Monday, April 27, 2015

Gizmodo- SI Fi Tech That Will Never Be Real

The Science Fiction Tech That Will Never, Ever Become Reality

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Filed to: OPEN CHANNEL 4/27/15 7:00am

The Science Fiction Tech That Will Never, Ever Become Reality

Science fiction has a pretty good track record of telling us what kinds of technologies (submarines, credit cards, cellphones) we should be expecting years, sometimes many decades, before they actually show up. But some technologies never make it out of our imaginations.

Tell us in the comments about the science fiction technology that you never expect to make the jump into the real world, and also tell us why (Too complex? Too dangerous? Too expensive to get right?) you think the case is so hopeless.

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Ria Misra’s Discussions

Labcoatguy
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LabcoatguyRia Misra
4/27/15 7:03am
To get the low-hanging fruit out of the way, the perpetual motion machine.

5 54 Reply
Wubadubdub
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WubadubdubRia Misra
4/27/15 7:04am
Star Trek style teleporters. For all the the issues with them not being able to work without teleportation pads on both sides the biggest issue for anyone using them would be the fact that each time you use one it KILLS YOU and replaces you with a duplicate on the other side.

68 158 Reply
- spatialwarp
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  spatialwarpWubadubdub
  4/27/15 7:06am
  
  Evidence please? I see this assertion about Star Trek transporters a lot, and no one has proven that the show establishes this is how they work.
  
  32 26 Reply
- Higgybaby
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  HiggybabyWubadubdub
  4/27/15 7:08am
  
  That’s what’s always bothered me with this tech. I mean, the concern was even mentioned in canon (Bones?). You’re essentially replicating a perfect copy of the original, which is destroyed at the source. That’s highly highly disturbing to me.
  
  7 28 Reply
- Cixelsyd
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  Cixelsydspatialwarp
  4/27/15 7:12am
  
  Basically, the idea is that the way transporters would work is that every piece of information about you, including the particles, their spin, their location, etc. is scanned and sent to the transport location. The original is then destroyed and a fully 100% accurate duplicate is made on the other end with all the same attributes as the original. The matter is not sent, just the information.
  
  18 34 Reply
- Wubadubdub
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  Wubadubdubspatialwarp
  4/27/15 7:12am
  
  I put a picture of the episode in question where it happens. It’s called Second Chances in TNG.
  
  Basically what a Star Trek teleporter does to you is scans you for your physical and memory engrams, disintegrates the original, and then uses energy on the other side to reconstruct a virtual identical version of that person or thing (though sometimes errors have occurred making them not quite identical).
  
  People are basically ok with it in the Star Trek universe by saying it really makes no difference because the method results in only one person existing at a time so there is a sort of “continuous consciousness.”
  
  The episode in question highlights the problem of “what happens when the original isn’t disintegrated?”
  
  Personally I don’t want to die for the sake of travel convenience, even if my near identical clone gets go to other worlds. I hate that guy.
  
  12 75 Reply
- Moruitelda
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  MoruiteldaWubadubdub
  4/27/15 7:14am
  
  each time you use one it KILLS YOU and replaces you with a duplicate on the other side.
  
  What’s really going to cook your noodle later is that that’s really no different from how we live our normal lives. At any given moment, we are simply a bit of lightly energized matter. You have no more or less a relationship with the “you” that you were five minutes ago if you are transported than if you just continue sitting at your desk.
  
  Five minutes ago you is dead, either way. Dead, and gone. Five minutes ago you morphed into present you, and whether you sat still or transported, present you still has all the same thoughts and feelings based upon five minutes ago you. But five minutes ago you is no more.
  
  Hold on. You’re about to die. You just died. RIP. And a new you is born.
  
  11 52 Reply
- Platypus Man
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  Platypus ManWubadubdub
  4/27/15 7:19am
  
  The show explicitly states that your matter is converted to energy, transmitted, and then reconverted to matter on the other end. Whether or not that’s possible is up for debate, but it doesn’t duplicate you and it doesn’t kill you. If it did, you’d see a lot more transporter duplicates out there (rather than the nearly-impossible-to-recreate circumstances we do see). I mean, if it’s just a moral issue regarding whether or not to balance the equation and destroy the original, surely the Borg and probably the Romulans wouldn’t care?
  
