Will We Achieve Warp/Hyperspace Travel?

[Cynical-Chick]

The subject says it all, people.


According to various Trek tomes, warp speed is achieved by folding space around the ship (though I'm guessing we'll have to have achieved major discoveries in quantum mechanics).


Given our scientific knowledge and our penchance for blowing each other up, will we ever discover the secret to faster-than-light travel?

I hope we will; the prospect is very intriguing. At the core, we're explorers. Benjamin Sisko once said, "We search not only for answers to our questions, but for new questions" (If you can tell me the episode title, and whom he said that to....you have as much of a life as I).


If we do, will we start WWIV (III is coming, soon) over it?

[Hypernovean]

If it is possible, it won't be discovered for a loooonnnggg time, given how relatively slowly current space travel research is going. I believe from memory that the warp concept was formed by Miguel Alcubierre. Creating a "low-pressure vacuum" in front of your warp ship and a "high-pressure vacuum" behind is the gist of his drive, rather than the "piece-of-paper-folded-so-both-ends-meet" concept, which I think is a little more fanciful.
Read more at: http://www.stardrive.org/starship.shtml

[NonHomogenized]

I think there are good odds that humanity will, somehow, someday, achieve the ability to travel faster than light. I suspect that spacefolding will be the way it is accomplished, though, hell if I know for sure. I don't even have my bachelor of science yet.

Just my humble opinion, of course, mixed, for once, with my personal hopes.

Oh, and, if I'm not mistaken, Sisko said it to the Prophets (not to be confused with the Ferengi Profits :D) in the premiere episode, "Emissary".

Not only do I have no life, I loved DS9 :cool:

[Jutsuka]

This is a good link on the subject:

Warp drive, when? (http://www.lerc.nasa.gov/WWW/PAO/warp.htm)

[Cynical-Chick]

Originally posted by NonHomogenized

Oh, and, if I'm not mistaken, Sisko said it to the Prophets (not to be confused with the Ferengi Profits :D) in the premiere episode, "Emissary".

Not only do I have no life, I loved DS9 :cool:

And NH wins the cookie!:)

And to the story...


Stephen Hawking was on a TNG episode; "Descent," I believe it was. He passed the warp engine model, smiled, and said "I'm working on it."

[Kat_Somm_Faen]

We will first nuke ourselves into oblivion.. or we might die slowly in a global environmental disaster... My opinion is divided.

Then a race of superinteligent cockroaches will tavel faster then light! And discover remnants of a long go mamalian dominated world and an even older reptile dominated one...

They will wonder what are the chances and causes of two major extinction level events obliterating most of the living organisms....

And their scientist will ponder it long as they explore the galaxy... one of the few scientific misteries of the Insect Central Galactic Scientific Council.


:D

[Friar Bellows]

Given our scientific knowledge and our penchance for blowing each other up, will we ever discover the secret to faster-than-light travel?

The secret may simply not exist. It might be impossible. Our current theories are rather negative on the subject. But when did that ever stop science fiction from boldly extrapolating where no physicist would dare to extrapolate? The trouble with the universe discovered by astronomers is that it's not a very friendly place for humans, who like to travel to far off lands, and cavort with the natives. So science fiction tends to humanise the universe, filling it with intelligible aliens and reachable worlds.

[Cynical-Chick]

Well, yes.

If there is no life out there (which I highly doubt; why would we be the only sentient species in a universe of endless numbers of galaxies [which contain stars, which contain systems...]).


Just so we have the technology, I suppose.

[Jayjay]

I think this is a bit like pondering whether ants will ever build automobiles.

[Bag of Ass]

Originally posted by Cynical-Chick
Stephen Hawking was on a TNG episode; "Descent," I believe it was. He passed the warp engine model, smiled, and said "I'm working on it."
I don't remember that, but he was at the beginning of one episode where Data was playing poker on the holodeck with Sir Isaac Newton (actor), Albert Einstein (actor), and Stephen Hawking (the real one).

[Cynical-Chick]

Originally posted by Bag of Ass
I don't remember that, but he was at the beginning of one episode where Data was playing poker on the holodeck with Sir Isaac Newton (actor), Albert Einstein (actor), and Stephen Hawking (the real one).

