Psychic Paper

As any good Whovian (Doctor Who fan, for the uninitiated) will know, the Doctor loves carrying his psychic paper around. First called his "slightly psychic" paper, it shows whatever the person looking at it wants to see. For example, the Doctor uses it to pretend he has a ticket when he becomes a stowaway on the spaceship the Titanic. He can use it to show that he has access to even the most top-secret information. It can do almost anything.

Although it does have its limitations. It shorts out when he tries to say he is "universally recognized as a mature adult" (see "A Christmas Carol"). It can also be seen through by geniuses, such as Shakespeare (see) or people trained to recognize psychic paper, such as people at Torchwood (see). Even so, the psychic paper is amazing and I think it is greatly underused.

Imagine for a moment a world in which we all owned something similar to psychic paper. Now obviously we wouldn't want actual psychic paper, or people would be getting into trouble left and right. But if we simply had one piece of paper that contained all our identification, that would be pretty amazing. Imagine this: you're going on a school trip to England (if you already live in England, you can imagine you're on a school trip to America). First to get on the bus, you have to show your school ID. You pull out your psychic paper and you're good to go. You get to the airport and you need to show your passport. You show your psychic paper and move on. While waiting for your plane, you want to buy some food. You hold your psychic paper (now showing your credit card details) to the scanner and buy it. Wouldn't that be so convenient?

Maybe one day, psychic paper will become a reality. For now, though, it will remain in the realm of science fiction.