Advances in Science and Technology in Science Fiction
The Scientific Revolution, which got going in the 16th century in Europe, had a huge (like, phenomenally large) impact on our understanding of the world. Scientists and mathematicians like Galileo and Isaac Newton made discoveries that continue to impact us to this day (heard of calculus? Yeah, we have Newton to thank for that).
Advances in science and technology really revved up in the late 18th/early 19th century, and these advances made sci-fi possible as a genre. During this time we learned a lot—and we mean a lot—about nature. And thanks to the industrial revolution, beginning at the end of the 18th century, technology also developed at a very speedy pace.
Chew On This
Around the time that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, people were learning more and more about nature. The protagonist of Shelley's novel, the scientist Victor Frankenstein, is a product of his times.
Submarines were a new invention when Jules Verne wrote 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. But the Nautilus, the submarine in the novel, isn't just any old submarine. It's powered with electricity—a pretty radical idea for the time.