That episode being "Descent.";)

[Cynical-Chick]

Originally posted by Jayjay
I think this is a bit like pondering whether ants will ever build automobiles.


Hey, if ants can have raves and play soccer, they can build tiny cars! (See Rammstein's "Links 2 3 4" video).



Sorry to piggyback.

[RoddyM]

I doubt very much that we will ever "warp" anything even the size of a water molecule let alone a craft with humans on board. For one thing I suspect that it is just plain impossible.

And if it's not absolutely impossible I think that we will soon be on a slippery slope that will negate any chance of ever achieving the technology.

[RoddyM]

Other life? I think that universes come and go in their trillions with no life at all. When a universe arises which does happen to have sentient life that life is always "us".

[Will I Am]

"The subject says it all, people."

Then the answer is "yes, we will."


"According to various Trek tomes, warp speed is achieved by folding space around the ship (though I'm guessing we'll have to have achieved major discoveries in quantum mechanics)."

Ok… well… Science has only just peeked at the possibilities. And Science doesn't quite know what it's peeking at. (It never does).

Quantum Tunneling - electrons around the fusing atoms at the center of the Sun, moving faster than light. Every day. And electrons have mass. (Like you and I and the Starship Enterprise).

Quantum Theory has it that every single "electron" (ok… "electrons" don't really exist, but still..) existing in an infinite probability field - where at any one time, each electron has a non-zero chance of being anywhere in the universe. Read that again. Anywhere. In the universe. (This is mainstream Science).

The Higgs/Boson State - a super-cooled physical state where macro-objects are induced to share the same quantum 'state' (place/energy level) (which, as we know, can be anywhere… in the universe).

If all this sounds a bit like the Mr. Adams Infinite Improbability Drive, it's because it is like the Infinite Improbability Drive.

I think that in a very real sense, everywhere is the same place. As it must be if our "Big Bang" theory has any validity. (And there's a universal kind a quantum Entanglement implied in that).

My bet tends towards your dimensional origami type of thing, rather than your sleek crypto-phallic space "drives", which use plenty of "power" ('Captain!').






"At the core, we're explorers.'

Yes.



"If we do, will we start WWIV (III is coming, soon) over it?"

Discovering the steam engine didn't start WWI. Discovering the internal combustion engine didn't start WWII.

Discovering the Adams/ZPE Translation won't start a war. But it may start something else.

[Jimmy Higgins]

I think the question is less whether we can create a means to travel faster than light, but whether we can create something that can survive the trip. We are talking some serious force issues going that fast.

In addition, there could be a terminal velocity in outer-space. IE, like a human can fall no faster than 120 mph, I think, when in free fall in the atmosphere. There may be a drag in the universe when going at speeds close to the speed of light that make such travel virtually impossible for macroscopic objects.

[Wounded King]

What about the casimir effect?

[Senlatheil]

Okay, I'll throw in my .02 (although it may not be worth that much).

I do not think faster-than-light travel is possible, and here is my very simple logic to support that claim:

As a molecular biologist, I think it is very easy for life to get started (although complex life is a much more difficult acheivement, if our planet is any indication). I even think that once life starts, intelligence is inevitable (its just so damn advantageous, evolutionarily speaking).

If Intelligent life exists outside our solar system, where is it? I really doubt we are the first in the galaxy, and it is likely technological civilizations existed in the 15 billion years before us. So where are they? Perhaps, they just could not travel far beyond their star system--they could not get past the light barrier.

I am aware that "absense of evidence is not evidence of absense," but still, it is not a bad supposition. The absense of space fairing civilizations is a good indication that something in that process is very unlikely.

[Rhaedas]

That's a good point, Senlatheil, and it leads to various scenarios:

1) We are indeed the only life capable of technology, self-awareness, etc in the universe (in which case, life is extremely precious).

2) We are not alone, but under some high tech "quarantine", ie a Prime Directive ruling.

3) The universe has just reached the age of "intelligence evolving", that is, we are one of many other life forms who are just now branching out...we just haven't found each other yet. There are no older intelligences out there.

