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When the laws of physics meet science fiction * 4
    #13800781 -

Rarely, when science fiction authors invent grand new technologies, before long the world is lucky enough to see these technologies become fact- as was the case when Arthur C Clarke first wrote about geosynchronous communication satellites.  The space elevator - another of Clarke's "inventions" - hasn't been built (yet), but physics (and now materials science) seems to say that if we really want a space elevator, nature's laws provide that such a thing is possible.

Far more often we end up with tricorders, phasers, warp drives, and (so I don't exclusively pick on Star Trek) lightsabers.  Having run out of works by Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke to fill my head with, I've had to turn to more contemporary authors, most of whom aren't nearly as good at fooling me into thinking impossible things might be possible.  Phillip Hamilton is a British sci-fi author who has managed that quite difficult feat, partly because a lot of the technologies in his books actually are mouth-wateringly feasible - how nanotechnology and genetic engineering might one day fundamentally alter life as we know it are good examples.  I'm not posting this because of one of those ideas, though.

An idea of Hamilton's that I found truly exciting at first involves "habitats" that are "germinated" in space around gas giants.  Gas giants are chosen for two reasons, one of which is the object of my concern - their large and powerful magnetospheres.  You see, these "habitats" grow, reach maturity, and provide for human inhabitants largely by using the gas giant's (I'll use Jupiter as an example from here on) magnetosphere to generate all the electricity they could possibly need.  For the purposes of this post, a habitat can be thought of as a cigar-shaped quasi-hollow cylinder, spinning about its long axis and oriented such that several large electrodes extending from one end are able to generate a substantial amount of electricity by slicing through Jupiter's magnetic field lines.  It is, of course, possible (as well as easy and ubiquitous) to generate a current by moving a conducting wire through a magnetic field .  A major problem concerns how much (total) power you can ultimately generate; if I understand the laws of thermodynamics at all then even at 100% efficiency such a "generator" would actually be more akin to a battery - this technique would at best only recover the power that was used to get the habitat spinning in the first place.

While reading the books, it did not occur to me (or rather, I did not care to allow it to occur to me) that the (near) lack of friction in space which would seem to allow our imaginary habitat to spin forever is rendered irrelevant when one asks the spinning object to generate electricity through magnetic induction.  The electrodes, as they slice through Jupiter's magnetic field and generate electricity, would exert a force on the habitat somewhat analogous to "drag", which would eventually cause the habitat to stop spinning.  If I remember correctly, this is due to "Lenz's Law", which generates a force counter to the direction of movement in an electromagnetic inductor.

Some of Hamilton's technologies (faster than light "drives", for example) are quite obviously pure fiction in addition to being science fiction, but many of the things he "invents" in his books don't violate the laws of physics and are therefore quite exciting to dream about.  I first thought the "habitat spinning in a gas giant's magnetosphere" method for generating clean electricity fell in the "this might one day be feasible" category, but the more I think about it, the sillier I realize I was for making such an obvious mistake.

I know I can't be the only one, though.  What things have you read in works of fiction and thought (wished?) to be legitimately possible before you discovered that the laws of physics/nature got in the way?  Did you ever ask your parents for a lightsaber for Christmas?  Has anyone ever duped you into buying a "perpetual motion machine" - or convinced you that the one they were duped into buying was the real deal?  Have you ever done something crazy because a Ouija board "told" you to?  What invention (besides the time machine) broke your heart and ruined your day when you discovered it could never exist outside of fiction?


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"A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism." - Carl Sagan

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: the spiral] * 3
    #13800845 -

A post with some real content.  :smile::thumbup:  Thank you.

We at the point of exponential technological growth now.  I think it was R.A.W who first brought my attention the exponential growth curve in his book Prometheus Rising (highly recommended BTW) although I don't believe he was the first person to note it.

