Science fiction works such as Star Trek and Star Wars have popularized the concept of shields in the form of energy fields used to absorb hostile weapons fire. The concept goes back at least as far as the 1920s, in the works of E.E. 'Doc' Smith and others; and William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land (1912) has the Last Redoubt, in which the remnants of humanity shelter, protected by something very like one.
These shields are often featured on starships, although personal shields have also been described. Such devices are, to date, fictional, but they have some resemblance to real devices such as magnetic field generators.
In sciencefiction and fantasy literature, a force field or protective shield is a barrier made up of energy to protect a person, area or object from attacks or intrusions.
The idea may be based partly on the concept of a vector field, though in character it resembles the "warding spells," the defensive magic claimed to be used by the Druids and shamans of the ancient world.
Sciencefiction venues postulate a number of potential uses for force fields, especially in the television series Star Trek:
Shields were made of hide or wood, often reinforced with metal, and could be round, oblong, or rectangular.
The oldest form of shield was a protection used to block attacks by hand weapons, such as swords, axes and maces, and missiles, like spears and arrows.
Many surviving examples of metal shields are generally felt to be ceremonial rather than practical, for example the Yetholm-type shields of the bronze age or the iron age Battersea shield.
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