheber the get smart shoe phone, he removed the entire sole/heel of the shoe the phone was hidden underneath. So you wouldn't be face full of street candy –  Jun 23 '15 at 01:52
  • @cde - Ah. My mistake. – Wad Cheber Jun 23 '15 at 01:59
  • Universal translator? Turbo-lift (how many elevators can go sideways as well as up and down)? – Anthony X Jun 23 '15 at 03:01
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    Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition role playing game (published in the late 70s) had the spell glassteel which gave and hard metal the transparency of glass, so nix the transparent metal. – Lexible Jun 23 '15 at 15:17
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    Wasn't Wonder Woman's plane made of metal that became transparent? It didn't cloak the occupants, it just became invisible. – Samuel Jun 23 '15 at 17:35
  • "The Attack From Space" by Captain S. P. Meek, Astounding Stories, September 1930: "We looked in the direction in which he pointed; to our astonishment, the walls of the flyer seemed to dissolve, or at least to become perfectly transparent. The floor of the space ship was composed of some silvery metal, and from it had risen walls of the same material, but now the effect was as though we were suspended in mid-air, with nothing either around us or under us." – user14111 Sep 23 '15 at 07:38
  • "Vampires of Venus" by Anthony Pelcher, Astounding Stories, April 1930: "The metal is duranium; it is metalized quartz. It is frictionless, conducts no current or ray except repulsion and attraction ray NTR69X6 by which it is propelled. It is practically transparent, lighter than air and harder than a diamond. It is cast in moulds after being melted or, rather, fused." – user14111 Sep 23 '15 at 08:07
  • The devil's spaceship in this 1907 story is made of a transparent material, can't tell if it's metallic or not. The mystery material is probably from another story by the same author, probably available only in German. – user14111 Sep 23 '15 at 11:12
  • @user14111 : Thanks, I had no about the transparent metals in the Pelcher or Meek stories (Pelcher being the more definitive one, I think)! I think I might be able to salvage this in the following way: Scotty seemed to have a means for altering an existing metal so that it becomes transparent. In the Pelcher story, is the transparent metal naturally occurring? – Praxis Sep 23 '15 at 13:55
  • Your guess is as good as mine. The link is to the Gutenberg etext. – user14111 Sep 23 '15 at 22:24
  • I would guess that there are lots of transparent metals in the history of science fiction. Maybe transparent aluminum is unique to Star Trek. – user14111 Sep 23 '15 at 22:27
  • @user14111 : You're probably right. I'm thinking though that the ability to transform an existing metal into a transparent version of the same metal is unique. But emphasizing transparent aluminum is probably the safest way to go, as you suggest. – Praxis Sep 23 '15 at 22:41
  • Meek's BEMs apparently are able to instantly make the unspecified metal of their flyer transparent. – user14111 Sep 23 '15 at 23:05
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    Beating a dead horse: The exact phrase "transparent metal" was used in Edmond Hamilton's 1946 short story "The Dead planet": "Here under the ice there was a thick stratum of transparent metal, and the dis-beam had had to burn its way through that. [. . . .] And this whole city was shielded by an immense dome of transparent metal which withstood the weight of the ice that ages had piled upon it." – user14111 Nov 13 '15 at 10:25
  • @user14111 : Good find. :-) Since the last edit, the claim is only about transparent alumin(i)um. – Praxis Nov 13 '15 at 14:57
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    WRT the transparent aluminum/crysteel bit above, corundum (aluminum oxide) is a real-life crystalline material that is clear in its pure form, almost as strong as diamond and far more impact-resistant, and would make an ideal structural material for many use cases--including giant fish tanks--if it weren't for its extreme scarcity. (How rare is corundum? It occurs in nature in two slightly impure forms that have been known since ancient times, commonly referred to as ruby and sapphire.) – Mason Wheeler Jun 02 '16 at 19:47
  • Since most of the viewing audience wouldn't be expected to be familiar with the term "corundum", and the thought of building a giant fish tank out of gemstones would sound silly without some background knowledge of engineering, Mr. Scott's "transparent aluminum" could easily be seen as the result of a futuristic process to create pure corundum in industrial quantities, wrapped in dumbed-down terminology for the audience's benefit. (Did replicators exist at this point, BTW?) – Mason Wheeler Jun 02 '16 at 19:49
  • @MasonWheeler : Replicators seem to have existed in some form in the 23rd Century but did not become versatile and commonplace until the 24th. – Praxis Jun 02 '16 at 20:03
  • Neither the aspect that it's specifically aluminum (rather than some other material), nor the fact that it's produced from non-transparent aluminum (rather than somehow created analogously to warrant the name) ever played a decisive role in any plot (Scotty could have given any formula for a lightweight material to the 20th century materials producer). Therefore, I unfortunately fail to see why this was considered a meaningful answer. – O. R. Mapper Mar 26 '18 at 15:40
  • @O.R.Mapper : A question was asked. I provided an answer. The OP marked it as accepted. Isn't the OP the arbiter on whether the answer fits the question? Three years have passed and the OP has not changed his mind. The answer may not gel with your interpretation of the question, but that is neither here nor there. – Praxis Mar 27 '18 at 03:16
  • @Praxis: "Three years have passed and the OP has not changed his mind." - no-one has pointed out the points that I mentioned in my comment, and the OP may not have thought of them. Whether an answer was accepted yesterday or several years ago, I consider it legitimate to point out possible issues that the OP may not have considered when accepting the answer. – O. R. Mapper Mar 27 '18 at 06:52
  • @O.R.Mapper : This particular OP is certainly thoughtful and diligent. I'm certain he weighed the issues. More fundamentally, what do your points have to do with the question asked? The OP did not ask for the technological concept to play a plot role, decisive or any. He only asked for new technological concepts. I unfortunately fail to see why your points are meaningful to the OP's posted question. – Praxis Mar 27 '18 at 07:22
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Not a new technology, but a novel concept for its time: the Enterprise bridge layout (round, helm/navigation paired toward the front, captain in the center, other functions around the perimeter). The US Navy has evaluated the concept for implementation on US warships. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701)#Science