The majority of this technology is being classified or made in black projects themselves - with good reason.  Many of them would actually break down our entire economic system which is on the verge of collapse anyway because its becoming increasing difficult for them to prevent these technologies leaking out or being manufactured by the commercial world.

One of the interesting ones I've been reading about recently is nano technology.  The mastery of which (is already happening) would allow things so far beyond our dreams we can only just begin to imagine the possibilities...

Imagine you want to design a material, so you feed the equations for the qualities you desire into this machine and it builds the material from atom up to your exact specification.  We could have adaptive materials and goods like a load of nano bots that form the machine we need to complete a task.  We can make food from scratch out of useless material.  It goes on and on but the point is the mastery of inner space is going to cause a massive technological revolution for us and we are at the point now with this exponential growth that its like a bubbling pot that the powers that be are desperately trying to hold the lid on because they want to maintain control and they know its going completely reform the entire structure of humanity.


Quote:
the laws of physics/nature got in the way?



I don't worry about that.  Its all theories not laws.  If anything is true history tells us we have constantly had to throw out the old theories because we discover another part of the puzzle and the old theories don't fit anymore, so we make a new one.  Thats all that has been happening.  So don't worry to much about what existing theories predict to be likely to be possible or not. 

Many of the existing theories already have anomalies.  That tells us that the existing theory is incomplete its just that until we get a better one and are able to demonstrate it as correct then science isn't going to pick it up.

One thing a guarantee you is when the next theory comes out and causes a paradigm shift, whoever is working on it will be one of the theorists who is thinking outside the box ;-)

Edited by nice1 (01/17/11 07:35 AM)

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: nice1]
    #13800963 -

There was a technology used in a series called "Hominids" by Robert J. Sawyer. In an alternative universe Neanderthals came to be in power instead of homosapiens. This society had very small culture and very different ways of life, but one of the things that kept it all in check was what they called "Companions". These devices not only helped them in a way that an iphone would but they recorded everything, BUT NO ONE IS EVER WATCHING. All the video is kept though and if a crime is ever committed they simply get a court order and watch the film. It recorded every angle of everything and it made it nonsensical to ever commit a crime. Due to this they had almost no crime. The best part was that no one was ever watching. It wasn't Orwellian, but rather it was a safeguard to prevent anyone from wronging anyone else.

Excellent series to read. Paints a beautiful picture of how humanity has gone wrong.


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With Allure I Look to the Sky With Awakened Eyes

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: Rocker232] * 1
    #13801314 -

If lightsabers were invented and manifactured. Despite the apparent impossibility of this. Who would be allowed to carry such powerful weapons?

Would you legalize it for the mass public or restricted it to the elite.

From what I've seen from Star Wars, these babies are lethal. You leterrally rob a bank no problem with one of these. open up every safety deposit box no problem.

For the record, my lightsaber would be red.


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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: Patlal]
    #13801392 -

I don't believe just "anyone" can wield one in Star Wars. Nothing to do with legality they just literally can't. Maybe it would be similar to nunchucks. You can buy them but if you don't know what you're doing you'll just chop your own legs off by mistake.


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With Allure I Look to the Sky With Awakened Eyes

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: Rocker232]
    #13801519 -

Screw light sabers. I had an idea as a child that if we made a sword that was only atoms in thickness at the edge it would slice through everything, like rocks, cars and easily people. I'm almost positive the technology to do this will be here in the next 10 years or so, long before any type of light saber would be possible.

As for other science fiction technologies...I've only read one science fiction book, "Pebble in the Sky," By Isaac Asimov, and a lot of the technologies seemed really unimaginative. I don't mean that in a condescending way, it's just that we *can't* imagine a lot of these things. Some things we can, but for the most part our brains just can't process what doesn't exist and what doesn't have any comparison to in our world.

It's like in this TED video I watched a while back, the speaker was talking about this technology that he thinks will supercede the internet. He first said that when the internet was coming out everyone thought it was going to be like TV but better. Obviously it's not even close to Tv now that we have it. He was smart enough to extrapolate that out and say this next technology will have some similarities to an advanced internet but it's not just going to be "the internet but better."