  7 19 Reply
- jmg007
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  jmg007Wubadubdub
  4/27/15 7:19am
  
  Transporters were always my biggest problem with Star Trek. They were put in as a easy way to get people on and off planets without production expense but basically make no sense.
  
  I still think the show (and all the subsequent movies, spinoffs) would have worked without the “transporter”.
  
  2 2 Reply
- spatialwarp
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  spatialwarpWubadubdub
  4/27/15 7:24am
  
  Hmm. You’re right in that the events of “Second Chances” make interpreting the transporter less than obvious. From Memory Alpha:
  
  Geordi La Forge informs the crew that apparently there was a massive energy surge in the distortion field around the planet just at the moment Riker tried to beam out. The transporter chief at that time tried to compensate by initiating a second containment beam. However, Commander Riker’s pattern maintained its integrity by just the one containment beam. And even though the second beam was shut down, somehow it was reflected back to the surface, and another William Riker materialized there.
  
  So it seems to me the only reason we got two Rikers is that there were two containment beams. So you could argue that in all other transports, with only one beam, you only ever have one continuous person. Does this still leave open the death-and-duplicate interpretation of transporters? Yeah, I think so. But I don’t think it confirms it either.
  
  7 Reply
- Alluvian_Est-Endrati
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  Alluvian_Est-EndratiWubadubdub
  4/27/15 7:26am
  
  Not so. The transporters break you down at the quantum level and transmit the particles through subspace and re-arrange them. Even the spin state of subatomic particles is accounted for. Yes you are disassembled, but the same energy state that comprises your consciousness would be preserved and put back into the proper alignment with the meat of your brain on the other side.
  
  Recommended reading: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Transport...
  
  1 17 Reply
- Sajanas1
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  Sajanas1Moruitelda
  4/27/15 7:28am
  
  That doesn’t seem accurate at all. Yes, you change over time, and you could say that the current you is alive while the past you is ‘dead’, but it ignores the fact that there is much more effective description of death, namely when your brain and body stop functioning entirely and start degrading. But your sense of self is continuous for a person’s life time, and that’s what matters. Maybe you could consider some sort of amnesia, brain damage or dementia to do what you’re talking about, since cutting off a huge swath of memories or brain function all at once can cause some pretty dramatic changes in personality, but for normal life, no.
  
  The issue with the transporter is that for an outside observer, you wouldn’t notice the difference between the exact duplicate and the original, but for the person being transported, their consciousness would just stop. Scattering someone’s particles is death, just like if you scattered them with a wood chipper, even if its by an energy beam that builds a duplicate later. Star Trek seems to presume that there is some sort of awareness that transmits with the transporter, perhaps because Star Trek seems to believe in souls and mental energy.
  
  3 7 Reply
- John Hazard
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  John HazardWubadubdub
  4/27/15 7:29am
  
  Wrong! For TNG they came up with an idea how transporters work that makes them not death chambers. The beam takes matter apart at the molecular level, moves that matter stream across subspace, and re-assembles that SAME MATTER somewhere else. Nothing is destroyed, no duplicates are made (except when the story requires something to go horribly wrong).
  
  Of course, there are times they had the transporter do things that it should, by their own rules, not be able to do, like age or de-age people. Those were just stupid stories.
  
  6 20 Reply
- BreakerBaker
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  BreakerBakerjmg007
  4/27/15 7:31am
  
  How is Khan supposed to get from San Francisco to Kronos instantaneously!?!?
  
  Actually, what’s great about transporters in the new Trek universe is that they render starships as means of interstellar transportation completely useless. You can transport from here to the freaking Klingon home world! The only reason to bring ships is to have something to carry your torpedoes, but even then, you could just use bombs.
  
  I guess starships may still have minor scientific utility in JJ Abrams Star Trek. They’re not really good for anything else, though.
  
  8 7 Reply
- ChakaOneNiner
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