Twins and ’verses—not really new stuff

Just like the visionary pioneers at Xerox PARC envisioned touch-screen tablets and GUIs decades or more before they were realized, the concept of the metaverse was envisioned by Neal Stephenson in 1992. Even earlier than that, NASA not only envisioned digital twins, but in the 1960s, was employing it when each spacecraft was exactly replicated in an earthbound version that was used for study and simulation purposes. IBM says the idea of digital twin technology was first voiced in 1991, with the publication of Mirror Worlds, by David Gelernter. However, Dr. Michael Grieves (then on faculty at the University of