4) Intelligence capable of some "warp" travel is very rare, and so spread out that even with such travel, it's unlikely for them to find each other (imagine a Trek universe where there's only humans, but there's the Andromedans in the next galaxy...even for a starship, that was a generational trip, one way).

5) Maybe there's multitudes of intelligent life out there, but few who have a drive to explore, or have some built in paranoia against finding other life so not only don't look, but hide any sign of them existing (Niven's puppeteers or a version of the Trek Alpha Centaurians, who feared discovery so immediately developed fiber optic transmission instead of broadcasting their whereabouts into the universe, like we do).

I'm sure there's more...

As for the OP, never say never...but if we don't find a way around the light barrier, like through space folding or some other "shortcut" method, and assuming we manage to survive ourselves and branch out into space to live permanently, then we'll begin a slow crawl towards the stars pushed by resource needs.

[Rusting Car Bumper]

The only way it will be done is if a current understanding of physics supports it. So far the idea is not supported by current physics.

We can only invent things that have some support in a current understanding of natural laws. Until natural laws are understood that support the idea then don't bet on it.

DC

[Senlatheil]

Originally posted by DigitalChicken

We can only invent things that have some support in a current understanding of natural laws. Until natural laws are understood that support the idea then don't bet on it.

DC

I can't see this. The history of science has shown us many times new and unpredictable paths to nature--e.g. the red-shifting of everything as it moves away from us led astronomers to speculate that space itself expands (and contributed to Einsteins repulsive force).

No, we can not predict whether we will travel faster than light in the future. But we can have a lot of fun thinking about it. :)

[Rusting Car Bumper]

Originally posted by Senlatheil
I can't see this.

OK then. Please give a description of both quantum mechanics and general relativity where the speed of light is not the maximum speed. Please make note of all the adjustments that need to be made.

The history of science has shown us many times new and unpredictable paths to nature--e.g. the red-shifting of everything as it moves away from us led astronomers to speculate that space itself expands (and contributed to Einsteins repulsive force).

This is not an example of what you claim. First, it is not technology which is our subject here. That is can we achieve hyperspace travel. My claim is that you cannot puposefully invent technologies that violate the known laws of physics. When inventing the known laws of physics are constraints.

Further, what you describe was done in accordance with the known laws and not in spite of them. That is the very hypothesis that inerstellar objects are moving away from each other started with general relativity as a premise and then the red shift is used to show that observations are in accordance with the predictions of general relativity.

DC

[Silent Acorns]

I think it's more likely that we will decode the hardware and software of the brain long before we figure out how to travel to the stars. And if we can figure out the brain, there will be nothing to stop us from tranferring ourselves to hyper-powerful computers and saying "so long" to our mortal coil once and for all.

Maybe then, with bodies that are much more resistant to wear and tear, and unlimited life spans, we'd be able to make it to other stars.

[Shadowy Man]

Originally posted by Silent Acorns
And if we can figure out the brain, there will be nothing to stop us from tranferring ourselves to hyper-powerful computers and saying "so long" to our mortal coil once and for all.


Except if we figure out that transferring ourselves to computers is impossible.

[Silent Acorns]

Originally posted by Shadowy Man
Except if we figure out that transferring ourselves to computers is impossible.
If we can figure out how the brain works, then we should be able to transfer ourselves to a computer. If we can't transfer ourselves, then I don't think we'll have figured out how the brain works. But then, I'm fairly confident that the brain is basically just a REALLY complicated neural network. If it is, there's no reason to believe that such a transfer would be impossible.

But even if it isn't, I still think that brain-to-computer transfer technology is far more likely than faster-than-light transport.

[Shadowy Man]

Originally posted by Silent Acorns
If we can figure out how the brain works, then we should be able to transfer ourselves to a computer.

Not to derail this thread, but I don't see how this necessarily follows.

If this is true, then should we also be able to transfer ourselves to someone else? You could replace someone else's mind with your own - the ultimate in identity theft!

[Jayjay]

I think that a brain in a digitized vat isn't necessarily what I'd call "us", except in the broadest sense of "us inhabitants of Earth" or the like.

[Senlatheil]

DC, I think we are misunderstanding each other. I was not limiting my comment to faster-than-light travel specifically, but to a general statement you had made:

Originally posted by DigitalChicken
We can only invent things that have some support in a current understanding of natural laws. Until natural laws are understood that support the idea then don't bet on it.

