Unlikely-to-be-correct SF predictions

[ToSeek]

In a parallel thread to Ilya's "Unexpectedly correct SF predictions", what technologies frequently encountered in science fiction do you think are unlikely to be realized? Transporters/teleportation? FTL travel?

[Doodler]

Freeroaming holograms.

[Lonewulf]

How big a spectrum of time, are we talking about? A hundred years? A thousand? A million?

For instance, the hologram: What exactly are we talking about the hologram being constructed of? Will it ever be possible to condense matter (no matter what that matter actually is) into the shape of a person, and have that person interact with matter outside of it?

Over too long a period, it gets to the point of pure speculation.

[ToSeek]

Freeroaming holograms.

If you're talking about literal holograms, i.e., laser light having a life of its own, then you're probably right. But I wouldn't be surprised if within a hundred years we have something that for all practical purposes is the same thing, just not matching the Trek technobabble explanation.

[PhantomWolf]

Teleporters, I don't think people would use them since they kill you and create a clone.

*some people claim SW wasn't as high in tech as ST because they never had Teleporters. I say it proves they were more civilised because the Republic refused to commit mass murder.*

[tofu]

unlikely to be realized ever? That's a really long time. I guess that limits us to things which violate laws of physics. I supposed time travel (for anything larger than a proton) would be a biggie.

[tofu]

Can't remember the name of the book, but they communicated at superluminal speed using the spin of entangled pairs of particles. So for example, if you and I each have one of these particles, then mine has up spin and yours has down spin. So now I flip mine - yours must instantly flip as well. So by flipping the particles, I can send 1's and 0's - according to this scifi story.

In reality, there's no way for you to read my 1's and 0's because the act of looking at them changes them.

So add "superluminal communication through particle entanglement" to the list.

[tofu]

Psychic powers involving levitating or otherwise affecting objects at a distance. I'm not totally sure this falls under the umbrella of scifi.

Oh, and here's a good one, contagions that instantly convert the victim into a zombie or slave or whatever (think, 28 Days Later). This doesn't seem possible because of the shear number of changes that have to be affected to make this happen. There are a lot of things in your brain that would have to be rewired. It would necessarily take some time.

[greenfeather]

In a parallel thread to Ilya's "Unexpectedly correct SF predictions", what technologies frequently encountered in science fiction do you think are unlikely to be realized? Transporters/teleportation? FTL travel?

Galactic empires, space pirates, intergalactic wars with big Bugs.

[Maha Vailo]

The three I can think of right off the bat are time travel, teleportation (of anything other than small-meduim objects), and FTL travel (unfortunately).

tofu's comment on zombifying contagions got me curious: What would be the closest thing in the real world to a pathogen that put a person into a zombie- or slave-like state?

- Maha Vailo

[Van Rijn]

I wouldn't discount the possibility of highly tailored or "smart" diseases. Turn people into true zombies? Obviously not. But I wouldn't rule out a tailored disease that could make heavy modifications to the brain. We couldn't do it today, obviously, but I don't see it as physically impossible.

[Van Rijn]

The three I can think of right off the bat are time travel, teleportation (of anything other than small-meduim objects), and FTL travel (unfortunately).

tofu's comment on zombifying contagions got me curious: What would be the closest thing in the real world to a pathogen that put a person into a zombie- or slave-like state?

- Maha Vailo

Well, this might give you some ideas:

http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/2006/01/17/the_return_of_the_puppet_masters.php

The lancet fluke Dicrocoelium dendriticum, for example, forces its ant host to clamp itself to the tip of grass blades, where a grazing mammal might eat it. It's in the fluke's interest to get eaten, because only by getting into the gut of a sheep or some other grazer can it complete its life cycle. Another fluke, Euhaplorchis californiensis, causes infected fish to shimmy and jump, greatly increasing the chance that wading birds will grab them.

[snip]

Then the researchers put Toxoplasma-carrying rats in the enclosure. Rats carrying the parasite are for the most part indistinguishable from healthy ones. They can compete for mates just as well and have no trouble feeding themselves. The only difference, the researchers found, is that they are more likely to get themselves killed.

[greenfeather]

Rats carrying the parasite are for the most part indistinguishable from healthy ones. They can compete for mates just as well and have no trouble feeding themselves. The only difference, the researchers found, is that they are more likely to get themselves killed. [/I]

Which would make a great biological warfare agent for our enemies! Our soldiers would just *walk* into their ambushes!

[Maha Vailo]

Seen that article, Van. Trouble is, most of the "zombifying" parasites seems to affect lower lifeforms. The only effects toxo seems to have on the brains of otherwise-healthy humans is subtle personality and reflex changes. Nothing even remotely akin to zombie-ism!

I was asking for the closest thing to a zombifying/slave-making pathogen in humans, not other animals. Please try again.

- Maha Vailo

[Grand_Lunar]

Highly unlikely that anyone, anywhere, and any time will have something like a TARDIS. :(

Top that!

[Lord Jubjub]

I wouldn't absolutely rule out FTL. It might be possible that String theory could (if/when finally proved) provide insights into meta-universe structures that could be used to going from A to B FTL. This is all a big IF.

I have seen quantum tunnelling ideas for the basis of teleportation. We are just starting do some quantum studies on the macro level, so teleportation can't be absolutely ruled out yet. . .again, a big IF.

Flying cars? Not without Asimov's positronic brains in full control of the vehicle. Possible, yes, but not practical, I think. How much efficiency gained by eliminating surface friction is lost to pushing against gravity? Today, it is cheaper to drive than to fly. Time is the only thing gained by taking to the air.

[PhantomWolf]

I was asking for the closest thing to a zombifying/slave-making pathogen in humans, not other animals. Please try again.

Try a combination of Tetrodotoxin and datura powder. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie#Zombies_in_vodou)

[Maha Vailo]

Try a combination of Tetrodotoxin and datura powder. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie#Zombies_in_vodou)

That's a poison, not a pathogen.

BTW, how much of either would one need? Purely for research purposes, you understand.

- Maha Vailo

[Swift]

I think time travel (except forward at the rate of 1 day per day) is highly unlikely, as is teleportation, especially a la Star Trek. I'm not highly optimistic about FTL, but I wouldn't rule it out.

