Where Are The Edges Of Today's Technology World?

Veeru writes "As mentioned on Nova, my great-great-grandfather Amos Ives Root published the first eye witness account of the Wright Brothers flight almost 100 years ago. Scientific American had rejected his article as 'unbelievable' and 'having no practical application'. The secretive Wright Brothers allowed Amos to publish the article in his own Gleanings Bee magazine instead. Because of his objective account, other experimenters may not have received the credit they deserved. I recently realized that Amos was intent on investigating the highest tech advances of the day and that the airplane was the most advanced phenomenon he could find. If Amos were alive today, what obscure technology would he be pursuing?"

Comments

The edge?

[xeno_gearz]

While this is an interesting point to ponder, the viewpoint of Bill Joy is a valid counter-argument as well. I realize this has been discussed on Slashdot before but still, do we draw a line as to where the edge of technology is? I suppose we make these choices everyday but are they always the right ones? While I don't immediately subscribe to a theory of a robot takeover, as some fear, I wonder about the possibility of technology reaching points "out of control" of humanity.

Those points aside, I have been amazed by the research in nanotechnology and find the realm of mapping the human genome to be interesting as well. Perhaps subjects such as these would interest Amos? Perhaps these are not as obscure as other fields but these are certainly interesting studies.

Re:The edge?

[DAldredge]

I think people like Bill Joy, Ester Dyson and others draw/redraw the line depending on what will most help them sell books/sell talks/stay in the spotlight.

Re:The edge?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's put some napalm on the flames.

Genesis 1:28
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Now, prooftexting is an ugly thing. Rather than build a point on this let me ask:
Theist or atheist, how can we set about drawing a line at all?

I suppose we make these choices everyday but are they always the right ones?

This seems to crack open the whole moral/ethical wormcan.

How can you derive a generally acceptible idea of "right" (I don't see how, without becoming religious pretty quickly--lack of an absolute truth claim leads to everything being rationalizable)

Even if you manage the previous point, how do you manage those who simply will not play along? WMD, indeed.

Wait a minute--this is /. What are we thinking, thinking here?

Re:The edge?

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically, what you're saying is that an atheist has no fixed moral compas but a religous person has Absolute Truth(tm) when it comes to moral matters? I'm not following your reasoning here.

Re:The edge?

[Musc]

From what grounds would an atheist derive his fixed moral compass? A religious person can point to the bible as a source of Absolute Truth(tm) when it comes to moral matters. How is this not obvious?

Re:The edge?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are other sources of Absolute Truth(tm) amongst religous people. The bible isn't the only one, and guess what, they often disagree. How is the personal moral compass of an atheist any less valid than the differing flavors of Absolute Truth(tm) offered by religions?

Re:The edge?

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as you would like to believe otherwise, morality does not have to be tied to a god concept. I believe that my morals are probably very similar to any Christian. I just don't require "fear of god" to make me behave, I behave because of a respect for my fellow man.

Re:The edge?

[Musc]

Who said anything about 'valid'? If your moral compass is based on personal reasoning and logic rather than based on dogma, then it is open to debate, and anything open to debate is by definition not absolute truth, but rather an opinion.

How can you be sure that you are 'making the right decision' when your concept of right was defined by a process that might be subject to mistake?

Things sure are easier if you choose to believe unquestioningly in an absolute moral compass.

Re:The edge?

[D iz a n k Meister]

From what grounds would an atheist derive his fixed moral compass?

From any grounds he chooses. The only thing necessary for a fixed moral compass is that the morals are fixed. How is this not obvious?

Since I believe in situational ethics, you're both fscked in the head, regardless.

Re:The edge?

[Musc]

So a person is an atheist if he believes in an absolute truth other than the traditional notion god?

I was under the impression that an atheist was someone who treats logical reasoning as the only source of truth. Please correct me if I was misinformed. Under my definition, how an earth could an atheist have a fixed moral compass? New arguments could be persuasive and lead to a changed moral compass.

Re:The edge?

[D iz a n k Meister]

Not that I consider this any sort of credible source, but Meriam-Webster Online requires only the denial of the existence of God to qualify as an athiest, rather than someone who treats logical reasoning as the only source of truth.

I also think that "one-time" shifts in a moral compass also happen to those who believe in God. But I would still call that compass fixed, since it's position at any given point in time is known. Living with situational ethics, on the other hand, the moral position at any given point in time is not known. I live with situational ethics, not because of any belief in reasoning as the only source of truth, but because I don't think knowing the relative position of any moral compass at any point in time is necessary to know what action to take at that point in time.

BTW, the fscked comment I made earlier was more of a /. "greeting" rather than an accurate assesment of my feelings towards your beliefs.

Re:The edge?

[Musc]

Hmm, situational ethics you say. I have never heard that phrase, but in retrospect I think that this pretty closely matches my philosophy on life.

I believe in absolute relativism, to me the concept of absolute truth is a paradoxical statement with no meaning. Therefore decisions cannot be classified as 'Right' and 'Wrong' in any objective way, but only relative to what goals we set out to achieve.

Re:The edge?

[D iz a n k Meister]

Therefore decisions cannot be classified as 'Right' and 'Wrong' in any objective way, but only relative to what goals we set out to achieve.

Exactly.

Normally though, people I have heard using the phrase "situational ethics" have often used it in contrast to another desirable human characteristic, "integrity". So, it's definitely a double edged sword. . .and makes it hard to convince someone that "you are a man of integrity" even though you have "no moral compass." Absolute relativism seems like a much better phrase for keeping integrity, using the words "goal" and "achievements", etc.

Re:The edge?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe, but remember that Bill Joy is a brilliant geek, whereas Ester Dyson is in the snake-oil business.

[AC, flameproof suit, Dyson T-shirt collection...]

Re:The edge?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably a troll, but I'll bite anyway.

How can you be sure that you are 'making the right decision' when your concept of right was defined by a process that might be subject to mistake?

Short answer: you can't! But neither can you. If you wanted 100% certainty about anything, you would be paralyzed by indecision. This is as true of the religious believer as it is of a rationalist. What you can do is try to use methods which are more likely to lead to correct beliefs. Admittedly, there is no way to know with certainty which methods are corre ct, but I believe that empirical research -- opening your eyes and investigating -- is to be preferred over blind unquestioning obedience to tradition, or whatever. Whenever religion (by which I mean primarily Christianity here, since there are empirical religions (e.g., early Buddhism)) and science have disagreed, the empirical method has won out. Is the Earth at the center of the universe? Religion said "yes, because tradition says so; don't look through the telescope and verify it empirically". Fortunately for us, some were smart enough to look and see.

You also can't be sure that blind faith is 100% right, so we're both in the same boat in that regard. The difference, however, is that an empirically-based approach has been shown to lead to knowledge time and time again, while blind faith, well, doesn't have such a good track record (is the Earth flat? Is the Earth the center of the universe? Is there a celestial sphere surrounding the Earth in which stars are set? blah blah blah).

Things sure are easier if you choose to believe unquestioningly in an absolute moral compass.

Easier is seldom better! Perhaps it's easier to think that your government can do no wrong, but that doesn't make it right. And many things are easier for a while, until reality points out the folly in this approach with brutal candor. Many Germans in the 30s believed the propaganda they were fed, and it was easier to believe than to take the empirical approach and actually make up one's own mind. For a while, at least.

Re:The edge?

[Musc]

You are missing the point. If you have blind, unquestioning faith, then no empirical evidence can overturn your dogma, as it is true because you believe it is, any evidence otherwise can SOMEHOW be explained away if you try hard enough.

You can be sure you always making the right decision when you define 'right decision' as whatever is in accordance with what some book tells you the right decision is.

Don't confuse 'Being totally sure of yourself due to blind faith' with being 'right' in a rationalistic way.

Re:The edge?

[DAldredge]

Was a brilliant geek. Now he is just a salesman, and the product he is selling is himself.

Re:The edge?

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolute relativism is an oxymoron. An absolute relativism would require that the theory itself be relative -- i.e., not really absolute.

Re:The edge?

[jnana]

You are wrong. Atheism, etymologically, and in terms of common and scholarly usage, means exactly what the OED says it means: "Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a God." Note that it can mean 'not believing in' as well as 'believing in the non-existence of.'

Re:The edge?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are missing the point. If you have blind, unquestioning faith, then no empirical evidence can overturn your dogma, as it is true because you believe it is, any evidence otherwise can SOMEHOW be explained away if you try hard enough.

You are missing the point. There is a world of difference between "it is true because you believe it is" and "you think it is true because you believe it is." Believing something is true doesn't make it true. "Flat Earthers" belief doesn't make the world flat for them, however strongly they believe it. They only think it's flat, but they are wrong.

Re:The edge?

