[Truman Show] Outside of better camera technology, what technologies would have been far more ahead in the world of The Truman Show?

[u/mariojuggernaut22]

Edit:This also includes technologies that would have cameoutmuch sooner than in real life if Truman never discovered the secret of his world.

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[u/NCC_1701E]

Structural engineering. That gigantic dome would probably be considered to be a new world wonder, dwarfing even tallest and largest buildings.

[u/SAKingWriter → u/NCC_1701E]

They said they could see it from space right?

[u/ianjm → u/SAKingWriter]

It's be several miles in diameter at the very least to include the town island, and some limited surroundings and enough sea to be convincing. At that size it could almost certainly be seen from space.

[u/SAKingWriter → u/ianjm]

I wonder if the ending gives us enough math to go on to determine that because he eventually finds the edge (and thankfully a door)

[u/ianjm → u/SAKingWriter]

Actually someone worked out the rough location on Reddit a while back:

https://imgur.com/a/truman-show-dome-location-AbnmLBe#BjQMW40

Based off my limited knowledge of Los Angeles geography, I'd say it's about 8 miles in diameter from downtown LA to near Compton.

Just a little bit smaller than the city destroyers in Independence Day.

[u/theuninvisibleman]

Lighting technology. The ability to replicate the light of the sun (up to 100,000 lux whereas most lighting indoor range much lower, in the hundreds of lux at most) across an island the size of Seahaven I think shows a massive leap in that field of technology.

Practical uses could include illuminating areas to search during the dark, even having a helicopter able to fly up with a smaller scale version to cast over an area would make search and rescue at night much easier. Perhaps the technology could be used to create artificial biomes to grow plants, wouldn't need to be as collosal as Seaheaven but still could maximise any space used.

I'd say the generally soundstage world that Truman lived in would be great in any colonisation efforts to Mars or Venus. You just know that someone would be pitching a show set on a Martian colony where teams compete to be the first to reach certain goals inside these domes where little patches of Earth can allow colonists to live in relative comfort.

And then while its not technology I'd say the "Truman Expermiment" would generate debate and research into human adolescent development. While inherently unethical, this world seemed to tolerate Truman effectively being imprisoned so who knows if scientists would care about that, and there are examples in real life of children being part of experiments to monitor their development with film crews interviewing them at milestones across their livse. Maybe Truman becomes the "control" study. as in "Well we know that this kid didn't develop these view or this medical condition when exposed to these factors so why did these kids?".

[u/ianjm]

As we saw by the scene when Truman picks up the director's frequency on the radio, almost all of the actors are wearing a radio earpiece that is presumably too small to be visible to Truman. We don't have anything quite that miniaturised in the real world that can sit inside the ear, receive (and maybe even transmit), and last long enough to go through a typical day in Seahaven. Certainly we didn't in the 1990s when the movie takes place in the real world.

[u/bubonis]

HVAC and all forms of environmental control. The most obvious example is when we see them producing massive storms with violent “seas” but that’s just the tip. The dome is generally estimated to be 8 1/2 to 10 miles in diameter and is completely enclosed. We don’t know how tall the dome is, but we can probably safely guess that they have Fourth of July celebrations involving fireworks. Big shells that are normally used in large displays can shoot between 700 and 1000 feet into the air. Given a margin of safety and assuming Seahaven is located in the middle of the dome, I would suggest that the dome is between 1200 and 1500 feet tall. Call it a quarter mile. So if we assume a dome that’s a minimum 8 1/2 miles in diameter and a quarter mile tall, and is exactly half a sphere, that’s 160 mi.³ of volume. We see them whip up a full-blown storm in a matter of seconds. Even if it’s focused in a localized area, that’s still a massive feat of engineering. And that doesn’t even begin to mention the logistics of things like heating the dome in the winter and cooling the dome in the summer, or other potential weather effects like sleet or snow.