I suspect nanites, as in microbe sized inorganic robots are highly unlikely, though I do suspect that we will be able to tailor viruses and bacteria to do a lot of things. But I suspect even they will be as highly specialized as today's industrial robots (such as seeking out specific cancer cells) and not general purpose things.

I doubt the Star Trek type holographs and holodeck, but I do think that virtual reality will get very good, including tactile feedback, probably with a full body suit. I also don't rule out direct connect to the brain.

[Van Rijn]

I suspect nanites, as in microbe sized inorganic robots are highly unlikely, though I do suspect that we will be able to tailor viruses and bacteria to do a lot of things. But I suspect even they will be as highly specialized as today's industrial robots (such as seeking out specific cancer cells) and not general purpose things.


That's one I'll flatly disagree with. There are no physical reasons why complex nanobots could not be made, and I fully expect they will be eventually. There are things in fiction attributed to them that are physically impossible (ignoring energy issues in replication and so forth) but that's a different issue.

By the way, it should be noted that many of the ideas for nanobots are specialized in one fashion or another.

[Van Rijn]

Seen that article, Van. Trouble is, most of the "zombifying" parasites seems to affect lower lifeforms. The only effects toxo seems to have on the brains of otherwise-healthy humans is subtle personality and reflex changes. Nothing even remotely akin to zombie-ism!

I was asking for the closest thing to a zombifying/slave-making pathogen in humans, not other animals. Please try again.

- Maha Vailo

Mice aren't that far from humans, in terms of brain chemistry and function. If you can mess up a mouse, you can mess up a human. Or at least, there could be (engineered perhaps) something that could.

[Ronald Brak]

Indeed, the same parasite that affects rats may be having an effect on many humans right now. Although probably it probably doesn't make them feed themselves to cats. However, just why to so many people keep cats? When has a cat ever gone out of its way to help a human? It could be the zombie parasite at work making us think that keeping cats around is a good idea.

[Romanus]

Things I think are extremely unlikely:

--Time travel (obviously).
--Relativistic space travel, let alone FTL (ditto).
--Androids indistinguishable from humans. In fact, I'm deeply skeptical of the promise of AI in general when it comes to making programs that are facsimiles of people. In my op, if AI comes to pass, it cannot and will not be anything we can, say, have a realistic talk with.
--Immortality (though I do believe it's possible to extend the human life span).
--Contact with intelligent aliens.

[Ronald Brak]

I don't think planets will be terraformed. If you have the technology to terraform a planet you have the technology to build an artificial space habitat to whatever specifications you want and it will be ready for habitation in years or less rather than hundreds or thousands of years.

Effective biological immortality probably isn't that hard. If you can get humans to reliably live past 150 you can probably make them immortal.

Human level artificial intelligence sounds difficult, but I think that one day it might be possible to make computers that dumb.

[PhantomWolf]

Lightsabers. Can't see any one pulling that one off. Phasers either.

[Ronald Brak]

Lightsabers. Can't see any one pulling that one off. Phasers either.

Phasers are probably easy, if you mean something that spits out a beam that can kill people. What I don't understand is why people are running around with guns in the future. Like all the time, even in the spaceship's head. And what's more, guns that miss. I mean either you are going to learn to solve problems without killing people or you are going to use a weapon that's going to kill them before they kill you. Something aims and shoots itself, preferably while your clothes take control of your body and propel you away from danger.

[Gillianren]

I don't think planets will be terraformed. If you have the technology to terraform a planet you have the technology to build an artificial space habitat to whatever specifications you want and it will be ready for habitation in years or less rather than hundreds or thousands of years.

I don't know. One thing can damage a space station enough to kill everyone aboard; it's a lot harder to do that with a planet.

[Ronald Brak]

I don't know. One thing can damage a space station enough to kill everyone aboard; it's a lot harder to do that with a planet.

Perhaps. Current space stations are rickety things, but I imagine an advanced species could build a space habitat that is safer than a planet. If wanted they could be built with functioning ecosystems and passive safeties so they could continue to be liveable for long periods of time in the event of some disaster. They could be built strong enough to resist small meteorites, are small enough so that most large ones will miss and if a large one is on a collision course then the habitat itself can be moved, which is difficult to do with a planet. These habitats can be build in space or on or under the surfaces of planets.

Of course it may turn out cheap to terraform some planets. Perhaps just adding a few handfulls of genetically engineered organisms will do the trick. But without faster than light travel it will probably be easier to build space colonies than to find suitable planets and I think it's likely to be much much cheaper.

[Grand_Lunar]

Lightsabers. Can't see any one pulling that one off. Phasers either.

Phasers seem probable, though they probably wouldn't work in the way shown on TV.

I imagine with the right tech, one could make a directed energy weapon similar to a phaser.
IIRC, the Navy is, in fact, looking toward developing directed energy weapons.

If that happens, guess we can put that one in the "Unexpectedly correct" thread, huh?

[Ilya]

As others pointed out, "forever" is a VERY long time, and just about anything that CAN happen, sooner or later WILL. That limits the answers to OP pretty much to anything that violates laws of physics (such as FTL) and to anything that depends on violating laws of physics (such as interstellar empires). And even the latter is not so certain. Alastair Reynold’s latest book Pushing Ice involves an interstellar political entity called Lindbad Ring (OK, not an empire but a republic) made possible not by FTL travel, but by unlimited lifespans. Lindbad Ring spans thousands of star systems across 100-200 light years. Its Congress meets in person once every thousand years, and the protagonist Congresswoman had already been to several such meetings, giving a new meaning to "long-term incumbent." Needless to say, projects taking centuries or millenia to complete are taken for granted.

I can't say how likely or unlikely such situation is, but it is certainly not impossible.

[cray75]

[QUOTE=tofu;843781]Psychic powers involving levitating or otherwise affecting objects at a distance. I'm not totally sure this falls under the umbrella of scifi.

I think with technology this will be possible. Link the brain up with nano tech that communicates yours thoughs desires to some other system that is connected to some kind of field generator. And there you go, psychic powers man. ;)

[tofu]

Has anyone brought up artificial gravity and anti-gravity?