[Atryn]

Actually, if you want to get into linguistic roots, wouldn't Adeism refer to the absence or denial of god while Atheism would refer to the absence or denial of religious belief? As religious belief can exist without belief in "a god" (think Star Wars and that hokey jedi religion), atheism is more than the rejection of the concept of "god", but rather the rejection of any religion. I take that to mean that an atheist takes nothing simply on "faith", but instead requires imperical evidence.

Re:The edge?

[jnana]

Well, the Greek origin is 'atheos', which means 'no god' (a theos). Atheism, as I understand it, is the belief in 'no god', or the denial of the existence of a god, though it has also come to mean 'not asserting belief in God.' Adeism isn't a word, as far as I know, and deism is distinct from theism.

atheism is more than the rejection of the concept of "god", but rather the rejection of any religion. I take that to mean that an atheist takes nothing simply on "faith", but instead requires imperical evidence.

I disagree. Early Buddhism rejects the notion of any kind of a god, and also argues that nothing should be taken on faith, but rather tested and considered in light of empirical evidence. Buddha himself said that nobody should ever accept his words on faith, but should rather analyze very carefully and only accept them if they stand up to the light of reason. And yet, many people consider Buddhism a religion. Though to be fair, some say it is just a philosophy, so who knows??

Re:The edge?

[blincoln]

How can you derive a generally acceptible idea of "right" (I don't see how, without becoming religious pretty quickly--lack of an absolute truth claim leads to everything being rationalizable)

The two branches of utilitarianism work toward the end of defining ethics without religion. Its first incarnation (Act Utilitarianism) is impractical for human society, IMO, because it doesn't account for human emotions and reactions to situations, but Rule Utilitarianism is very useful.

Act Utilitarianism is basically the viewpoint of Star Trek's Vulcans - the greatest good for the greatest number, even if the lesser number are being sacrificed completely.

The idea behind Rule Utilitarianism is that you determine the ethics of a situation based on how applying any given choice in it would affect society if it were used as a rule to always be followed in similar situations.

The example in my ethics course at university years ago was of a hypothetical small town in the segregated/racist South of the US in the early 20th century.

In the hypothetical situation, a black man is accused of raping a white woman. The sheriff has no leads, but he knows if he doesn't come up with a suspect, a lynch mob is going to go to the black part of town and start burning down houses.

Act Utilitarianism says that he should find one random black man and frame him, because it will save the lives and property of a bunch of other people.

Rule Utilitarianism says that he should not do this, and just do his best to stop the mob, because if the police can arrest and frame anyone they want, no one will trust them and the current society will collapse.

Re:The edge?

[cmacb]

I think the really interesting technologies will come from out of nowhere.

Too many people kept waiting for AI to produce "thinking computers" and they are still waiting.

Too many people think nano-technology to work wonders and they are still trying to make simple gears do something useful.

Too many people think that Microsoft invented computing and don't realize that most of what we have today is simply re-hashing of things from the 60's, but in smaller cases.

Too many people think that Howard Dean invented the Internet (3 years ago they thought it was Al Gore) and don't realize that most of his policies were borrowed from Pat Buchanan.

We basically suffer from short term memory, short attention span and hero-worship that expects someone to come along and magically fix things without disruption to our lives. Fortunately there are some real thinkers who are not constrained by these stumbling blocks and are off doing real work. I expect them to come up with things that we haven't even considered, and then Microsoft or Howard Dean, or the like will take credit for it (and get away with it for the most part).

Am I a cynic? Yeah, but only based on past experience.

Re:The edge?

[Planesdragon]

I take that to mean that an atheist takes nothing simply on "faith", but instead requires imperical evidence.

1: It's "empirical". (bonus karma if you can catch the grammatical mistakes I'm bound to be making here--and no, that period-outside-of-a-quote is kosher.)

2: Atheists are no more able to not take things on faith than the rest of us; were that true, they wouldn't believe in some major historical figures.

Atheists, by and by, simply do not engage in religious discussions on the same level that "theists" do--and, honestly, that causes more confusion than anything else about atheism, even the whole strong/weak split.

(As for the original parent comment: I'm a chrisitan, and two moral compasses that I follow are "if everyone on earth did this, would the world be a better or a worse place" and "does this action hurt someone else to help the actor, or hurt the actor to hurt someone else?" Neither one of these requires a communication from the Almighty, which is, IMO, how He wants it.)

Re:The edge?

[can56]

Time travel, nanotech/chemistry, genomes, space, nuclear batteries ... , there are many edges of technology. Having perused the comments posted so far, I'm surprised no-one has mentioned near-instantaneous education via hitech methods (such as implants, pills, induction helmets, ...) which IMHO, would be the ultimate use of technology. Education. Doesn't anyone read classic scifi (say, P.K. Dick) anymore?

Re:The edge?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a talking head, Joy frankly sucks. I think he has enough money and smoked enough weed that he honest believes his stick.

And his recent technical work hasn't been marketable products, but it's done nothing to diminish his geek-cred.

Re:The edge?

[BuckaBooBob]

I get miffed when companies use current technology in the manner it was suposed to be used and call it a new technology... Eg "Advanced Web Acceleration Technology" Geeze.. Compressed webpages.. OOO! Thats a ground breaking technology.. NOT!

Lets see where is the Cool new Technology... Hmm... Compressing Files.. No thats old as Archive programs... What are webpages.. Nothing more than Files.. The only "New" thing here is compressing them before they are transfered over a modem..

So Basically they automated the process and most likely added cacheing servers.. All of this has been done for years.. adding all of this togther is called technology?

No I think its just common sence.. Nothing new and innovative here at all..

Re:The edge?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder about the possibility
of technology reaching points "out of control" of humanity.

Nowdays we have the capability (and we have
actually done it) to drop nuclear bombos, and cause
lots of death using chemical and biological weapons.
Have we yet to reach the point "out of control" ?

We have reached such point at least 100 years
ago, and we are now able to shift the Earth of its axis by the press the button.

Are you still waiting? For what?

Re:The edge?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I think Bill Joy is serious, although he seems somewhat overly paranoid. He's probably getting old and he is really somewhat out of his field.

But similar critics include very knowledgeable people, such as Martin Rees. I think his assessment that the human race has about a 50% chance of surviving to the end of this century without a major disaster seems reasonable.

Frankly, the irrational techno-optimists (Kurzweil, Minsky) are just as bad if not worse. The genuinely believe in sci-fi visions that are far beyond what we're ready to predict.

Myself, I think that the vast majority of technical breakthroughs are not dangerous, but if we're aggressively pursuing everything, it is sufficient that there exist some that are.

OT - I have nothing against pursuing technologies per se, but the current trend of commercializing stuff before they are even properly understood is wasteful at best and dangerous at worst.

The "deliver everything to everyone ASAP, and make it cheap" mentality can't be sustainable, especially with the population increasing even further.

Re:The edge?

[B'Trey]

No, you are missing the point. All you're talking about is the certainty that the believer places in his belief. Why can't I, as a libertarian atheist, be just as sure of my viewpoint as a Christian is of his? It isn't necessary for a philosophy to claim divine guidance for a follower to be sure of it.

Re:The edge?

[B'Trey]

And exactly how are these two different? If I "don't believe in God," then certainly I believe in His non-existence, unless you're of the opinion that I can simultaneously not believe in Him and believe in His existence.

"God? Oh, I believe He exists but I don't believe in Him." Huh?

Re:The edge?

[B'Trey]

An atheist is simply someone who doesn't believe in God.

As for my moral compass, I believe you have the right to take any action you choose so long as you cause no harm to the person or property of others. You can take that as a rational argument or an emotional one. In truth, it has aspects of both. What rational argument can you bring against that to make me change my mind?

Which isn't to say that its not possible that I may change my mind in the future.? But the same is true of the religious person. There are a great many people who once had strong religious convictions which they later abandoned. Human beings change. It's the one constant. I don't know what my viewpoint will be tomorrow, but right now, I am absolutely certain of what is right and wrong. No religious person can truthfully claim any more.

Re:The edge?

[mwood]

Name any point in history at which the human race had more than a 50% chance of surviving the next 100 years without a major disaster. 50% looks pretty good to me. (100% looks better but we'll never have that.)

And yet look at all the disasters we've had and still survived. Life is *tough* and humanity is one of the toughest examples.

Re:The edge?

[mwood]

A person is an atheist if his religion states that no gods exist. There are plenty of illogical atheists out there. One who treats logical reasoning as the only source of truth is a scientist.

(Notice that a scientist can take off his scientist hat and be a religionist too. Many of the greatest scientists were not only believers in one religion or another, but driven to do science as a part of their working out of their faith. Arguments between science and religion are like arguments between horizontal and vertical.)

Re:The edge?

[mwood]

"...to me the concept of absolute truth is a paradoxical statement with no meaning."

So you disbelieve in arithmetic? If you believe in ordinary addition, I can generate an infinite series of absolute truths for you.