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: the spiral]
    #13801772 -

When I was a kid I thought like many kids who watch sci fi that someday we could engineer our way through the light speed barrier, but when I actually studied it I learned that is not the case.


Of the major science fiction works I can recall, none of theme seem remotely possible - except one:  The Sprawl Trilogy, Neuromancer et al.  I believe that if humanity does have a technological future, it will parallel the science in cyber-punk science fiction such as neuromancer.

(also, Lenz's law only give the polarity of the induced current.  The general law of induction is named after Faraday.)

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: DieCommie]
    #13801842 -

Keep believeing man. The speed of light WILL be broken!

Mathematically impossible, but if our brain can imagine it. It is possible!

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: Patlal]
    #13801865 -

We've already worked out a way around it,

Quote:
We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an Act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity...Anything you can imagine, we already know how to do.



Ben Rich - Lockheed

Quote:
Upon graduation with a master's degree in thermodynamics from UCLA, Ben Rich was hired by Lockheed. In December 1954, Rich was sent to the secret research and development Skunk Works section run by Lockheed. Later was program manager for the SR-71 Blackbird propulsion system. The idea to paint the high-speed aircraft's skin black, to help dissipate the tremendous frictional heat, was Rich's. He championed the early prototypes of stealth technology and led the development of the F-117 stealth fighter.



This guy works in a company with the biggest black budget contracts in the world so I can believe him.  Hes no reason to lie and they must of got something out of all that money.

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: Patlal]
    #13801884 -

Patlal said:
Mathematically impossible, but if our brain can imagine it. It is possible!



I think you are wrong on both counts here.  Its not mathematically impossible, its observed to be not possible.  Its the observation that gives us the idea that its impossible, the math describes that observation.  Secondly, its naive to think that if our brains can imagine it, it is possible.  That is not the case at all as evidenced by many, many people's imaginations never coming to fruition.

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: nice1]
    #13801891 -

nice1 said:
This guy works in a company with the biggest black budget contracts in the world so I can believe him.




Wait... you believe somebody because they worked with big black budget contracts?  Aren't black budgets notorious for deception, double agendas and not being forthright?  Normally people are super suspicious of such things, rather than just accepting what they say.

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: DieCommie]
    #13801912 -

I can believe him because
1. Hes in the position to know
2. They had the budget and ability
3. He doesn't have much reason to lie and make up such a specific thing about air/space craft which is what Lockheed develops
4. Advanced air/space craft have been videoed, photoed and recorded on radar all over the globe for a long time now
5. Hes not the only person with incredible credentials to say such a thing

Edgar Fuche claimed to of helped work on this craft that has been videoed world over...



I am suspicious.  Its just it fits in with the research I've done thus I believe its possible and theres indicators that keep emerging that lead me to believe its highly possible.

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: nice1]
    #13805387 -

The most interesting idea I've heard to circumvent (rather than actually "break") the light speed "barrier" would be through the construction of a drive that somehow compresses space-time ahead of the spaceship and "expands" it behind the spaceship.  If it were possible to artificially manipulate space-time in this fashion, then your spaceship would be able to move in a "bubble" of space-time moving faster than the speed of light without requiring the ship itself to accelerate to these speeds.  This concept relies on the idea that although matter cannot move faster than the speed of light, space-time itself is not restricted by relativity to lightspeed and - as occurred with "inflation" in the very early universe - space can expand at "speeds" that are exponentially faster than the speed of light.

I recall reading that the redshift we observe in the light from distant galaxies (and that this redshift is directly proportional to our distance from the galaxy we're observing) is actually caused by the expansion of space between us and what we're observing.  This expansion is supposedly accelerating, and I've read the claim that at some point in the future the space between us and nearly every galaxy in the universe will be expanding faster than the speed of light - which will result in a rather featureless, dark night sky.