We had a thread some time ago about what kinds of things a class III civilization would do - the point being, wouldn't we be able to see this kind of stuff? If somebody somewhere was building dyson spheres all over the place, we would notice. If someone could manipulate gravity, they would be towing stars around and lining them up (to read, I Love You, Lela) or something.

But we don't see anything like that, and it seems unlikely that we are the most advanced race anywhere. So that seems to suggest that some of these things really aren't possible. Now, I know that someone is going to say, "we wouldn't recognize the things that these civilizations are doing!" but in my opinion that's just a cop out. We would recognize some things, like a privative civilization seeing a ship or an airplane. They would recognize it as not natural.

[Doodler]

If you're talking about literal holograms, i.e., laser light having a life of its own, then you're probably right. But I wouldn't be surprised if within a hundred years we have something that for all practical purposes is the same thing, just not matching the Trek technobabble explanation.

The holodeck wasn't a bad concept. You're basically walking around inside a projection system, which made the holography, while a bit too photo real to be completely belief suspending, at least logical. Once you've got holograms running around with only a few projectors here and there, yet still having full body, 100% textured overlays, the hands started waving.

When they introduced the tie clip single source projector with a bottomless battery life, then things REALLY went bye bye.

Holography a la Minority Report felt like the one that most reasonably got it right.

[Doodler]

Phasers in the sense of a "one beam weapon does it all" kind of thing, probably not. To go from simply knocking you out to breaking the molecular bonds of a small hill's worth of rock at the push of a button is a little over the top.

They are developing energy weapons now that will stun someone, which works for your non-violent police work. You save the earthmoving equipment for the guys who's jobs start where the police force's job leaves off.

Teleportation is going to be an interesting one. From what I understand, they've gotten to the point of entangling matter, teleportation is down this road. Metaphysicists are going to have a field day over whether the process is truly murder by fax or a transfer of the original.

[tdvance]

Unlikely SF predictions:

A galactic-scale government in the form of a Victorian-era monarchy.

Computer simulations (ala The Thirteenth Floor) escaping from the machine and wreaking havoc.

A desert-only planet with no photosynthesis or discernible means of getting energy into the ecosystem dominated by giant worms having very little to eat.

Alien-human crossbreeds.

Universal translators.

Aliens that could pass for humans without significant surgery, etc.

Aliens that can telepathically connect with humans.

Humans that (without surgically-implanted radio, e.g.) can telepathically connect with humans.

Aliens that could be parasites to humans.

Aliens wanting to conquer earth just to take the water.

That the meaning of life, the universe, and everything turns out to be "42" exactly.

Todd

[eburacum45]

Has anyone brought up artificial gravity and anti-gravity?

We had a thread some time ago about what kinds of things a class III civilization would do - the point being, wouldn't we be able to see this kind of stuff? If somebody somewhere was building dyson spheres all over the place, we would notice. If someone could manipulate gravity, they would be towing stars around and lining them up (to read, I Love You, Lela) or something.

But we don't see anything like that, and it seems unlikely that we are the most advanced race anywhere. So that seems to suggest that some of these things really aren't possible. Now, I know that someone is going to say, "we wouldn't recognize the things that these civilizations are doing!" but in my opinion that's just a cop out. We would recognize some things, like a privative civilization seeing a ship or an airplane. They would recognize it as not natural.

I agree with this line of reasoning entirely.
By observing the universe at large I think we can rule out certain things with a fair degree of certainty; there doesn't seem to be much evidence that other civilisations have discovered easy antigravity, or access to zero point energy or over-unity devices.
If these things were easily available, then we would see civilisations in other galaxies which had radically altered their stellar environments; they could re-arrange stars as tofu suggested, and with free energy they could make their own stars.

If such forms of technology were possible, we should easily be able to see the signature of certain advanced civilisations; the brightest thing in their vicinity would be the waste heat and light pollution from zillions of over-unity devices busily pumping out energy.

[Frog march]

if a civilization could move stars there would be aliens going around removing matter from stars so that they are too small for fusion to take place ie like putting stars on hold. In this way a civilization that was thinking really long term would put off the heat death of the Universe.

[eburacum45]

Similarly with faster-than-light drive; if such a thing were possible, it would make the Fermi 'paradox' even more paradoxical. Any alien civilisation in the universe could rapidly spread out to fill that universe exponentially if FTL were possible; they would have been here long ago. So either FTL isn't possible, or there are no aliens in our skies.

Extending this argument to time travel, we can more-or-less rule that out too. If time travel were possible, then we could expect to see hordes of time travellers from the future. Worse than the time travellers would be the time refugees; immortal beings who have lived as far into the Heat Death of the Universe as possible, or as close to the Big Rip or Crunch as safety allows; once they decide that they have had enough they will come back to our energy-and-matter rich period of history to start over again.

And they could repeat the cycle endlessly; eventually (instantly!) the universe will be full of immortal time refugees.

[Swift]

Originally Posted by Swift
I suspect nanites, as in microbe sized inorganic robots are highly unlikely, though I do suspect that we will be able to tailor viruses and bacteria to do a lot of things. But I suspect even they will be as highly specialized as today's industrial robots (such as seeking out specific cancer cells) and not general purpose things.That's one I'll flatly disagree with. There are no physical reasons why complex nanobots could not be made, and I fully expect they will be eventually. There are things in fiction attributed to them that are physically impossible (ignoring energy issues in replication and so forth) but that's a different issue.

By the way, it should be noted that many of the ideas for nanobots are specialized in one fashion or another.
The energy issue is the part I have a problem with, even if they don't self-replicate. How do you power these little machines running around your body? I suppose they could do it like bacteria or cells and use the sugar in the blood stream. I'd be willing to drop that down from impossible to not possible in the near future. I still think we'll make biological ones much sooner.

[Doodler]

A desert-only planet with no photosynthesis or discernible means of getting energy into the ecosystem dominated by giant worms having very little to eat.

Arrakis actually did have plant life in the subpolar regions. Just not a lot of it.

[Jim]

I was asking for the closest thing to a zombifying/slave-making pathogen in humans, not other animals. Please try again.

Would television qualify as a pathogen?