Re:The edge?

[mwood]

Sorry, I read Asimov's "Olympiad" and learned to distrust instant education.

Re:The edge?

[Junks Jerzey]

Too many people think that Microsoft invented computing and don't realize that most of what we have today is simply re-hashing of things from the 60's, but in smaller cases.

To be perfectly fair, this affect's Linux as much as Windows. Linux users are happy with essentially 30 year old tech, and Windows users started with something else and have been happy to move closer and closer to 1970s tech.

Re:The edge?

[sketerpot]

Too many people think nano-technology to work wonders and they are still trying to make simple gears do something useful.

Nanotech is already doing useful or near-useful things. There are micro-pumps for doing, say, some biotech stuff with a lot of parallelism (there's already such a product on the way), and using an array of cantilevers for non-volatile memory. That's the sort of thing that nanotech is going to be good for in the foreseeable future, not gray goo.

Re:The edge?

[thered]

near-instantaneous education via hitech methods (such as implants, pills, induction helmets, ...)
Ever read Lem's Futuralogical Congress, shudder? A chemocracy is not something we should look forward to. And then of course there is George Lucas' THX1138.

We have enough of a problem with television.

Re:The edge?

[thered]

please excuse me for edging in on this off-topic, but quite interesting, discussion.

Isn't absolute truth more akin to the axioms of geometry than the logical manipulations of arithmetic? If absolute truth is like a set of postulates, then religion is the set of rules governing how one uses those postulates to decide how to act in the world.

Re:The edge?

[JAZ]

Whoohoo! Karma bonus!

The word "bonus" started a new sentence and should have been capitalized.

Re:The edge?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can have *no* belief in the existence or non-existence of a god. It's just a non-issue for me. I could also believe that the idea is self-contradictory, and that the sentences you have said are nonsense sentences, like 'how much does green weigh?'

Re:The edge?

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

Re:The edge?

[Musc]

For all intents and purposes, we have to believe in arithmetic.

But I certainly don't believe in ordinary addition as some kind of unfallible, absolute truth. To believe in mathematics (or anything that is the product of pure reason) like that would involve believing unquestioningly in one's own sanity, who can be sure of that?

Re:The edge?

[Atryn]

1: It's "empirical". (bonus karma if you can catch the grammatical mistakes I'm bound to be making here--and no, that period-outside-of-a-quote is kosher.)

2: Atheists are no more able to not take things on faith than the rest of us; were that true, they wouldn't believe in some major historical figures.

Well, it isn't grammatical really, but I think your second point would be much more easily read as: "Atheists are no less able to take things on faith..."

While I don't think it is quite the definition of a double-negative, it certainly hurts the eyes. :)

Re:The edge?

[Planesdragon]

While I don't think it is quite the definition of a double-negative, it certainly hurts the eyes. :)


Sorry about that.

Try "Athiests are no more able to test everything that they are told than anyone else."

Some Atheists have made the claim that they do not take anything "on faith", and so are somehow intellecutally on sounder ground than someone with a traditional religion.

My point is that this simply isn't true; while Atheists do not believe the words of priests, they still believe the words of someone without empircially testing them; while an extreme of not believing anything is concievable, it's also qualifiably insane.

Re:The edge?

[jnana]

You are conflating the following two types of scenarios: 1) I have faith in the homeless guy who lives on the steps of my apartment building when he tells me that Elvis is alive and on Venus and communicates with the guy via 'X-Raydio' signals that interact with the chip the government implanted in his tooth; 2) I have faith in my doctor who tells me that smoking cigarretes is causally related to cancer, emphysema, etc..

I have absolutely 0 evidence in either case, and the only way you can say that one of these is justified and one isn't is to distinguish between kinds of faith. Yet, you seem to have a simplistic notion that 'faith' is an all-or-nothing, black-or-white, singular phenomenon -- the same in every case -- and that any time somebody believes anything without empirically testing it, they are taking something on faith, exactly the same as taking on faith that Jesus rose from the dead or homeless Zeke is communicating with Elvis.

I would submit that there are different kinds of faith, and some are more justified than others. One characteristic that I would argue makes a faith more justified is that one could test it empirically if one wanted (conclusively), and that plenty of others whose opinions are generally respected have *already* tested it and found it satisfactory.

Re:The edge?

[Anonymous Coward]

Replying to your sig - if it's a long URL that puts you over the limit, use a redirector like snurl.com.

Re:The edge?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether you are attending a private sex party or a public club, there are some good manners that should be followed. Obviously these rules will vary for different parties, but here are a few good rules to follow so that you don't become an unwanted guest and never get invited back again.

• Don't be a sling lizard - In other words, don't get into a sling unless you have a play partner. And if slings are limited, give other people a change to use the sling.
• Lay down paper towels on the floor before playing to collect any spilled lubrication. You may also want to place a paper towel under the bottoms butt. Wipe off the play area and the bottom completely before leaving the play area. It is the tops responsibility to make sure the lube is wiped off the bottoms butt and that the floor and sling or table is wiped off and clean for the next person.
• Ask your host what the house rules are This includes where you are allowed to play and what supplies you should bring (I always bring my own lube, beverage, paper towels and other party supplies to private parties). At THE SLING you can bring your own lube or we sell it there. Bring your own beer if desired, we provide sodas, paper towels, gloves, condoms and shower. For all parties it's polite to bring your own towel in case you want to shower
• Don't just walk up to a play session and join in It's best to try to get some eye contact to see if they want you to join in. It can be very distracting to be in a scene and have somebody just join in especially if you don't want them there.
• Keep unnecessary conversation and noises out of the play area Try not to have regular conversations where people playing can hear you. Also, if you are a screaming or make loud noises during play, this may disturb other guests. Some people enjoy the loud moans and groans but many find it disturbing.
• If you move any equipment around return it to the original spot when done For example, if you raise or lower the sling, return it to where it was when you got there. Or if you move a table or chair, return it.
• Do not share lube. This can lead to the transmission of HIV and other diseases. The cans can become contaminated while playing so it's good to write you name on the jar of crisco or lube.
• Wash off hands and arms and dick when done playing Preferrably with an antibacterial soap.
• Don't walk around the party in street clothes or be a gawkerAt most play parties the guys are usually in jocks or chaps so that their butts are exposed

Proper Fisting Technique Photograph

Amos's interests in the 21st centure

[atommoore]

Well, if your grandfather were still alive today, I imagine he would be most interested medical technology.

specifically, in the next generation of Viagra, Rogaine, and the technology to keep human heads alive in jars as foretold by Futurama.

Re:Amos's interests in the 21st centure

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, i think he'd be scratching at the cover of his coffin....

Re:Amos's interests in the 21st centure

[cintyram]

i think he would find himself, and how he keeps hiumself alive so far!! he would surely be the oldest man alive;
That would be the most advanced technology.

http://www.distrowars.com
ps: on the contrary he would probably find how degenerate minds and corporate monopolies are still bullying their way thru society and feel sorry that there has been no advance on that front;

Time travel

[WinterpegCanuck]

As far out as it seems, there are real efforts in making a time machine. I forget what university was doing the research, but it involves using lasers crossing each other at 90 degree intersects to create a column or vortex of light. While this cannot let them travel back in time, it is theorized it will let particles travel through the time that the machine is turned on. I apologize for the specifics, but am sure the slashdot effect can find the specifics.

Re:Time travel

[WinterpegCanuck]

A quick google answered my own memory gap. Here is a short article on it. Yeah, bad karma for posting without researching better the first time, but I have an exam tomorrow. Back to the books. Cheers.

Re:Time travel

[s20451]

So if time travel is possible, where are all the tourists from the future?

Re:Time travel

[Fjornir]

Why the fuck would anyone want to come here/now?

Re:Time travel

[Terragen]

Haven't you ever seen Star Trek IV?

They're all back in 1986.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Most (all?) theoretical time machines only let travellers go back to the point in time when the machine was created/turned on.

Re:Time travel

[WinterpegCanuck]

That was the expectation of the lead researcher in the documentary I saw. He suspects the moment they turn it on and it works, he expects to get a message sent back to him from the future. The catch though is the portal exists from the time it is turned on until it is shut down. Talk about a motive for uptime.

Re:Time travel

[VertigoAce]

While I haven't heard about the theory the original poster was talking about, I understood it as allowing travel back to the time when the machine was turned on.

In general I agree that time travel backward through time is impossible using the same logic you used. Maybe (though I doubt it) it is possible to use a machine to travel back to when the machine was started. As such a machine does not currently exist, we couldn't use everyday experience to rule it out.

Re:Time travel

[whereiswaldo]

I figure this same reasoning as well as an argument against the possibility of time travel, however it could easily be possible given current events as a guide that by extension the future is totally corrupt and that people have no rights and are herded like sheep. Nobody would have access to such a machine except the ultra elite, just to further their gains in the future.
If they are too far in the future, there is no reason to go 'too' far back since that wouldn't directly - at least not predictably - affect and advance their cause.