Concerning the rather extraordinary statements this guy at Lockheed has supposedly made, I'd love to ask him all about dark energy and dark matter!  That, and how to build a machine that manipulates space-time =)

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: the spiral]
    #13805445 -

Let us all reflect on what Nice1 has said and has been said by others....

"If anything is true history tells us we have constantly had to throw out the old theories because we discover another part of the puzzle and the old theories don't fit anymore, so we make a new one.  Thats all that has been happening.  So don't worry to much about what existing theories predict to be likely to be possible or not."

We do not know a fucking thing.

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: DeadHearts]
    #13805467 -

@ Spiral. I forgot to mention that you may find my thread titled "Moon Rising"
in the conspiracy forum pretty interesting as they talk about these space elevators already existing and
are said to be photographed while at the same time being hidden from us.

Pretty far fetched stuff but its just so damn interesting none the less.

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: DieCommie]
    #13805490 -

DieCommie said:
Patlal said:
Mathematically impossible, but if our brain can imagine it. It is possible!



I think you are wrong on both counts here.  Its not mathematically impossible, its observed to be not possible.  Its the observation that gives us the idea that its impossible, the math describes that observation.  Secondly, its naive to think that if our brains can imagine it, it is possible.  That is not the case at all as evidenced by many, many people's imaginations never coming to fruition.



Impossible to go faster then light but its not impossible to warp space so that the distance is effectively shortened enough that to a relative observer the object is going faster then the speed of light even though the law is never broken.



In 1994, the Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed a method of stretching space in a wave which would in theory cause the fabric of space ahead of a spacecraft to contract and the space behind it to expand.[1] The ship would ride this wave inside a region known as a warp bubble of flat space. Since the ship is not moving within this bubble, but carried along as the region itself moves, conventional relativistic effects such as time dilation do not apply in the way they would in the case of a ship moving at high velocity through flat spacetime relative to other objects. Also, this method of travel does not actually involve moving faster than light in a local sense, since a light beam within the bubble would still always move faster than the ship; it is only "faster than light" in the sense that, thanks to the contraction of the space in front of it, the ship could reach its destination faster than a light beam restricted to travelling outside the warp bubble. Thus, the Alcubierre drive does not contradict the conventional claim that relativity forbids a slower-than-light object to accelerate to faster-than-light speeds.

Now if we could find a way to warp space in such a way we could effectively  achieve intersteller flight, In theory.

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: Bodhi of Ankou]
    #13806514 -

Such schemes do still break the light speed barrier and they do still have the massive problem of reversing causality with faster than light communication.


Many solutions to Einstein's field equations exist, that doesn't mean they are all realized in nature.

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: DieCommie]
    #13807044 -

DieCommie said:
Many solutions to Einstein's field equations exist, that doesn't mean they are all realized in nature.



Doesn't that say something of the credulity of Einstein's field equations?

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: fazdazzle]
    #13807104 -

fazdazzle said:
DieCommie said:
Many solutions to Einstein's field equations exist, that doesn't mean they are all realized in nature.



Doesn't that say something of the credulity of Einstein's field equations?



Yes it does. And some of Einsteins studies have been proven false (for lack of a better
word) anyways. Thats just how this science thing works.
Because just like when you buy a new computer or phone its outdated in no time.

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Re: When the laws of physics meet science fiction [Re: Patlal]
    #13807138 -

Patlal said:
If lightsabers were invented and manifactured. Despite the apparent impossibility of this. Who would be allowed to carry such powerful weapons?

Would you legalize it for the mass public or restricted it to the elite.

From what I've seen from Star Wars, these babies are lethal. You leterrally rob a bank no problem with one of these. open up every safety deposit box no problem.

For the record, my lightsaber would be red.



I call purplesies. I'm not black, but I can wear a hood if you need me to.


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wat man rly

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