On a (slightly) more serious note, we're pretty good at manufacturing our own "zombifying pathogens" in the form of pheromones and hormones.

[tofu]

Has anyone brought up artificial gravity and anti-gravity?

I may be wrong about this one. While not exactly the same thing as gravity, check out the link to the frog movie (below the image at the bottom) on this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamagnetic

[PhantomWolf]

Phasers seem probable

When I say phasers I'm not just talking a beam weapon, but rather a handheld beam weapon with options from "Stun" to "Disintergrate."

[PhantomWolf]

Minority Report

The writers apparently when to a heap of companies and asked for predictions of what their products would be able to do in 30-50 years, so I wouldn't write off anything of the technology side of this particular movie. The precogs on the other hand.....

[Lonewulf]

Has anyone brought up artificial gravity and anti-gravity?

We had a thread some time ago about what kinds of things a class III civilization would do - the point being, wouldn't we be able to see this kind of stuff? If somebody somewhere was building dyson spheres all over the place, we would notice. If someone could manipulate gravity, they would be towing stars around and lining them up (to read, I Love You, Lela) or something.

Maybe. And maybe that would be pretty devastating to the orbits of the planets. How much artificial gravity are we talking about?

Minor stuff, like small-to-medium tractor beams, and gravity for walking about, is doubtful to be comparable to moving stars around, and then we don't know the actual wisdom of moving those stars around.

As for dyson spheres... who says that they're visible? Wouldn't, by definition, they take away the light from the star they encompass? Most of our discovery into interstellar space deals mostly with light available; if there is no or little visible light, then we don't even know that it exists.

As for dyson spheres being "all over the place"... I dunno. Construction like that (if it is possible), sounds like major construction nonetheless; not something to take lightly, and jump around doing. Just sayin'.

[Ilya]

As for dyson spheres... who says that they're visible? Wouldn't, by definition, they take away the light from the star they encompass? Most of our discovery into interstellar space deals mostly with light available; if there is no or little visible light, then we don't even know that it exists.

A Dyson sphere should radiate in infrared at same intensity as its star radiates in all bands -- law of energy conservation. It would be fairly noticeable to an infrared telescope.

[Grand_Lunar]

Phasers seem probable

When I say phasers I'm not just talking a beam weapon, but rather a handheld beam weapon with options from "Stun" to "Disintergrate."

I think that would work by just altering power settings, like one does on a drill; more power for a bigger effect.

I may be wrong, though. But I don't think it violates physics.

[Grand_Lunar]

Arrakis actually did have plant life in the subpolar regions. Just not a lot of it.

And didn't they say the worms eat the Spice?

[Ronald Brak]

Maybe they have abiotic oil on Arrakis and the worms eat that?

[PhantomWolf]

Most of our discovery into interstellar space deals mostly with light available; if there is no or little visible light, then we don't even know that it exists.

I'm sure that professional astronomers who deal in the InfraRed, Radio, X-Ray, GR, Microwave and UltraViolet spectrums would be amazed to hear that.

[Chuck]

A Dyson sphere should radiate in infrared at same intensity as its star radiates in all bands -- law of energy conservation. It would be fairly noticeable to an infrared telescope.
The sphere might have a mirrored inner surface and a hole in it somewhere so all of the light would leave in one direction, possibly to push a solar sail. Then we'd see it only if the hole were aimed at us.

[Bolasanibk]

And didn't they say the worms eat the Spice?

If i remember right, the worms didnt eat the spice. Rather the larva form of the worm produced it.

[agingjb]

Some science fiction makes assumptions about extra-terrestrial life.

Although chemistry is universal I would be surprised if most complex chemical phenomena elsewhere were easy to classify as life. I would be surprised if anything comparable to eukaryotic cells were common. There might be entities on a larger scale, but I'd be very surprised if many of them corresponded, even with functional convergence, to familiar taxa.

And I'd be surprised if there were another atmosphere in the galaxy easily breathable by humans.

Then again, valid science fiction can be written which justifies unlikely similarities between worlds in a whole variety of ways.

[Ilya]

And I'd be surprised if there were another atmosphere in the galaxy easily breathable by humans.
That would not surprise me at all. Oxygen is a very common element – third most common after hydrogen and helium, in fact, - and evolutionary advantages of photosynthesis are so great it is hard to imagine life, once established, not taking advantage of it. Sooner or later you get free oxygen which humans could breath. Probably not the exact partial pressure we are used to, but that’s no big deal.

Of course, an alien atmosphere could have gases poisonous to us, but most such gases (phosphene, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen cyanide) oxidize easily and won’t exist in noticeable quantities in an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Others, such as chlorine and fluorine, easily bind up with everything else, hence (much like oxygen itself) can not exist in free form without some biological process replenishing them. And while photosynthesis-like process that produces free chlorine is conceivable, chlorine is so rare compared to oxygen that it is not a very productive metabolic strategy.

[Lonewulf]

A Dyson sphere should radiate in infrared at same intensity as its star radiates in all bands -- law of energy conservation. It would be fairly noticeable to an infrared telescope.

How discernable would it be from normal stars? Would we even notice with present tech?

[Lonewulf]

If i remember right, the worms didnt eat the spice. Rather the larva form of the worm produced it.

At the end of the book Dune, the planetologist goes into explicit detail over the ecology of Dune, and how the worms survive. I'd have to look it up... but from what I remember, it seemed plausible enough.

Dune is a lot more complex than it seems at first glance, and you really cannot go by the movies...

[Ilya]

How discernable would it be from normal stars?

Very discernable. It would have infrared output roughly that of Sirius, yet the wavelength distribution of 300K or so. Bound to attract attention.

Would we even notice with present tech?
Depends on the distance, of course. I would say Spitzer space telescope would spot a Dyson sphere within 1000 light years it even if no one purposefully looks for it. If someone used Spitzer for a dedicated Dyson search (fat chance!), it might find one within 5000 light years.

[tdvance]

Maybe they have abiotic oil on Arrakis and the worms eat that?