Re:Time travel

[bomb_number_20]

Well, according to Dr. Peter Venkman, crossing the beams would actually undo the very fabric of the world we live in.

Re:Time travel

[s20451]

I assume you have heard of Occam's Razor, which (roughly speaking) means that the simplest explanation is probably the best. The simplest explanation for no tourists from the future is that time machines are impossible (or at least, time machines for travelling backward to an arbitrary time in the past).

Re:Time travel

[whereiswaldo]

Yes, I've heard of Occam's Razor (though I wouldn't say or agree that the simplest guess is always right).

Another potential reason for no tourists from the future could be that for someone to come back to our time would contaminate all human life here. They could be so inoculated that the germs they do have would kill us all. Like when the Europeans came to North America and so many Indians died as a result of their germs/diseases.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

"but am sure the slashdot effect can find the specifics"

No, the Slashdot effect is akin to quantum mechanics in that as soon as you try to look at something, it disappears.

No lasers required...

Re:Time travel

[Xzzy]

They're all several trillion miles ahead of the solar system's travel through the universe, beacuse while they nailed down the bit about time travel, they completely forgot to include a coordinate system so they'd actually show up on earth.

So rather they ended up in space exactly where the earth was when they pressed "go" on their time machine.

It's complications like that that make me wonder if time travel hasn't already been invented, it's just the poor guy sent himself into a deadly vacuum.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

in reply to:

"Another potential reason for no tourists from the future could be that for someone to come back to our time would contaminate all human life here."

that assumes the tech would NEVER fall into the hands of someone who doesn't give a flying fuck about the people of the past. unless some MAJOR changes come about in the future of humanity, I don't see this as a remote possibility as to WHY it hasn't been done.

Re:Time travel

[MisanthropicProggram]

We may not think anything happening now is of any importance, but maybe it's the beginnings of something big. It could be anything - the capture of Saddam? Maybe this event sets off a trend - (increased/decreased muslim radicalism??) - that will have effects for years.
Or, someone would want to come to this time to see what the U.S. was like when it existed. I'm sure the political landscape in the future will look nothing like it does today.

Re:Time travel

[Neck_of_the_Woods]

For christ sake "Don't Cross the Streams!"

Re:Time travel

[SuperMo0]

To see what Bob Barker looked like when it wasn't OBVIOUS that he was a reanimated corpse.

I'M ONTO YOU, BARKER!

Re:Time travel

[SuperMo0]

for someone to come back to our time would contaminate all human life

So why hasn't Michael Jackson been quarantined yet?

Re:Time travel

[starseeker]

Not sure what this would be, sounds rather funky. When you say time travel however be very careful with that label, since to a casual observer it invariably means travel into the past.

<OT rant>

The whole idea of taking traveling to the past seriously is pretty annoying. Quite simply, time travel into the past is not possible without abandoning the idea of causality. We (individual human beings) are a product of a society and environment which is also a product of human beings. What we do impacts the world, and the world impacts us. Therefore, any human being sent back in time would be a product of an unaltered environment. He/she would alter the environment in some way (by their physical presence if nothing else, even if there were no human interaction) and impact the world around them. However, the exact world which created the time traveling human no longer exists, so that exact person can no longer exist, either. Paradox, violation of causality. Not allowed.

To forstall any comments like "I'm not impacted by an air current somewhere in Brazil's forests" consider a scenario like this: the very slight change in air currents eventually leads to a change in a weather pattern in the future, which causes a thunderstorm to develop, which produces a tornado, which runs over your house and uses you for a dartboard. Yes it is fanciful, probability may be 0.000000000000000000001% or less, but it is NOT impossible. And since it is not impossible, and since we assume causality is an absolute, any path which allows the possibility of violation of causality is forbidden. Ergo, no time travel which involves any kind of interaction with the past. Period.

Of course, this rules out a lot of situations that human beings find entertaining, but suspension of disbelief in movies doesn't ususally cause me problems. If trying to do real research in time travel however, you're gonna have to get around causality. If we throw out causality, the foundations of our understanding of our existance crumble, so the arguements had better be darn good.

</OT rant>

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't they watch GhostBusters? You are NOT supposed to cross the beams!!!

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know I'm not from the future?

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

That was Egon not Venkman.

Re:Time travel

[orkysoft]

The solar system travels through space relative to what, exactly? Which location would you use as a frame of reference to measure its travel through the cosmos?

The center of our galaxy?

The center of all the visible galaxies? Oh wait, that's our galaxy itself.

The center of the universe? Which center of the universe?

Re:Time travel

[subtillus]

Time travel is possible now, you just can't go backwards.

See relativity.

Re:Time travel

[flxkid]

Maybe they are all those guys/gals in the asylums that claim to be from the future...

Re:Time travel

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Frame of reference issues aside, Time Travel in itself is impossible. All you end up doing is finding an alternate reality that closely matches your world in the past. Once you have that issue squared away, it's a trival matter to ensure that the alternate universe ALSO happens to be in roughly the same place.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, no shit. That guy's a dick. How do I know? Occam's Razor.

Re:Time travel

[EvilTwinSkippy]

The whole concept of causality is actually suspect. Sure it's popular in WESTERN thinking, but it's not universal.

So, what "caused' you to be born with Green eyes as opposed to Blue Eyes? Why do men have vestigal nipples? These are phenominon that exist, but they do not have a "cause" par-se. Causality implies a concious action.

Now, if you are willing to entertain the idea that a higher power is pulling the strings then all issues of causality are neatly handled by "God", or "Chaos", or whatever you wish to call that system that orchestrates the absolutely preposerous chain of "coincidence" that our lives are made up of.

(Disclosure: I heavily lean toward the divine intervention camp.)

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

"So if time travel is possible, where are all the tourists from the future? "

They died when the world ended, of course.

In all seriousness, I think time travel is possible. however, multiple-simultaneous-timezone-dimensions and 'forward/backward event' travel is most certainly not.

Re:Time travel

[MegaHamsterX]

Maybe there's no one to come back.

Re:Time travel

[naasking]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Re:Time travel

[Garmon]

They only come to scope out large scale disasters. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104362/ Would you notice a few oddly dressed strangers if the World Trade Center was falling down around you?

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you wouldn't, but somebody would. At least one out of the trillions of people who will exist in the future will want to come back in time to the present. If something like H.G. Welles' conception of a time machine was invented in the future, people would be coming back in them all the time. The fact that they aren't means that either the human race is wiped out before it invents them, or they aren't possible.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Sliders, in other words.

Re:Time travel

[jazmataz23]

Or you could read the article. Or the rest of the discussion.

Machines that would allow time travel could only allow travel by beings/objects in the future to the time the machine is invented/turned on. If we solve time travel, we enter a new period of civilization, wherin time travel has been possible from that time forward. For those who need it spelled out, we'll know we did it if someone from the future steps out of it as soon as it's turned on.

Far-fetched, but intriguing, from a sociological point of view. Essentially, think of the space contraction that mass global communications and travel have created and do that to time.

But man, the date of the article IS ironic. If only someone could have told the president in advance that al Qaeda was planning an attack involving hijacked airliners...
jaz

Re:Time travel

[lostchicken]

Actually, good karma for getting two (Score:5, Informative)'s.

Re:Time travel

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Actually a simpler explaination is that our era is so abominably boring that time travelers steer clear. Think about it, is there any point in history that you would last 10 minutes in, let alone find interesting enough to study?

I'd say Ancient Greece for me, but knowing my mouth I'd be swallowing hemlock by nightfall. Human history is filled with brutality and primative thinking. What is to say that future generations will not look back at us with the same aloof sense of superiority that we do to the people living in the Dark Ages?

Re:Time travel

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Stop dropping hints to these primatives or I'm going to have to report you to the Continuity Monitors.

Re:Time travel

[Creepy Crawler]

Can I assume that you dont believe in string theory and the multivere?

If you did, according to those theories, there are an infinite amount of universes. Causality would only apply to that universe.

Also, the idea of causality can only approach the speed of light. No information or energy can go faster than a light-time sphere from where you are relative from.

Re:Time travel

[s20451]

I'm not sure I agree completely in this case.

Define time travel as the ability to travel from the future to today, or any day before today. There is absolutely no evidence that even one person, object, or piece of information from the future has successfully done so. Thus, we are left with the following four possibilities:

- Time travellers have come and gone, leaving no evidence.
- Time travel is possible, but nobody does it.
- Time travel is possible, but the human race never develops the technology.
- Time travel is impossible.

Given past experience with humanity, we are extremely bad at cleaning up after ourselves, and not shy at all about trying new things, so I find the first two options extremely unlikely.