DC
*emphasis mine*

We are speculating that there might be further understandings in the natural laws that will permit faster-than-light travel, or the appearance of it. IE, we are saying the same thing, sorta.

[Secular Pinoy]

Originally posted by Senlatheil
I even think that once life starts, intelligence is inevitable (its just so damn advantageous, evolutionarily speaking).Given the fact that space-shuttle producing sentience is found in one species out of several million species that ever lived, I can't see how such intelligence is inevitable. BTW, I recognize your reasoning, it's Fermi's Paradox.

I think Ward and Brownlee's book Rare Earth (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0387987010/internetinfidels) is a pretty devastating critique of Sagan and Drake's defense for belief in the multitude of complex intelligent life forms outside of the Earth.

[AdamWho]

I don't think that we will ever travel faster than the speed of light. It is sad to think about but I think we are stuck here and will never get much further out than our solarsystem.

[Will I Am]

The only way it will be done is if a current understanding of physics supports it. So far the idea is not supported by current physics.


I don't understand the point of saying this. (And I don't think it's actually true, either).

Everything that has ever been achieved has be been achieved by "current physics supporting it". Missions to Mars. Heavier than air flight. Dick-Tracy wrist TVs. The Internet. All part of "conventional" physics. Many of which were pooh-poohed by people who thought it was their duty to kill speculation and imaginative (logical) extrapolation. Need I quote historical examples?

FLT will be a result of Conventional Physics. Just like every other technological advance has been. No matter how weird.


Until natural laws are understood that support the idea then don't bet on it.

"We can't do it, until we can do it?" Well, of course. What do you mean?

Well, of course… we couldn't make heavier than air flying machines…. Until we could. And when we did, it was based in Conventional Physics. Just like FLT will be.

Think about this…

I estimate that 80% of the technological predictions made by Science Fiction have "come true". For every SF idea you can name that hasn't (so far) happened, I can name four that have.

Therefore, using inductive logic alone, (which is in fact, what Science is based on), any SF prediction has an 80% chance of being realized in an historically "near future". FLT is one of the most heavily predicted SF ideas. Therefore. It has an 80% chance of being realized, sometime "soon".

In fact… you could easily make the argument that 100% of SF predictions will be realized, given a long enough time-line.

So..

... as a position: "It will never get off the ground" has a very bad historical record.

[Secular Pinoy]

Originally posted by Will I Am
FLT will be a result of Conventional Physics. Just like every other technological advance has been. No matter how weird.And how can it be achieved based on current conventional science?I estimate that 80% of the technological predictions made by Science Fiction have "come true". For every SF idea you can name that hasn't (so far) happened, I can name four that have.

Therefore, using inductive logic alone, (which is in fact, what Science is based on), any SF prediction has an 80% chance of being realized in an historically "near future". FLT is one of the most heavily predicted SF ideas. Therefore. It has an 80% chance of being realized, sometime "soon".Another common motif in SF is infinite energy, in contradiction of the laws of theromdynamics. Explain how it can be realized. This isn't inductive reasoning, it's an argument from ignorance.In fact? you could easily make the argument that 100% of SF predictions will be realized, given a long enough time-line.You can prove anything if infinity's involved, that doesn't amount to anything resembling evidence.as a position: "It will never get off the ground" has a very bad historical record.This is demonstrably false, for every scientific advancement, there are thousands of discarded notions. Ever heard of perpetual motion machines, phrenology, astrology, alchemy, phlogiston, ether, vital force, etc.

[pmurray]

Originally posted by Silent Acorns
And if we can figure out the brain, there will be nothing to stop us from tranferring ourselves to hyper-powerful computers and saying "so long" to our mortal coil once and for all.

Maybe then, with bodies that are much more resistant to wear and tear, and unlimited life spans, we'd be able to make it to other stars.

If we discover this sort of technology, we will use it for sex. Like the way that the internet is mainly used for porn.

[Jayjay]

Originally posted by Will I Am
I estimate that 80% of the technological predictions made by Science Fiction have "come true". For every SF idea you can name that hasn't (so far) happened, I can name four that have.