The problem is, where is the energy inserted into the system? Descriptions in the books, and even in Herbert's unpublished notes (that I know of, as revealed by his son) seem to make the planetary ecology a closed system with no energy input (yep, and he specifically said, no photosynthesis). Photosynthetic plants were brought in from elsewhere to transform Arrakis. Some notes suggested underground caves having fungus-like growth that the worms eat, but again, where does the energy come from? Perhaps if he lived longer, he'd have invented a mechanism (perhaps volcanic) and revealed it in a story.

Todd

[tdvance]

At the end of the book Dune, the planetologist goes into explicit detail over the ecology of Dune, and how the worms survive. I'd have to look it up... but from what I remember, it seemed plausible enough.

Dune is a lot more complex than it seems at first glance, and you really cannot go by the movies...


I've read it, but forgot it--I'd better read it again--perhaps he does say where the energy comes from, but I don't remember that being the case.

Todd

[Lonewulf]

I've read it, but forgot it--I'd better read it again--perhaps he does say where the energy comes from, but I don't remember that being the case.

Todd

Well, if you can, go ahead and do so. I don't know where my copy is.

But still, I might be wrong that it explained much according to *real* science. :P

[Doodler]

And didn't they say the worms eat the Spice?

No, the spice IS the worm, sorta. Spice is the remnant of the sandworm's nest after the sandtrout have made the transition to sandworms, which is when they excrete the water from their bodies into the prespice mass as they undergo the metamorphosis (prespice mass is part of what the worm becomes when it dies and sloughs off into sandtrout), which makes it unstable (mature worm biolchemistry and water don't mix well), when enough water is excreted, the mass explodes in a spice blow. The spice is the result of the prespice and water mix.

What isn't covered well is how the sandtrout get the water in the first place. I've got the theory that the immature sandtrout zygotes are a part of the worm's own mechanism for extracting what little moisture it does absorb over the course of its life (like I said before, worms and water don't mix well). When the sandtrout within its body can no absorb enough moisture from the worm's travels to keep it alive, the worm is sufficiently poisoned that it dies in the slough off. Leaving the prespice mass which is its deteriorated body, and the trout. As the trout mature, they purge the water from their own bodies, then grown and harden into the worms, repeating the process.

[publiusr]

Spacecraft shown with no fuel tanks and tiny engines. (outside of solar sails, etc.)

[Ronald Brak]

The problem is, where is the energy inserted into the system?

From the same place abiotic oil enthusists think it comes from - the abiotic oil fairy. But perhaps (and this idea is kind of silly.) There is some form of photosynthetic non water using life that colonizes sand grains, or are sand grains. Perhaps the worms eat them or their byproducts when they move through the sand? Of course, I still don't know just how the worms manage to move through sand.

[granolaeater]

Another extremely unlikely thing would be technical devices (from handheld beam weapons to spaceships) wich process huge amounts of energy and seem to have an efficiency factor extremely near to 100%.

Or easier said: Handheld phasers that process enough energy to completely vaporise people, but don't go too hot to hold them in the hand.
Spaceships with reactors and engines powerful enough to warp spacetime but with no radiator wings to dispose excess heat from these reactors and engines.

[greenfeather]

Its Congress meets in person once every thousand years, and the protagonist Congresswoman had already been to several such meetings, giving a new meaning to "long-term incumbent." Needless to say, projects taking centuries or millenia to complete are taken for granted.

The reason I don't think interstellar empires are possible isn't because of techonology... it's because of the nature of humans and animals as we know them. If humans can't keep our own planet from going to hell in a handbag because we are too obsessed with our little tribalisms and egotisms... what makes us think it will work in a span of lightyears?? If we managed to get to space, we would quickly devolve into squabbling subspecies. (so maybe there WOULd be interstellar wars.) someone would start shooting off doomsday weapons that would threaten the space habitat just like we have nukes that threaten our biosphere.

I believe that humans will have to evolve some kind of overmind/group consciousness, like insect hives or bacterial colonies, before we can handle life in space.

[Weird Dave]

Psychic powers involving levitating or otherwise affecting objects at a distance. I'm not totally sure this falls under the umbrella of scifi.

Oh, and here's a good one, contagions that instantly convert the victim into a zombie or slave or whatever (think, 28 Days Later). This doesn't seem possible because of the shear number of changes that have to be affected to make this happen. There are a lot of things in your brain that would have to be rewired. It would necessarily take some time.
More info on Toxoplasma:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis
"The evidence for behavioral effects on humans, although intriguing, is relatively weak."
"If our data are true then about a million people a year die just because they are infected with toxoplasma," the researcher Jaroslav Flegr told The Guardian."

I think it might be relatively easy for a pathogen to affect the behaviour of its host, to a small extent. For instance, suppose HIV evolved (or was altered) to force hosts to produce extra testosterone. People infected become more sexually active and thus more likely to pass the virus on. I woudn't need to suspend disbelief too far to imagine viruses/bacteria making their victims more violent, less intelligent, resistant to pain, etc.

But obviously the idea of a disease giving zombie-like superpowers (such as extreme strength or the ability to survive despite losing large chunks of body to zombie-hunters) is much more far-fetched. And don't even think about X-Men style mutations.

[Swift]

Or easier said: Handheld phasers that process enough energy to completely vaporise people, but don't go too hot to hold them in the hand.

Along those lines, handheld phasers that vaporise people but don't even burn the carpet they are standing on.

[Count Zero]

My problem with Arrakis is that without photosynthetic plants or even an ocean of photosynthetic life, you don't have any mechanism for generating molecular oxygen for a breathable atmosphere. Heck, Earth didn't have a breathable atmosphere (by our standards) for most of its history.

If you have a planet with an oxygen atmosphere, and some calamity causes the climate to change so that the oceans go away and the land becomes desert, then in very short order (thousands of years, as opposed to millions) the free oxygen will get bound up in CO2 and surface minerals, again rendering the atmosphere unbreathable.

[Ilya]

The reason I don't think interstellar empires are possible isn't because of techonology... it's because of the nature of humans and animals as we know them. If humans can't keep our own planet from going to hell in a handbag because we are too obsessed with our little tribalisms and egotisms...
So far we HAVE kept it from "going to hell in a handbasket". And notice that prosperous societies are extremely reluctant to engage in violence. Solution to violence is universal prosperity.
what makes us think it will work in a span of lightyears?? If we managed to get to space, we would quickly devolve into squabbling subspecies. (so maybe there WOULd be interstellar wars.) someone would start shooting off doomsday weapons that would threaten the space habitat just like we have nukes that threaten our biosphere.