I would suggest that the available evidence is insufficient to distinguish between the final two options. In fact, if in the future it is discovered that time travel is both possible and feasible, I would head for the hills, for it would seem that the human race would be about to come to an abrupt end! (i.e., the world would most probably end before anybody could try this time-travel technology)

Note that my definition of time travel does not include the type in the article, where time travel is only possible back to the invention of the first time machine (because that day is currently in the future).

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you think the AIDS epidemic is rather strange? Breaking out in Africa and California at the same time in the 50s - 70s. And with people of different sexualitys too. It broke out with the homosexuals in California and the heterosexuals in Africa. Maybe two time travelers came back in time and accidently spread AIDS, therefore starting the epidemic of AIDS, so it could travel back and start itself in a gianatic timeloop from hell!!!

Re:Time travel

[ccnull]

If you were travelling back in time, why on earth would you want to come to 2003?

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever had a girl suck on those "vestigal" nipples? I know of one VERY DAMN GOOD reason on why we have "vestigal" nipples.

Re:Time travel

[a1cypher]

Personally, I believe that Time Travel is possible, but not quite in the way people would think.
Through time dilation (as theorized by Einstein), its possible to travel to the future simply by going really f'n fast. The equation is:

T = T0 / (1 - u^2/c^2)1/2
where T is the time elapsed in the rest frame and T0 is the time in the moving frame.

Just to give an example of how this would work... If you wanted to travel into the future 100 years, and only take 5 years of your life for the actual travel time...

105 = 5 / (1 - u^2)^1/2 where U is a multiple of c)
... some more math ...
u = .9988c

And that is the speed you would have to go in order to travel 100 years into the future while only spending 5 years of your life. Good luck getting up to that speed, and once your at it, I wish you even better luck when trying to slow down.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole concept of causality is actually suspect. Sure it's popular in WESTERN thinking, but it's not universal.

Why on earth is this new-age nonsense modded up? We're talking about causality in a scientific sense here, not a religious or spiritual sense.

Have you ever even had a university-level physics class? Funny how I can't recall any of my Asian or Eastern European professors talking about how causality is suspect, what with them being non-westerners and all...

Sheesh.

Re:Time travel

[PReDiToR]

If you invoke the name of Senior Computer Twissel, *I* will know what you're talking about, would anyone else?

Re:Time travel

[nEoN nOoDlE]

Here's one.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, the President, and the CIA, and plenty of others, *did* know in advance? From http://www.rense.com/general25/knewknow.htm:

In the summer of 2001, Russian intelligence and President Vladimir Putin warned the CIA that 25 terrorist pilots were going to hijack commercial aircraft for suicide missions.

Attorney David Shippers, who led the impeachment case against Bill Clinton, warned Attorney General John Ashcroft and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert that he had proof from a credible source (that he has still not revealed) about a plot to use hijacked commercial airliners to ram the White House and Capitol. (Source: Info Wars (radio program) Oct 10 2001)

This list of specific warnings about suicide hijackings is but the tip of the iceberg. The Bush administration received many more warnings of an imminent attack from foreign governments (Israel, Germany, Egypt, UK, Russia), FBI agents (whose investigations were obstructed) and covert operatives who were studiously silenced (Naval Intelligence Officer Delmart "Mike" Vreeland, for one)

See http://www.rense.com/Datapages/bushkn.html for more info.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I assume that you dont believe in string theory and the multivere? If you did, according to those theories, there are an infinite amount of universes.

String theory necessarily implies infinite universes, does it? Given the current state of string theory with it's many (highly hypothetical) variations, I'm having a little trouble believing this.

Causality would only apply to that universe.

Really? Perhaps you would care to enlighten us as to why this is the case.

And just out of curiosity, what exactly are your credentials in this area?

Re:Time travel

[nEoN nOoDlE]

if a traveller travels back in time, then perhaps his timeline has already been altered by the past in which he himself has returned to and changed? There... no problem with causality and with existence since he was born to travel back in time. I doubt someone would just vanish in a puff of logic once they figure out they've changed history, I think history will just change around them.

Re:Time travel

[Zebbers]

thats the same logic religious zealots use ;)

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe time ends before we discover time travel.

Re:Time travel

[Stray7Xi]

Causality implies a concious action.

Causility doesn't mean the cause is known or understood, it just mean it exists.

For example to a Determinist, the green eyes is just caused by DNA, which is caused by the molecules combining into strands, which is caused by the atomic physics etc. The basic idea is that everything follows a set of laws.

The point of common contention is quantum physics... scientists argue these subatomic particles act in a truly random fashion.

At which point the determinist says there's a hidden variable providing the causation for quantum mechanics, and since we can't detect this variable, it appears the particles are moving randomly.

At this point the argument is futile, since there's no degree of falsifiability. In other words, since the determinists are arguing something that CAN'T be proven false, then there's no point in trying to prove them wrong. Although it's still possible to prove quantum physics false (if someone manages to find a hidden variable), it will never be able possible to prove it true. Divine Theory also is not falsiable.

And my disclosure is that I lean to determinism, which is more intricate version of causility. It is generally frowned upon by a scientific community (who lean towards quantum theory).

Re:Time travel

[gl4ss]

dear sir.

your posting made no sense, so i'm addin some more stuff that probably makes no sense at all either.

all those things you mention were caused be quite many things(you happened to have right genes). as far as science goes there is no conscious choice as so(as having some higher intervene, as a sould or whatever), only reactions. now that might be hard to accept and only a few people can accept that and go on with their lives(and realise that it doesn't really matter if they don't have any choice in anything as it doesn't appear to them as so, call it destiny if you wish). as for me, i've 'chosen' that it hardly matters if the choice making engine in my head is just a device in it's nature, it hardly matters(and even if there is divine intervention, that hardly matters either as that's just another variable in the equitation and as it is impossible for me to see even the 'normal world' variables it really doesn't matter).

the most glaring problem in almost all light science fiction stories regarding time travel is that something(information, device, person) just pops out of nowhere or is in a state of infinite loop (usually this is a note from future that is later sent back to past, or a person meeting himself and warning himself because he remembers that he did it. like fry being his own grandfather).

divine intervention is just a handy scapegoat.

Re:Time travel

[tmortn]

I've always thought that was an obvious answer to that question. But few seem to get it. I guess most people just don't think of the earth as moving.

Boggle this, If time travel is possible and it didn't alter your co-ordinates in space/time.. IE you travel back but to the place where you where then waiting where you are the earth will come back at exactly the time you left it ( hmm thats assuming you didn't keep your current vector either which likely would not be the case, actually come to think of it with out the earths gravitational field you would be subjected to a centripidal slingshot away from earths vector ). However If you travel towards the earth you will reach it at some time between the time you traveled from and the time you traveld too. Depending on just how fast the earth is moving you could have an upper limit on how far in the future time travel is cracked that they could reasonably travel here to visit ( if you hold to the limit of Light speed and that time travel dosn't break it either ). IE you can travel to anywhen instantaneously but still not to anywhere instantaneously.

hmmm lets see... say the earth is traveling at 5% the speed of light and the fastest the potential visitor could travel in space is 10% the speed of light then your relative velocity traveling to earth should be 15% the speed of light. If time travel where invented in 20 years then the earth would be 1 light year away from its present location. The visitor could arrive no earlier than what.. 7 or so years from now ?

when traveling to the past you can always reach eath before you left it by slowing down relative to the earth.. IE it will catch up to you eventually. However this poses an intersting proposition regarding traveling forward in time. IE you travel forward but keep the location of the past and now have to catch up to the earth.. its concievable you could never reach the future before you would have gotten there anyway if ther isn't a technology for traveling faster than whatever the earths ultimate vector is.

eh silly thoughts.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

I time travel. Right now I'm moving into the future at the rate of 60 minutes per hour.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

To see what america was like before George Bush the Third started WW3.

Re:Time travel

[Xzzy]

well I was trying to be silly in my post but yeah it's got a lot of complications to it. You not only have to account for the earth's rotation (don't wanna appear over the middle of the ocean), the earth orbiting the sun, the sun circling the galaxy, and the galaxy moving through the universe.

You'd need a hell of a lot more computing than you could fit into a delorean's dashboard anyways. Assuming the universe has a fixed coordinate system. ;)

It's just as possible that time travel discovery would be synonymous with travelling at light speed, which I think einstein's theories account for anyways.

Re:Time travel

[PzyCrow]

No one will live to invent it.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they have successfully traveled back to our time.. but when they got here and realized they could never go back because time travel hasn't been invented yet, they went insane and are now confined in mental hospitals.

Re:Time travel

[Creepy Crawler]

Hmm... An AC asking for credentials.

Now THAT'S a laugh.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

george noory is planning on traveling back in time....very soon.

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2003/12/03.h tm l

*that's an l on the end of htm(l)

p.s. he is supposed to wear a tinfoil SUIT!