Anthony X
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The phaser. Not a simple death ray, it could be set to destroy (vaporize), kill, or merely stun (non-lethal force). Ray guns of other SF are always inflexible killing machines, where the phaser offered a flexible response to a threat. In today's world we have the laser, which perhaps implements the phaser's "vaporize" function (and to some extent realizes the classic SF death ray), and we have the taser, which is generally non-lethal, but doesn't really "stun" in the manner depicted on the show, and unlike the phaser, requires physical contact with the target.

I'd say that the phaser, with its full range of functionality combined into a single device, was unique to Star Trek when it first appeared, and remains so to this day.

Anthony X
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    There are a number of earlier stun-beam concepts listed here, not sure if any of them featured an adjustable beam that could also be set to kill but I'd be surprised if there were no examples of science fiction stories prior to Trek that depicted this. – Hypnosifl Jun 23 '15 at 03:02
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    Actually, just remembered the Stargate zat gun. It could stun, kill or vaporize, depending on how many times it was shot at something. But it appeared long after the phaser and the 1-2-3 escalation of effect is a wee bit hokey to me. – Anthony X Jun 23 '15 at 03:08
  • Which is why the writers quietly forgot the vaporizer part of the zat later on. –  Jun 23 '15 at 04:39
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    I like this, but I'm not sure this is in the spirit of the OP's question. The phaser, despite its range of functionality, is a new "mechanism" for an older concept. – Praxis Jun 23 '15 at 05:00
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    @Praxis - Agreed. The bolt action rifle was an improvement on muzzle-loaded rifles and muskets, but it was only an improvement, not a brand new concept. The same idea applies here. – Wad Cheber Jun 23 '15 at 05:12
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    Gotta agree with @Praxis on this one, although your input is greatly appreciated! I am definitely looking for entirely new concepts introduced in Star Trek rather than mechanisms – Often Right Jun 23 '15 at 05:34
  • @WadCheber: Doesn't this depend a lot on how relevant the difference is for the story it appears in? "Bolt action" can be seen as pretty much a new concept within the scope of how a bullet might move through a rifle. However, it would probably just be a throwaway sidenote on a show, and probably wouldn't make any difference to a story where concrete speed of recharging weapons (or whatever might be the advantage of bolt action) is just driven by the necessities of the plot. – O. R. Mapper Mar 26 '18 at 15:58
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Tractor Beams

aka Optical Tweezers

Optical tweezers (originally called "single-beam gradient force trap") are scientific instruments that use a highly focused laser beam to provide an attractive or repulsive force (typically on the order of piconewtons), depending on the refractive index mismatch to physically hold and move microscopic dielectric objects similar to tweezers. Optical tweezers have been particularly successful in studying a variety of biological systems in recent years.

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Daft
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    Nope. E. E. Smith first coined the term "tractor beam" (an update of his earlier "attractor beam") in his novel Spacehounds of IPC, originally serialized in Amazing Storiesmagazine in 1931. The hero of his Skylark of Space books (1929 onwards), had invented "attractor beams" and "repellor beams." Repellors can also be emitted isotropically as a sort of defensive force field against material projectiles. –  Jun 23 '15 at 15:07
  • @cde : You beat me to it. – Praxis Jun 23 '15 at 15:09
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    Disaster! I'm gonna leave this here anyway, I'd never heard of it before, maybe someone else might find it interesting as well. – Daft Jun 23 '15 at 15:13
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    If we are expanding into real things how about a working tricorder? https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/first-prototype-of-a-working-tricorder-unveiled-at-sxsw – ivanivan Mar 24 '18 at 00:41