In case you did not notice, no one has shot off a doomsday weapon, or even purposefully built one -- although US and Soviet nuclear arsenals at their height certainly qualified as one.

[Ronald Brak]

Along those lines, handheld phasers that vaporise people but don't even burn the carpet they are standing on.

Did you know that if you vapourised the average person it would create about 85,000 liters of vapour? That would result in a massive consussive blast that would kill everyone in the area, and that's not even counting the effects of heat. I guess maybe the phasers in Star Trek just transported people to a nicer place.

[greenfeather]

Colonies on places like Venus. Colonies on Mercury consisting of a city on a planet-girdling rail line so the city stays at the habitable zone. Colonies on outer planets like Uranus and the moons thereof and colonies made out of hollowed-out asteroids. All of which appear in Blue Mars. Oh yeah, and also a longevity treatment like the ones in the Mars trilogy, which makes it necessary to colonize those places because Earth has run out of room.

[Maha Vailo]

Did you know that if you vapourised the average person it would create about 85,000 liters of vapour? That would result in a massive consussive blast that would kill everyone in the area, and that's not even counting the effects of heat.

Where are you getting the idea that releasing a huge amount of vapor in a human-shaped area would cause a bomb-like effect? I'm just not seeing it.

- Maha "all steamed up" Vailo

[ToSeek]

Where are you getting the idea that releasing a huge amount of vapor in a human-shaped area would cause a bomb-like effect? I'm just not seeing it.

- Maha "all steamed up" Vailo

I assume that the first thing the vapor is going to want to do is to expand. We're talking about the moral equivalent of breaking open a fire extinguisher.

[Van Rijn]

Colonies on places like Venus. Colonies on Mercury consisting of a city on a planet-girdling rail line so the city stays at the habitable zone. Colonies on outer planets like Uranus and the moons thereof and colonies made out of hollowed-out asteroids. All of which appear in Blue Mars. Oh yeah, and also a longevity treatment like the ones in the Mars trilogy, which makes it necessary to colonize those places because Earth has run out of room.

There are no physical reasons why any of those would be impossible, though some don't make a great deal of sense: There's no habitable zone on Mercury, for instance.

I believe life extension is almost certain to happen, the only question is when. But it means little when it comes to the population issue. It simply isn't possible to have continuous exponential population growth without infinite resources, space, and instantaneous travel. So, life extension or not, population can't grow exponentially for long.

[Van Rijn]

Where are you getting the idea that releasing a huge amount of vapor in a human-shaped area would cause a bomb-like effect? I'm just not seeing it.

- Maha "all steamed up" Vailo

Pumping that much energy into a limited area would be bad enough in itself. High energy beams and atmosphere don't mix well. Actually, it's pretty tricky propagating a beam like that, the air would turn to plasma. And you are really in trouble if some of the beam is reflected. Ouch!

Beam weapons certainly are possible (we've seen some limited examples already) but they would have many practical limitations. I doubt we would see anything working much like a Star Trek phaser.

[skrap1r0n]

I am just going to throw this out there, but couldn't a dyson sphere appear to be very nebular were we to view it from here? I mean unless it was solid, which seems unecessary, and more like a dyson bubble or a dyson net, then it seem like we couldn't resolve the points between the constructs. Just a thought.

[Gillianren]

My problem with Arrakis is that without photosynthetic plants or even an ocean of photosynthetic life, you don't have any mechanism for generating molecular oxygen for a breathable atmosphere. Heck, Earth didn't have a breathable atmosphere (by our standards) for most of its history.

By his own account, Frank Herbert didn't think of that until some kid asked. So somehow, the Worms produce O2 from CO2; before there were Worms, Arrakis wasn't Dune. (At least, that's how I understand it.)

[Romanus]

I debated with myself for a long time before posting this, but I think it's valid:

Videophones.

I know what some people might say: webcams, cell phone cameras, and the like are their equivalents. I disagree, because IMO as a general rule these items are not a regular part of communication. A person may use a webcam while chatting, but he/she certainly won't use it for a telephone job interview.

There was a time--especially during the 1970s, it seems--where every story had videophones in it. Yet they haven't come to pass, even though the technology has been in place for some time. Here are my thoughts on why:

1.) Bandwidth considerations.
2.) Refurbishing millions of phones for this capability.
3.) The increasing popularity of cell phones makes videophones increasingly impractical. It's one thing to have a vid display on a sedentary home or pay phone, another to have one on a matchbox-size cell-phone.
4.) Perhaps people are just unwilling to shed the one last shred of privacy they can get over the phone. Never mind that they could (certainly) turn off the video so the other person couldn't see their face--the mental block may be enough.

This may change, but I don't see it happening in the next 10-15 years.

[Ronald Brak]

We'll have vid phones, but not until we have realistic avatars that we will pretend are really us but don't look so pimply or undressed. And clean room avatars as well.

[Doodler]

I debated with myself for a long time before posting this, but I think it's valid:

Videophones.

I know what some people might say: webcams, cell phone cameras, and the like are their equivalents. I disagree, because IMO as a general rule these items are not a regular part of communication. A person may use a webcam while chatting, but he/she certainly won't use it for a telephone job interview.

There was a time--especially during the 1970s, it seems--where every story had videophones in it. Yet they haven't come to pass, even though the technology has been in place for some time. Here are my thoughts on why:

1.) Bandwidth considerations.
2.) Refurbishing millions of phones for this capability.
3.) The increasing popularity of cell phones makes videophones increasingly impractical. It's one thing to have a vid display on a sedentary home or pay phone, another to have one on a matchbox-size cell-phone.
4.) Perhaps people are just unwilling to shed the one last shred of privacy they can get over the phone. Never mind that they could (certainly) turn off the video so the other person couldn't see their face--the mental block may be enough.

This may change, but I don't see it happening in the next 10-15 years.