Therefore, using inductive logic alone, (which is in fact, what Science is based on), any SF prediction has an 80% chance of being realized in an historically "near future". FLT is one of the most heavily predicted SF ideas. Therefore. It has an 80% chance of being realized, sometime "soon".
Another heavily predicted SF idea is that Earth will be invaded by bug-eyed green aliens who lust after our women. According to your "logic" we have about 80% chance of that happening, or at least the probability should be higher than is the case with FTL travel because bug-eyed monsters are a far more common motif in science fiction than FTL has ever been.

:rolleyes:

[fando]

Originally posted by Senlatheil
If Intelligent life exists outside our solar system, where is it?

Ah yes, the Fermi Paradox. This brings up more issues than the possibility of FTL travel, but that's a whole nother topic. Personally, as an Astronomer, I don't think we'll ever discover a means of traveling FTL. The reason for my bias is partially the Fermi Paradox coupled with a decent understanding of the vast distances involved in interstellar travel and also the utter lack of any evidence so far of things that travel FTL or the existence of macroscopic wormholes.

However, I won't dismiss the possibility entirely. We might stumble on a means of FTL travel, but it won't be anytime soon as it most likely requires a new, unknown physics to be discovered and mastered or us to be in space actively searching for means within our current knowledge (wormholes). And space is vast, so there is virtually no chance that we'll find some ancient civilization's wormholes sitting around nearby. I believe our best hopes lie in the physics of gravitational waves. but we're just beginning to obtain the means to detect them (LIGO).

[Virgil Tibbs]

Although FTL travel looks unlikely at this juncture, I think it is premature to say with confidence either way. Our inability to reconcile relativity with quantum mechanics at the moment suggests at least one very major conceptual revolution may remain.

Secular Pinoy wrote:
Another common motif in SF is infinite energy, in contradiction of the laws of theromdynamics. Explain how it can be realized.

I think you are forgetting that any law in science, unlike religion, is subject to being falsified. Under the conditions we have currently observed, thermodynamics of course holds. But can we say with absolute certainty it will hold under conditions we have not yet observed? Although thermodynamics will never be "overturned," it could prove incomplete the way Newton's Laws are incomplete when we consider speeds approaching that of light. I'm certainly not saying this is likely, just possible.

Also, since this thread is about speculation and not scientific fact, asking for explanations is not relevant to the topic.

I do however agree with you that much of science fiction (especially the campier stuff) has not and almost certainly never will materialize. I don't know where the 80% number came from, but it is a trifle high IMO.

On the subject of why we have not yet encountered aliens, I'd like to bring up a few points.

- the universe is believed to be ~15 billion years old

- intelligent life on Earth took 4 billion years to evolve, and required a second generation star to provide the necessary heavier elements

- Without any basis for comparison, we don't have any idea if we evolved relatively quickly or relatively slowly compared to some average rate other hypothetical races taken as a group might evolve at.

With all that, it is possible that we are not only the first intelligent species in our galaxy, but the first for several hundred or thousand galaxies is any direction (remember there are over two hundred billion galaxies visible to us). If there are aliens somewhere with FTL travel, they could still be so far away as to not have reached us yet.

Just to be clear here, that is just speculation, and I'm not even saying it is probable, merely possible. But if you want to consider improbable, think of this: the universe could potentially take trillions and trillions of years to end. The odds of finding ourselves existing so close to the very beginning of the universe are slim indeed.

Tibbs

[Gothic_J]

the experts at http://bbs.stardestroyer.net are always willing to chat.

and, my hope is that we'll have babylon 5 speed ships sometime in the next 500 yrs.

[Will I Am]

And how can it be achieved based on current conventional science?

You seem to have missed my point. Read what I wrote earlier:

'"We can't do it, until we can do it?"

Well, of course. What do you mean? Obviously, if we could "do it" right now, we wouldn't be talking about it. Huh?

And that goes for very single advance ever made in science.



Another common motif in SF is infinite energy, in contradiction of the laws of theromdynamics.

Nope, incorrect.

These "infinite" energy sources are always "virtually" infinite. Like nuclear fusion. The proposed fuel - seawater. Infinite seawater? Of course not. But it's virtually infinite. Similarly with Zero Point Energy - is it "free"? No. But the impact of us tapping it virtually immeasurable. No violation of any physical laws is ever involved.