Re:Time travel

[babyrat]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

okay everyone who didn't read this please respond to this comment

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Right here -- greetings, people from my past.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

your assuming time is linear - what if it is a plane? or a sphere for that matter? it's 'time' to think outside of the box (oooh...that reminds me - it could be a cube too)

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

The torah may have been given to moses by a hebrew time traveller with a laptop.

"Contiguous without break"
"Black fire, on white fire"

If you believe the torah contains everything that ever was and ever shall be, it is possible it is the manifestation of causality in time travel.

All that mathematical magic that happens in that text is quite probably the divine fabric of the universe, rearing it's head much like a cosmic pimple.

Honestly, you humans think so three dimensionally.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

There's evidence alright.

The torah was given to moses by a hebrew time traveller with a laptop!!

"Contiguous without break"
"Black fire, on white fire"

If you believe the torah contains everything that ever was and ever shall be, you inherently believe it is the manifestation of causality.

All that mathematical magic that happens in that text is the divine fabric of the universe, rearing it's head much like a cosmic pimple.

Honestly, you humans think so three dimensionally.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

or maybe a supreme-being no longer is pulling the strings (of the instrument known as the universe)

perhaps the supreme-being made a self playing instrument(the universe).

the design was perfect and self sustaining. we desire to unlock the secrets, but we will only ever know a tiny fraction. right now we have our hands full with stuff like the cycle of life, relativity, quantum physics, sentient beings, etc etc etc.

this is how i explain god.

when the tree fell and killed your cat, god "didn't let it happen"

when you won a million dollars, god didn't scratch his beard and say "i think richard deserves to win 1 million dollars today"

those events are just a natural part of the universe that occur, because that's the way it is.

i imagine god watching us, and hoping for the best, wishing us the strength to make it through this physical existance with some kind of grace.

it's not what you do when you have all the marbles, or everything goes your way.

it's what you do, when things are all fucked up.

do you revert back to a primitive animal?

Re:Time travel

[EvilTwinSkippy]

None after a good dose of liquid amnesia, or a good shot with a Neuralizer. It's those little touches that make my job fun.

Of course it's even more fun to play with the travelers. It is amazing how often these time tourists have the memories of their trips wipes out. Especially if it's a big research project. I save that for the real pains in the ass. If I have to bail your ass out because you couldn't play by the rules, I can't help it if my aim isn't that good.

I just try to keep enough range to that I don't leave scars. 2 or 3 meters is a plausible mistake. Point blank is a disciplinary action.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

If it were a machine which allowed users from the future to go as far back as when the machine was first turned on, then I'd think the moment you actually do turn it on, you may instantly be greeted with visitors from the future? It would make sence... But by them doing that, don't they create some kind of split in the space-time continum? or are we just fubar?

Re:Time travel

[Quelain]

How is this crap insightful?

You have no idea what causality is, don't seem to know much biology, but you are sure your invisible friend is a better idea.

Re:Time travel

[tmortn]

Eh I'm not sure you couldn't fit it all in the dash of a delorean...

more silly thoughts:

if the delorean can hold preasure in a vacum environment and travel in space then you just have to travel back far enough that your in space/orbit etc... then you just need something pinpoint your location... IE constelations ( equipment used on Apollo or gps, whatever.

one of the quirks I came up with when thinking along these lines a while back was story using this as a 'cheap' access to space, ie you couldn't really travel far back in time but you coule travel far enough back that you were in orbit to the earth moving. Case you couldn't tell I'm not much for thinking up story lines.

fancy computing trying to land somewhere on the earth is pretty much pointless due to the relaitvely short time periods it would be viable for. I forget what the earths speed around the sun is but its (1/365/24)th of the circumference of the earths orbit per hour around the sun which is pretty damn big... ie (pie au^2). I imagine much more than an hour lands you in space by a fair margian for sure... hell if that long.

Re:Time travel

[Zirtix]

This is why you can only travel back to when the machine was started. You go into the machine in the future, and come out now. Distance travelled relative to machine = 0.

In fact relativity is why wormholes can be time machines.

Re:Time travel

[Tha_Big_Guy23]

Well, according to the theory presented in the parent post about the possibility of travelling to any time in which the maching had actually been turned on, one could in-fact travel farther into the past if there were a naturally occuring event that produces the same results, yet has been around for significantly longer. That being the case, then you could theoretically travel backwards from now using one of those naturally occuring corridors.

About causality, it's generally thought that no, you can't change your own past. The whole point of H.G. Well's book was that he couldn't change the past, because it was the past that caused him to create the time machine. Now if we throw into the equation the possiblity of a multiverse, then we have a whole new way of looking at the problem. Sure, time travel is possible, but it wouldn't be time travel per-se, it would be multiverse travel. Since the multiverse that you travelled to, never intersects the multiverse you came from, then you wouldn't have any fear of screwing up past events, because anything that you did would only affect the future of that multiverse, and not the multiverse that you originated from. The problem with that is, in order for you to be able to return to your proper time, you would have to locate exactly which multiverse that you came from, and follow the progress of that multiverse foward the amount of time you had been gone.. with billions of possiblities, then you're pretty well screwed because in those billions of possiblities, you will have only actually returned in one.

Okay, now my head hurts...

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you'd need to calculate relative to *space itself*. But even the shape of space changes and distorts as it expands / shrinks and stars move about. I imagine mapping entry / exit points over time could be a problem as brain-blendingly difficult as actually travelling through time.

The only way I can even speculate of calculating an absolute speed relative to the fabric of the universe would be to somehow use the speed of light. Work out how much energy is required to get up to the speed of light in opposing directions (assuming that's a limit), then average to get your absolute speed in terms of the speed of light. Test in six directions simultaneously to get your 3D velocity. I'm not sure if an approach along those lines would have any grounding in real physics (it sounds Science Fiction feasable anyway). If it is possible it may not even be practical as the accuracy involved would need to be insane at best.

If it worked - and even without time travel you'd have an interesting widget that would provide one function of a universal GPS system to give you your speed relative to the universe itself! (if small and accurate enough it could suplement accelerometers in spaceships, etc).

Re:Time travel

[Zirtix]

And it's 'possible' to use relativity to travel backwards too. See wormholes.

Re:Time travel

[photon317]

I haven't thought it through recently - but the last time I was contemplating such things, I seem to remember coming to these basic conclusions about time travel as we currently conceive of it (or theorize about):

Traveling to the future is very real and easy (relatively speaking) - although you're not really travelling to the future, you're just slowing down your local frame of reference while the rest of the world speeds past you.

Travelling to a past before backwards time travel technology existed can't happen, it just doesn't work.

Travelling backwards to a time when a machine designed for this purpose already existed may be possible. As a mental example you can imagine if you could create and manipulate wormholes, how you could set a pair up right now that someone in 2050 could jump back to you from.

Re:Time travel

[pitchpipe]

Actually, the probability is 0.000000000000000000001000000001%, but we'll let it slide this time. ;)

Re:Time travel

[firewrought]

The only way I can even speculate of calculating an absolute speed relative to the fabric of the universe would be to somehow use the speed of light.

The Michelson Morley experiment attempted to do this over a hundred years ago, but it didn't work. Subsequent experimentation has confirmed that "velocity relative to the universe" is not a meaningful idea.

Re:Time travel

[koekepeer]

you are talking functional explanation here, not causal

i must agree with grandparent poster: there is something very suspect about causal explanation and determinism in general. the main caveat being (IMHO of course) the limited powers of observation we have.

then again: how can i be sure? i lack the observatory powers to build up this argument. ah! philosophy sucks :)

the only thing we learn while learning is that we don't know shit. it's a fun thing, cause if you like learning, you'll have a continuous huge challenge.

on topic: the very nature of the question posed in the article makes it impossible to answer. great discoveries (and their recognition by others) have always been a funny coincidence, and they are only perceived as great in hindsight. i dare to state even that the amount of great ideas remembered is by far outnumbered by the amount of great ideas lost.

ignorance is ubiquitous, stupidity universal :)

Re:Time travel

[joshuac]

The center of the universe? Which center of the universe?

If you were on the time machine engineering team, and you were tasked with this part of the problem, I would say your search to find a fixed reference point to make absolute measurements off of is overly hard and possibly not even useful.

How would you _know_ motion for objects sent through time is going to match relative motion from the center of the universe (or anything else)?

Perhaps a better/much easier strategy is to stick with relative measurements; send something back in time 1/1000th of a second. Record relative movement from the starting point. Send something back 1/100th, 1/10th, etc. etc., recording movement.

Continue so you get a nice large sample set, plot the data, generate a model describing the interaction between time jump vs. distance jump. Test the model to see that it behaves as expected, if not, experiment more until it is felt your model is adequately debugged.

