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Hace años, nadie imaginó que el holograma sería posible.

Hace años, nadie imaginó que el holograma sería posible.
Years ago, nobody imagined that the hologram would be possible.
From Lesson 280:Past reported speech: future to conditional·Spanish (Spain)

Questions & Answers about Hace años, nadie imaginó que el holograma sería posible.

Why is sería used in this sentence instead of the future tense será?
This is an example of reported speech. The main reporting verb, imaginó, is in the past. Back then, the original thought would have used the future tense: The hologram will be possible (el holograma será posible). When we report that future idea from a past perspective, the future tense shifts to the conditional sería (would be).
I thought Spanish used double negatives. Why isn't there a no before imaginó?
You only need a double negative if the verb comes first. Because the negative word nadie (nobody) is placed directly before the verb imaginó, the sentence is already negative, so adding no is unnecessary. If the word order were swapped, you would use a double negative: no imaginó nadie.
Why is it el holograma when the word ends in "a"? Shouldn't it be feminine?
Like many Spanish words that end in -ma (especially those of Greek origin), holograma is masculine. You might remember other common exceptions that follow this exact same rule, such as el problema, el tema, or el sistema.
How does hace años translate to "years ago"?
In Spanish, to say that something happened a certain amount of time "ago", you use the verb hace (literally "it makes") followed by the time period. So, hace años means "years ago", just like hace dos días means "two days ago".

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