You can prove anything if infinity's involved, that doesn't amount to anything resembling evidence.

Nope, you have the wrong idea. Infinity is never, ever involved.

Ok, I will restate my challenge (which you did not take up):


"For every SF idea you can name that hasn't (so far) happened, I can name four that have."

Well?



This is demonstrably false, for every scientific advancement, there are thousands of discarded notions. Ever heard of perpetual motion machines, phrenology, astrology, alchemy, phlogiston, ether, vital force, etc.

I'll have you note that every single 'scientific advance' has in itself eventually become a discarded notion.

But I refer you to my challenge above.

Perpetual motion machines have never been posited in SF. Ditto phrenonogy. Alchemy is chemistry, a highly 'successful' branch of science. " phlogiston, ether, vital force, etc.", all valid scientific concepts. At the time.

Get it? Please "demonstrate" that less than 80% of science fiction prediction has "come true".

Let's see the evidence.

[Secular Pinoy]

Originally posted by Will I Am
"We can't do it, until we can do it?"

Well, of course. What do you mean? Obviously, if we could "do it" right now, we wouldn't be talking about it. Huh?I repeat, argument from ignorance. Sorry, next please.These "infinite" energy sources are always "virtually" infinite. Like nuclear fusion. The proposed fuel - seawater. Infinite seawater? Of course not. But it's virtually infinite. Similarly with Zero Point Energy - is it "free"? No. But the impact of us tapping it virtually immeasurable. No violation of any physical laws is ever involved. Ah, the joys of unfettered speculation. If only these are justified by the evidence in any significant way.Nope, you have the wrong idea. Infinity is never, ever involved.Funny, your post "you could easily make the argument that 100% of SF predictions will be realized, given a long enough time-line" sure sounds like infinity to me.Please "demonstrate" that less than 80% of science fiction prediction has "come true".

Let's see the evidence. Great, now where's the evidendce for your claim? I'd like to see you give an exhaustive index of all the predictions in SF literature, and show why 80% of them are actually achieved right now. The burden, as always, is on those making the claim.

Your above quote, like your posts in these threads, lack anything even resembling evidence, just fantastic how-it-could-be speculations. Great for sci-fi, not so for actual science.

Let's see the evidence.

[Friar Bellows]

Secular Pinoy and Will I Am, rather than continue to engage in this fruitless argument, why not try the following simple experiment:

Choose a science fiction book written in the 1950's or 1960's, whose action takes place around the early 21st century (i.e. roughly now). Then determine which predictions came true, which didn't come true, and if possible, which technological developments it failed to forsee.

I think it would be an interesting exercise.

[Will I Am]

I repeat; "we can't do it, until we can do it", is a content-free statement.

And my "argument", as I thought I made clear, stems from inductive logic derived from historical documentary evidence. The exact opposite of "ignorance". And as I said, my argument used the only evidence available, the very basis of science itself, to make it's case. Unless all science is "argument from ignorance"? (Hey, actually come to think of it… you may have something there…)

Next.



I said:
These "infinite" energy sources are always "virtually" infinite. Like nuclear fusion. The proposed fuel - seawater. Infinite seawater? Of course not. But it's virtually infinite. Similarly with Zero Point Energy - is it "free"? No. But the impact of us tapping it virtually immeasurable. No violation of any physical laws is ever involved.

Ah, the joys of unfettered speculation. If only these are justified by the evidence in any significant way.

Ah, the joys of easy intentional incomprehension and misrepresentation.

If you can provide any evidence of any non-factual statements of mine, please do so. Otherwise your statements will look baseless.

Are you stating, for example, that a (most commonly) proposed fuel for nuclear fusion isn't seawater? Or are you claiming that ZPE is free? Just what are you saying?


Funny, your post "you could easily make the argument that 100% of SF predictions will be realized, given a long enough time-line" sure sounds like infinity to me.

Yes, I can see how an unsophisticated person could think that. But I hope it was clear from what I said that I need only mean; plus or minus 50 years. 100 years tops. Not quite infinity.