You will then have a useful way of predicting what will happen, without ever having needed to base things on any absolute measurement. Seeking the center of the universe for a fixed reference is now a moot point.

You don't need to have absolute measurements to do useful things. +5vdc being used in various places within your computer as your read this? Knowing that relative value is all that is necessary; the fact that the absolute (if there were such a thing) voltage of that same circuit is actually +30,005vdc doesn't keep us from getting the job done.

Re:Time travel

[Dr. GeneMachine]

So why hasn't Michael Jackson been quarantined yet?

So, from what kind of future do you think he is coming? That "planet of the apes" kind?

Re:Time travel

[nnnneedles]

Because the future hasn't happened yet!

Duuuh!

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Three words:

Multiple Universe Theory.

Solves all of the problems you've just described.

And offers solutions to problems you haven't even begun to imagine!

Re:Time travel

[Feztaa]

It's complications like that that make me wonder if time travel hasn't already been invented, it's just the poor guy sent himself into a deadly vacuum.

Ever heard of a little thing called relativity? I highly doubt that any time machine, no matter how contrived, could move you through time while keeping you absolutely fixed in space (mostly because there's no such thing as being Absolutely fixed in space; every measurement is relative to something else).

When travelling through time, you have to get from Time A to Time B, and somewhere in between, the process that takes you there would keep you fixed in position relative to where you were before, ie, you'd still be on Earth.

Even then, if time travel somehow kept you absolutely fixed in space, then you'd have to do your time travel on a spaceship that's moving quickly. In the case of going back in time, aim the ship at where the Earth came from, so that you'll be near it when you arrive at your destination time; if your destination is the future, aim your ship at where the Earth is going, and then when you arrive, the earth will be there too.

Then again, time travel is a trivially easy process... just as long as you're moving forwards :) (I'm currently travelling forward through time at a rate of 1 s/s, so I guess you could say my coefficient of time travel is 1. I wonder if there is work being done to alter this coefficient; negative numbers would be travel back in time, 0-1 would be slow motion, and more than 1 would be going into the future).

Speaking of that, I don't really believe that any time machine could instantaneously move you from Time A to Time B, for the same reason that it's not generally possible to move instantaneously from Place A to Place B. It takes time to move through space, so I guess it takes time to move through time (like I said above, we're cruising along at 1 s/s; there'd be rates of movement through time, just like there are rates of movement through space). Your time machine could have "fast forward" and "rewind" buttons, but you couldn't really have "skip to this date." Time machines would be more like tape decks than CD players :)

Disclaimer: I'm a total sucker for time-travel in movies and TV shows, even if it's only peripheral to the plot. I've yet to see a tv show or movie (or book, for that matter) that involved time travel that I didn't like. All the episodes of Star Trek with time travel were awesome, I loved Quantum Leap, Star Trek IV, Timecop, Millenium, 12:01, Groundhog Day, and the million other movies with time travel in them... I have a bit of a physics background, and I like to ponder the (im)possibilities.

Re:Time travel

[Feztaa]

why on earth would you want to come to 2003?

That's a good point; I spend a great deal of my time anxiously waiting for the next exciting version of my favorite open source software, I figure most people from the future would be too busy enjoying their great software to bother coming back here to bother us :)

Re:Time travel

[thynk]

Machines that would allow time travel could only allow travel by beings/objects in the future to the time the machine is invented/turned on. If we solve time travel, we enter a new period of civilization, wherin time travel has been possible from that time forward. For those who need it spelled out, we'll know we did it if someone from the future steps out of it as soon as it's turned on.

I did need it spelled out until I RTFA. I see where he's going with the idea that you can't travel past the creation of the machine that enables you to travel through time. However, that pretains to his theories and his machine. There is nothing that he is working on that would preclude another machine, using a different set of theories to produce a machine that would enable some object or person to be sent earlier than the begining of it's creation timeline.

Interesting that this morning I just finished a bit of Heinlein called 'Anywhen' where the idea is that time has 2 dimensions and only our inability to perceive this prevents us from traveling around to different timelines. Good stuff.

Re:Time travel

[Feztaa]

Wow, that's a crazy idea! You get the message the second you turn it on, but you need to leave it on for hundreds years, otherwise they won't be able to send you the message that you already recieved :)

Most people would probably think "well, we already got the message, lets just shut the damn thing off now", but if it's off, nobody can send the message...

On the other hand if you got the message, you could rest assured that the machine will be left off for the required amount of time for the message to be sent.

Personally, if I was operating the machine, after about 10 minutes, I'd send a message back 9 minutes that said "in 9 minutes, you'll get bored and send this message to yourself".

Re:Time travel

[thynk]

Which location would you use as a frame of reference to measure its travel through the cosmos?

Personally, I'd use the location where my house is right..... *NOW*.

Re:Time travel

[Feztaa]

Paradox, violation of causality. Not allowed.

I agree with you, but it makes for a very boring discussion :)

Ergo, no time travel which involves any kind of interaction with the past. Period.

But what if your time travel into the past was already a part of the causality? Eg, the world that exists today is only the way it is because time travlers messing with the past have made it this way. They can't "change" anything, any time traveller going into the past with the intent of changing events will find out that they are largely the cause of why the events are the way they are. Think Skynet. Skynet only exists because they sent a terminator back to kill the human opposition, and the human opposition only exists because they sent a human back to stop the terminator (who coincidentally fathered the leader of the human rebellion). Each side of the war sent an agent back in time; these agents weren't able to change anything, they simply fullfilled the creation of the world that sent them back in time to begin with.

Of course, Terminator isn't the greatest example because people messing with the past do manage to "change" the future, though only slightly (they can delay Skynet, but not prevent it). So that analogy is flawed.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly... In America, that type of logic is the opposite of what we use in our judicial system in general, and exactly the same as we use in our waging of wars. Which one's right? Sorry to be a troll.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Velocities on the other hand can be measured relatively. A point on the Earth's surface is not moving along a constant vector: its direction and speed change as the Earth rotates, as the Earth orbits the Sun and as the Sun orbits the Galaxy. So assuming the object that is time-travelling is not accelerated/affected by gravity while en route, it will appear to continue along the same vector. Meanwhile, the Earth has moved around its orbit and away from that vector.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't be. Mills proved that all probabilities in the real world are irrational numbers.

Re:Time travel

[The Grassy Knoll]

It's "primitives", you simian. Oops, there goes my cover!

.

Re:Time travel

[old_unicorn]

If time travel is possible, then you can go to any point in the whole of infinite time... Why would you bother with this particular few thousand years? Maybe with a wider perspective, this is quite a dull quiet period.

Re:Time travel

[Theatetus]

If something like H.G. Welles' conception of a time machine was invented in the future, people would be coming back in them all the time. The fact that they aren't means that either the human race is wiped out before it invents them, or they aren't possible.

Or that people don't want to come back to now. Or that they're good at hiding (ever see "Millenium"?). Or that they can only go back to the point of the invention of the time machine and no further (that's what I remember from the day in physics that the prof. talked about closed time-like loops; spin something heavy fast enough and you can make a sort of "time machine").

Re:Time travel

[EvilTwinSkippy]

No banana for you!

Re:Time travel

[jsebrech]

There are a lot of ways to imagine a system of time travel that preserves causality. For example, what if it's impossible to make changes that impact you being born and sent back through time? What if every change you make that you think will ensure you don't exist actually ensures that you do indeed exist?

Another way of viewing it is like imagining time as a branching tree. If you travel back in time, you would go to a common ancestor of a lot of different timelines. Making a change would branch the time tree, but would not prevent you travelling back from your original branch. This would also neatly explain why we haven't seen any time travellers. If you can't travel back in time in a way that allows you to travel back to your own time, who would want to? And even if someone did, they would branch the time tree in such a way that we, on an unpolluted branch, would never see them.

Re:Time travel

[naasking]

- Time travellers have come and gone, leaving no evidence.
[...]
Given past experience with humanity, we are extremely bad at cleaning up after ourselves, and not shy at all about trying new things, so I find the first two options extremely unlikely.

You are neglecting the possibility that the laws of physics might prohibit changes to the past so as to prevent paradoxes. Even if this were not the case, if they had time travel technology and they left something behind by accident, they could just return to a minute before they left and pick it up again. Why would there be a limit to the number of times they could return to undo damage? Or they would leave themselves a note in the past before they went on the mission, "make sure you have this before you leave." (similar to Bill and Ted's, "Don't forget to wind your watch!")

Re:Time travel

[naasking]

No, religious zealots don't try to prove anything (through rational means). They appeal to faith and emotions, not scientific principles.

Re:Time travel

[khallow]

The whole idea of taking traveling to the past seriously is pretty annoying. Quite simply, time travel into the past is not possible without abandoning the idea of causality. We (individual human beings) are a product of a society and environment which is also a product of human beings. What we do impacts the world, and the world impacts us. Therefore, any human being sent back in time would be a product of an unaltered environment. He/she would alter the environment in some way (by their physical presence if nothing else, even if there were no human interaction) and impact the world around them. However, the exact world which created the time traveling human no longer exists, so that exact person can no longer exist, either. Paradox, violation of causality. Not allowed.