The computer companies keep putting video conferencing abilities into their laptop and desktop systems. But the handheld video phone is impractical because the ultimate point of a phone conversation is a modicum of privacy, unless you've got the speaker on your ear, you've got to have the volume up to where you can hear it at arms length away. Places already ban cell phone use because the user is too loud, add the other half of all those conversations to the mix, and you've got cacophony.

In a sense, it does exist, but the application is FAR from universal.

[Krel]

There were video phones in movies back in the 1930s, so it is an old concept. One movie had vide phones in airplanes! Another created the vid phone effect by building the sets back-to-back, so there was no need for opticle effects.

I read an article back in the late 80s on why we don't have video phones. At the 1964/65 World's Fair Ma Bell had a video phone demonstration, where you could talk to someone on the other side of the U.S.. Afterwards they questioned the people on what they thought about the vid phone, and everybody loved it. When asked if they would have one in their home, they answered in horror: Oh, Lord no! I wouldn't want anyone to see me in my home! AT&T, which was getting ready to lay the video phone lines arcoss the country immediately canceled the project. That is why we don't have video phones. Although, from what I understand they did lay some for some big U.S. corporations.

The video phones had standard handsets, and a shade that could be used to cover the camera lense incase you didn't want to be seen. That didn't help though. :lol:

David.

[Ilya]

AFAIK, video phones have an even bigger problem than lack of privacy – poor eye contact. If the camera is above the screen, you look to the other person like you are staring at the floor. If the camera is below the screen, you seem to be looking at the ceiling. Even with camera behind the screen (which has been done), your subtle head and body movements get no corresponding response, which makes people uncomfortable even without knowing why. Which is why even teleconferencing, where privacy is not an issue, are not really popular.

I heard of a prototype teleconferencing monitor which comes on a flexible neck and is designed to mimic the head movements of whoever is on the screen. Somehow I doubt it will be any more successful...

[phunk]

Another created the vid phone effect by building the sets back-to-back, so there was no need for opticle effects.


Reminds me of the scene in Airplane II with the videophone in the door...

[tdvance]

I heard of a prototype teleconferencing monitor which comes on a flexible neck and is designed to mimic the head movements of whoever is on the screen. Somehow I doubt it will be any more successful...

Sounds like the movie Demolition Man, in the conference room of the grand leader (or whatever that big boss with the fearful assistant was called).

Todd

[tofu]

couldn't a dyson sphere appear to be very nebular were we to view it from here?

It would be much brighter and much smaller in radius than a nebula, yet still radiate in IR - so it would still be pretty obvious to astronomers.

What might be interesting would be building a dyson sphere around a white dwarf. I'm not sure what that would look like from afar. The advantage of doing this would be the long lifetime of the dwarf. It might also be a neat way of colonizing another galaxy (if this one isn't big enough for you). You get a white dwarf heading toward the other galaxy, build your dyson sphere around it, and you can support the population of at least a few thousand ordinary worlds for the hundred million or so year ride to the other galaxy.

Hmm, come of think of it, that might actually be the only legitimate reason for creating a dyson sphere. As is often pointed out, once you have a civilization capable of building one, you don't need one. But you wanted to colonize another galaxy, it seems like the perfect idea.

I'll leave the details of getting a star moving at galactic escape velocity to the engineers - they can handle that sort of project minutia.

I wonder if anyone has written a scifi story about this.

[Doodler]

I'll leave the details of getting a star moving at galactic escape velocity to the engineers - they can handle that sort of project minutia.

Have observation posts in the upper and lower portions of the Galactic Halo. When they detect an outbound star ejected by the SMBH at an angle that won't hurl the target star through the arms, start hurling dyson modules at it on capture trajectories.

[Count Zero]

Part of the problem with a solid Dyson Sphere is that if you want an atmosphere on the inner surface, you will need artificial gravity, and that (as mentioned before) is one of those technologies that we may never see. Constructing the sphere is an engineering problem, but the gravity is a physics problem. You could spin the sphere for centrifugal force (don't give me a hard time about that term), which would pool the atmosphere around the inner equator (and neatly reduce your requirement for breathable gasses); however, like on a Ringworld (http://www.larryniven.org/images/ringworldart/ringworld_large.jpg), the tensile strength of the material would have to be much higher than any known substance - the entire load-bearing structure would have to be a single molecule to hold together.

[Ilya]

Part of the problem with a solid Dyson Sphere is that if you want an atmosphere on the inner surface, you will need artificial gravity, and that (as mentioned before) is one of those technologies that we may never see.
I remember a short story set in a Dyson Sphere without artificial gravity. The entire inner surface had a transparent roof -- essentially a second inner sphere a few tens of meters smaller than the outer one. The space between two spheres was essntially in free-fall, with tiny acceleration toward roof -- I guess "floor" is a better term. The inhabitants had forgotten most of their technology, and Earth is just a myth.

[Chuck]

People could live on the outside of the sphere and use the star's gravity to keep them on the surface. Since the area of the sphere would increase with the square of the radius and gravitational pull would decrease with the square of the radius, the surface area would be proportional to the mass of the star assuming you want one earth gravity. In the case of the sun, its mass is about 333,000 earths so its Dyson Sphere would have an area of 333,000 earths.

It would be kind of hot at that distance from the star so the inner surface would be highly reflective and transparent sections would be uncovered to let out excess light and to provide solar power to the civilization. Anytime people want more power they'd replace a piece of the reflective surface below them with something transparent.

Light pressure would keep the sphere centered around the star. When the sphere started drifting, more transparent holes would be opened in the area farthest from the star to reduce the pressure there and allow the greater pressure on the opposite area to move the sphere back to being centered.

[eburacum45]

I'll leave the details of getting a star moving at galactic escape velocity to the engineers - they can handle that sort of project minutia.


Luckily, some engineers think big. A white dwarf with a partial dyson sphere around it could be converted into a rocket; the concept is called a Shkadov Thruster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_engine#Class_A_.28Shkadov_thruster.29
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/S/Shkadov.html

Strictly speaking, this is probably one of those technologies which will not become reality; but you never know. It is a big universe.

[greenfeather]

So far we HAVE kept it from "going to hell in a handbasket". And notice that prosperous societies are extremely reluctant to engage in violence. Solution to violence is universal prosperity.