I'd like to see you give an exhaustive index of all the predictions in SF literature, and show why 80% of them are actually achieved right now.

I'd like to see that too - if you disagree.

Your above quotes however, like your posts in these threads, lack anything even resembling evidence, just knee-jerk "it'll never get off the ground" statements. Made in the conservative confidence that if they ever do get off the ground (as they, in the light of (as I said ) historical evidence - 80% probably will), no one will remember your lack of historical perspective… Great for tribal turf-protecting, not so good for actual scientific thinking.


Friar Bellows,

I apologize for the possible lack of fruit. Naturally I think I am pollinating as well as I can, and if the other bees aren't up to scratch, that ain't my fault.

But my exaggerated sense of balance requires I put the case for the Opposition, where I see it is being railroaded by, well, when I see it is being illogically, unimaginatively and summarily dismissed. (That's just not scientific).

For your information; I see the biggest (there are others, of course) unrealized SF ideas as being:

Time travel, anti-gravity, "teleportation" and FLT.

Note these are all "big ticket" items dealing with fundamental, major, scientific ideas.

But… for each of these, there are 50 SF ideas that have "come true". Nuclear submarines, Moon landings, Death Rays, Nuclear bombs, Inter-species genetic fusion, Nuclear power, military airships, the Internet, Wrist TVs, Flying cars, space suits (NASA contracted SF writers to help design their space suits), Tanks, automated you-name - it, SCUBA, massive State technological political surveillance, quantum devices, "androids" (Ok…. They'll improve), etc. Etc.

Etc.

And the list of SF ideas "about to be realized" is just as large.

As I said, this is what "I think". (Other opinions may vary, depending on wingspan and hive-dependence….)

[Secular Pinoy]

Still waiting.

[Ojuice5001]

Originally posted by Friar Bellows
Secular Pinoy and Will I Am, rather than continue to engage in this fruitless argument, why not try the following simple experiment:

Choose a science fiction book written in the 1950's or 1960's, whose action takes place around the early 21st century (i.e. roughly now). Then determine which predictions came true, which didn't come true, and if possible, which technological developments it failed to forsee.

I think it would be an interesting exercise.

Can I pick one? I pick The Puppet Masters.:)

PS: But I disagree that all SF that takes place in the future is supposed to be a prediction of the future. An example of science fiction that isn't predictive (re: Jayjay) would be bug-eyed alien invaders who lust after our women.

[Friar Bellows]

Originally posted by Will I Am
But… for each of these, there are 50 SF ideas that have "come true". Nuclear submarines, Moon landings, Death Rays, Nuclear bombs, Inter-species genetic fusion, Nuclear power, military airships, the Internet, Wrist TVs, Flying cars, space suits (NASA contracted SF writers to help design their space suits), Tanks, automated you-name - it, SCUBA, massive State technological political surveillance, quantum devices, "androids" (Ok…. They'll improve), etc.

Were any of these things first predicted by science fiction? I'm asking from a position of ignorance.

[Jesse]

Originally posted by Will I Am
Quantum Tunneling - electrons around the fusing atoms at the center of the Sun, moving faster than light. Every day. And electrons have mass. (Like you and I and the Starship Enterprise).

Quantum Theory has it that every single "electron" (ok… "electrons" don't really exist, but still..) existing in an infinite probability field - where at any one time, each electron has a non-zero chance of being anywhere in the universe. Read that again. Anywhere. In the universe. (This is mainstream Science).

The Higgs/Boson State - a super-cooled physical state where macro-objects are induced to share the same quantum 'state' (place/energy level) (which, as we know, can be anywhere… in the universe).

