'In a 2016 article for The Atlantic, Edward Simon explored the sci-fi that was published during and before the peak of the scientific revolution, including such novels as Thomas More’s Utopia, Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, and Johannes Kepler’s Somnium. Literature helped spark curiosity as new scientific understandings were developing, he explained. “Science fiction alone did not inspire the scientific revolution, but the literature of the era did allow people to imagine different realities—in some cases, long before those realities actually became real,” Simon wrote.'

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/08/science-fiction-technology/675206/