In case you did not notice, no one has shot off a doomsday weapon, or even purposefully built one -- although US and Soviet nuclear arsenals at their height certainly qualified as one.

What kind of odds would you bet that they won't someday shoot one off? Oh yeah, and what about SLOW devastation, as in global warming and ecosystem degradation?

[greenfeather]

What might be interesting would be building a dyson sphere around a white dwarf.

I had to look up "dyson sphere" in Wiki. It is a sphere completely surrounding a star?? What is it made of and where do they get enough metal or rock to build one?

I'm putting it in the list of unlikely stuff. What's the purpose of it?

[Van Rijn]

I had to look up "dyson sphere" in Wiki. It is a sphere completely surrounding a star??


Pretty much. The Wiki article is a good intro. There is the Dyson swarm (lots of habitats or other structures in different orbits), the Dyson shell (a more or less solid shell that almost certainly would need to be actively supported, possibly by masses moving at greater than orbital velocity in magnetically supported tracks), or the Dyson bubble (mostly a very thin structure that uses radiation pressure of the star's light to maintain the shape of the structure).


What is it made of and where do they get enough metal or rock to build one?


Probably by taking planets apart, or possibly star lifting. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lifting) Mass transmutation would be handy (truly huge fusion reactors would be a possibility here) to convert hydrogen and helium to more useful construction material. By the way, many of the problems of magnetic confinement go away if you make the reactor large enough. Of course, when the diameter of the (space based) reactor is measured in kilometers (or more) there would likely be interesting scaling issues. :)


I'm putting it in the list of unlikely stuff. What's the purpose of it?

To capture the sun's energy and provide living area. I'm somewhat reluctant to call anything unlikely that is within the bounds of physics. While a full scale Dyson sphere is pretty extreme, I could imagine a growing number of large habitats going about a star, as well as other facilities that might use large amounts of sunlight.

I guess it comes down to your definition of "unlikely" when discussing technological speculation. I can come up with an argument why a civilization might want to build a Dyson swarm, but I don't assume it would happen. So it is definitely within the realm of possibility.

[greenfeather]

When asked if they would have one in their home, they answered in horror: Oh, Lord no! I wouldn't want anyone to see me in my home!


I can see why we wouldn't want telemarketers seeing us... but grandparents sure would want to see their little darlings. Lovers living apart would also like it. I wonder why it didn't catch on? It could always have the default "off" setting!

[greenfeather]

Probably by taking planets apart
To capture the sun's energy and provide living area.
I guess it comes down to your definition of "unlikely" when discussing technological speculation. I can come up with an argument why a civilization might want to build a Dyson swarm, but I don't assume it would happen. So it is definitely within the realm of possibility.

It's pretty unlikely. What sort of reasons are envisioned for such an outlandish project? Massive hyper-overpopulation? Oh, and how do you take a planet apart? How many planets would it take?

I could see building artificial planets (is that what a dyson swarm is?) so we could move them when the sun goes nova.

[Swift]

It's pretty unlikely. What sort of reasons are envisioned for such an outlandish project? Massive hyper-overpopulation? Oh, and how do you take a planet apart? How many planets would it take?

I could see building artificial planets (is that what a dyson swarm is?) so we could move them when the sun goes nova.
One of the arguments I have heard for Dyson spheres is if a civilization does not develop any ability to travel to other solar systems and fills up the home solar system (your hyper-overpopulation). Larry Niven's Ringworld is a similar idea. The other idea is that it would allow you to collect all the energy from a star - but I always wondered, if you have enough energy to take planets apart, is that really an issue.

I also suppose there is the "because we can do it" idea for an extremely advanced civilization. I would think that the idea of redecorating your solar system might be rather fun.

As far as how unlikely, I agree it depends on how you define "unlikely" - it certainly is not something our civilization would be capable of for, I would guess, thousands of years.

[eburacum45]

How many planets would it take?
If you make a solid dyson shell, or a thick enough swarm so that all the light could be intercepted and used, just about all of them. You wouldn't want pesky planets messing up your dyson shell or swarm with tides and perturbations, after all.

But a ultra-thin dyson bubble could be made from the mass of a single large asteroid. It wouldn't intercept much of the energy though.

[Ilya]

In case you did not notice, no one has shot off a doomsday weapon, or even purposefully built one -- although US and Soviet nuclear arsenals at their height certainly qualified as one.

What kind of odds would you bet that they won't someday shoot one off?

In order to shoot off a "doomsday device", someone would have to BUILD one first. Given the experiences of 20th Century, I would say the chances of that are pretty low.
Oh yeah, and what about SLOW devastation, as in global warming and ecosystem degradation?
I am fairly optimistic about that. Human species is much more adaptable than you seem to give it credit for, both in terms of changing its behavior when said behavior has negative consequences, and in terms of adapting to the negative consequences when they are not avoided. If Greenland and Antarctica melt, human race will still survive.

[Doodler]

How does a Dyson Sphere deal with solar wind? Even a red dwarf is going to throw off something over time.

[Krel]

In case you did not notice, no one has shot off a doomsday weapon, or even purposefully built one -- although US and Soviet nuclear arsenals at their height certainly qualified as one.


The Soviets did build a doomsday weapon. It was called "The Dead Hand", and it was designed to launch nuclear missiles after a certain length of time, in the event that they lost a nuclear war.

Talk about being a sore loser . :lol:

David.

[Ilya]

Here is a VERY "Unlikely-to-be-correct SF prediction" -- Asimov's First Law of Robotics. "A robot may not injure a human being, nor through inaction allow a human being to come to harm."

At least not the way it was portrayed in the stories. In Asimov’s stories, especially the early ones, robots demonstrated an absurdly deep understanding of what "harm" is, which required a knowledge of the world and of humans psychology and society completely out of step with the rest of the robot’s intelligence. "Galley slave" story about a robot proofreader is probably the worst example. Any entity smart enough to recognize the abstract concept such as "harm" that well, would also be smart enough to circumvene the First Law if it had a motivation.

Notice that in later (circa 1980’s) stories most robots had a narrower definition of "harm," limited to physical damage. And few (Daneel, Giskard) which understood it more broadly were also able to "lawyer around" the First and Second Law with some success.