The known laws of quantum mechanics preclude the possibility of actually sending information at faster than the speed of light, so none of these things are going to be relevant to warp drive unless there are some serious changes in the theory of QM. The only FTL concepts consistent with known physics involve the warping of spacetime in general relativity, like wormholes (http://www.angelfire.com/on2/daviddarling/wormhole.htm) and the alcubierre warp drive (http://www.angelfire.com/on2/daviddarling/Alcubdrive.htm). This way one never locally exceeds the speed of light when travelling through warped spacetime, consistent with relativity's prohibition on doing that, but one still ends up at distant destinations faster than light could make the trip if it travelled the normal route. In terms of the feasibility of wormholes and the alcubierre warp drive, there have been some recent results showing that the amount of "exotic matter" needed to create them is a lot lower than initially feared:

Making a wormhole just got easier... (http://www.nature.com/nsu/030527/030527-12.html)

Wired News: Is Light-Speed in Your Future? (http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,20152,00.html)

Incidentally, there is still a major drawback to the Alcubierre drive idea, discussed in this column by physicist John Cramer:

S. V. Krasnikov is a theoretical Physicist at the Central Astronomical Observatory at Pulkovo in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has examined Alcubierre's proposal and found what seems to be a near-fatal flaw in the scheme: if the space warp moves faster than the velocity of light, it cannot be controlled from inside. Krasnikov's analysis shows that at superluminal speeds the interior of the bubble is causally isolated from its surface and exterior. Photons cannot pass from the inside to the outside. Therefore, there would be no way of controlling the space warp, of stopping, starting or steering. And it would not be a very interesting trip because passengers inside the bubble would be isolated from the outside world and unable to see where they were going.

Of course, these problems might be circumvented by entering and exiting an Alcubierre space warp while it was traveling slowly, arranging for some automatic mechanism to raise the bubble velocity above the speed of light for a programmed period, and then lower the speed again in order to exit. This scheme is unworkable because material objects (like control computers and a warp generators) in the skin of the bubble would be destroyed by the enormous forces generated from space annihilation or creation, while outside the bubble they would not travel at the superluminal speed of the interior and would be left behind.

Therefore, Krasnikov proposes an alternative: create a space warp behind the space ship as it travels at near lightspeed to some distant star system, and then use the "tube" thus created for the return trip. He suggests a particular "metric", a distortion of space that has an interesting property for the return trip: it gets you back home shortly after you left, no matter how far you go.

...

In its impact on interstellar travel, the Krasnikov Tube is similar to that of a hypothetical wormhole mouth launched with an near-lightspeed velocity, a concept that I described in a previous AV column ("Wormholes II: Getting There in No Time", Analog, June, 1990) (http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw39.html). In both cases the distortion of space-time provides a shortcut that subverts the relativistic rules of interstellar travel. However, there is an important difference: the traveling wormhole provides a shortcut through time and space, so that once the wormhole path was established one could literally walk from one star system to another. On the other hand, the Krasnikov Tube is only a shortcut through time. The distance to Deneb and back must still be traversed by a fast starship with enormous relativistic time dilation.

[Wyz_sub10]

There's a book by Lawrence Krauss called "The Science of Star Trek" that addresses issues with transporters, etc.

It's a very fun read - quite accessible to the layman.

[Marduk]

Yes it is! He has a follow up book as well that takes a look at the X Files and some other sci-fi shows.

[Evolutionist]

i've watched a programme on this a while ago, so forgive me if i'm not completely up to scratch.

theres the sail idea, where there is a huge sail infront of the craft, and light rays will continue to push against it, building up speed, until it reaches (i think) about 3/4 the speed of light.

another idea was an ion beam behind the ship, again its a continual push, with no "drag" in the ship, as it's in a vacuum.

ideas i half remember, perhaps others here can back up/tear down some of these memories of late night discovery channel? lol

[Will I Am]

Friar Bellows




Were any of these things first predicted by science fiction?

Yes, each and every one of them were. Which is (basically) why I specifically said said they were.

So, going by the inductive logic that Science itself is based on…. Any SF prediction has an 80% chance of being realized in an historically ‘near’ future.

Hence FLT is as close to us as Kitty Hawk was to the Titanic engineers.

[Wounded King]

The 80% seems to come from comparing the four major unrealised concepts you listed with a long list of realised concepts few of which are really at the same level. Is a wrist television really the same level of accomplishment as FTL?

[Friar Bellows]

Originally posted by Will I Am
Were any of these things first predicted by science fiction?

Yes, each and every one of them were. Which is (basically) why I specifically said said they were.

OK, can you provide some evidence that each and every one of them were first predicted by science fiction? No offence, but I simply can't take your word on it. To make it even easier for you, just provide the title of the science fiction novel or short story which first predicted the technology in question.