While your concerns are valid, I do disagree. There's no evidence (how could there be?) that causality is a global property. As long as we have consistency, we don't need causality.

Re:Time travel

[mwood]

In fiction, the author eventually gets around the barrier at the machine's creation by the Tim Taylor technique: More Power! The idea is that it's relatively easy to travel between coupled machines at each end of the span, but with a bit more work you can push from one end without a receiver at the other. (_The End of Eternity_, _The Proteus Operation_, etc.)

OTOH Anderson's timecycles don't seem to have any particular limitations w.r.t. the date of their creation.

Re:Time travel

[mwood]

Oh, "velocity relative to the universe" has meaning, all right, but what it means tells us that it is pointless to discuss it since there can be no way to measure that quantity.

Re:Time travel

[mwood]

Hey, boys and girls, there's a book out on _How to Build a Time Machine_. (Sorry, Author, my copy's at home and I'm terrible with names.) Go read it to get some of the wild ideas out of the way, then come back and discuss what's left.

Re:Time travel

[mwood]

Maybe the Time Patrol herds the silly tourists back home before they mess up the future? :-)

Re:Time travel

[Alsee]

Actually that isn't a problem. Every scientific description of a potential time machine design I have ever seen inherently incorporates proper and consistand spacial coordinates.

For example the new light-based time machine design essentially creates a "tunnel" through time. The time machine itself is like pluming. While something travels through time it stays "inside" the machine. You stick something in one end of the pipe and the machine itself is the "walls" of the pipe. No matter how the time machine moves through space the object going back in time naturally follows that motion. Wherever and whenever the machine is turned on, that is where and when the object pops out of the "time-pipe".

The time machine spins around the earth once every 24-hours, the earth spins around the sun one a year, the sun spins around the center of the galaxy, the galaxy flies through space, but the time machine itself becomes a twisting twirling pipeline.

-

Re:Time travel

[BigGerman]

Verrrry nice comment!
It also explains why we cannot see any traces of visitors from the future. Simply because this, current, instance of a universe has not been visited does not mean none were.
This approach makes the whole time travel thing not a physics problem but a probabilities problem.
After all, I imagine a new version of a universe is created any time dice roll: any time when something (person, worm, atom) assumes the one of several possible outcomes.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

> I apologize for the specifics

Apology accepted. In future, however, please remember to be as vague as possible, this is Slashdot after all.

Re:Time travel

[Yanray]

1986 was the only period of time William Shatners hair would have been considered fashionable. They were greatly limited in time periods in which Shatner could get laid.

Re:Time travel

[mwigmani]

I was always under the impression that backwards time travel would be impossible due to the unresolvable paradoxes that could conceivably occur. Ie. I go back in time and murder my grandmother, which would cause me to never be born which would make it impossible for me to go back in time to kill my grandmother which means she wouldn't die at my hands which would mean that i would be born and could go back in time and kill her which would mean I would never be born, blah, blah etc.

Re:Time travel

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Have you ever sat down and worked out the probability of you surviving tomarrow? Calculated the raw probability of being wacked by a bus crossing the street, or spontaneously dying from a blood clot? Really bake your noodle, calculate the probability that you were born at all, or the probability that you managed to survive until this point.

Go ahead. Work it out. I'll wait.

If your math was done properly, you are dead by now. At least according to population figures based on everyone who has ever lived. Alright, you say, but medical science has advanced. Re-work your math based on people your age living where your live... and there you run into the problem.

Statistics only work when you throw out information and focus on what can be enumerated. Determinism only works if you ignore whole realms of possibility. You can explain a chunk of the world using those systems, but not the whole world.

And even in statistics you see signs of a higher order at work. Where does the "bell curve" come from? I understand regression to the mean, my question is WHY is there regression to the mean? If the bell curve is some fundimental law then WHY do outliers exist?

You learn, quickly, that why doesn't apply. You have to just sit back, shut up, and accept what your observations tell you. Thus, you are back where you started with before you compiled that statistic.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course there are some very heavy objects spinning at incredible speeds now - neutron stars and black holes for example. They are rotating thousands of times per second, with a mass of a million or billions of Suns. We should be seeing/feeling "time waves" from these object, shouldn't we? Perhaps nature has provided some type of dampening field...

Re:Time travel

[Moeses]

Perhaps a better/much easier strategy is to stick with relative measurements; send something back in time 1/1000th of a second. Record relative movement from the starting point. Send something back 1/100th, 1/10th, etc. etc., recording movement.

The cool thing about this is that you can collect all your data before you've run the experiment!

Re:Time travel

[RetroGeek]

You are neglecting the possibility that the laws of physics might prohibit changes to the past so as to prevent paradoxes.

Which would make time travel impossible.

Define a change that is small enough that it will not have some large effect later (chaos theory).

For instance, kill a bee. Small change? What if that bee was destined to fly in front of a genius on a motorcycle (helmet but no face mask). No bee, no crash, genius lives!

Machines rule!!

Re:Time travel

[gl4ss]

?

if i could take everything into calculation i wouldn't need to calculate a _probability_. i never spoke of statistics, using them to predict the future is just using a mathematic simplification of the world(and as such imperfect by definition).

i can't however take everything into calculation, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't be done theoretically(and thus i am lacking the 'free choice' ideal, as everything i do depends on the situation that lead to it). if i had to make every 'choice' i have ever made in my life again under the _exact_ same situations(ie. it was the same world, the same day, the same me) i was when i made those choices, i would end up just here writing this very same slashdot posting i am writing now.

does it matter? no. what matters is that i should go to sleep.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

"As long as we have consistency, we don't need causality"

Ah, but on a microscopic level, can consistency exist without causality? I'm not talking about an additional human being not impacting society, I'm talking about chaos theory level initial conditions. I'd argue that ultimately ANY change can be expected to have some consequence that impacts consistency.

Re:Time travel

[naasking]

Which would make time travel impossible.

No, it would make altering the timeline impossible.

Re:Time travel

[RetroGeek]

Well, that's just the point. If you time travel, then you use up the local-time resources. What change is small enough to have ZERO effect?

Re:Time travel

[naasking]

Your argument has no effect on the position I suggest since I am argues that time travellers may already be part of history. They have already used those resources, they have already caused those changes. They are not causing anything new; it has already transpired. Going back in time is thus simply fulfilling history.

Re:Time travel

[RetroGeek]

Going back in time is thus simply fulfilling history.

Ahh yes, except that I believe in free will......

Your proposal mandates that all that can happen has already happened and we are all following pre-determined unchangable destinies.

In other words, the far end of time (is there such a thing?) is already cast, and there is nothing that can be done about it.

Because the time travellers would be following history from their point of view. But (from their perspective) travellers to their time would be following that history, etc.

Re:Time travel

[naasking]

Ahh yes, except that I believe in free will......

Belief does not make it so.

Your proposal mandates that all that can happen has already happened and we are all following pre-determined unchangable destinies. In other words, the far end of time (is there such a thing?) is already cast, and there is nothing that can be done about it.

To a certain extent. This does not mean we can predict what will happen, but that it is predetermined.

In any case, philosophically speaking we must act as if free will does exist, regardless of whether everything is predetermined. It is almost a moot point.

The above is only one view physicists hold for time travel. The many worlds hypothesis holds different solutions.

Re:Time travel

[RetroGeek]

Belief does not make it so.

True. But then it cannot be determined that it is false either.

The only way to settle this is to be able to step outside our frame of reference. Might as well ask a character in a book to do that....

Re:Time travel

[naasking]

True. But then it cannot be determined that it is false either.

The default position should be that we are deterministic. Assuming we have free will presumes the laws of physics do not apply to us, or that the laws of physics must allow non-causal events (and thus allow non-determinism). Since we have no evidence thus far of non-determinism, we hypothesize tentative conclusion of absolute determinism until further evidence sheds light on the matter.

Re:Time travel

[RetroGeek]

Assuming we have free will presumes the laws of physics do not apply to us

I do not see how this applies to living things.

An electron presumably does not have free will, it must follow its course and react to external events based on its physical attributes.

A living thing however makes "descisions". It reacts to external events, but not nessessarily in the same way twice. Thus a bee will fly with the wind, yet may fly against the wind.

Or we may not have enough of an understanding of the entire realm of stimuli to which we (living things) react to. But then having such an understanding would lead to prediction of the future (taking into account the fact that we can predict the future, which of course is another stilumi).

For instance I can write a computer program which has 4 different possible binary state holders. This gives me 2^4 possible states. I program that if a particular state condition exists, then the program will do X. Thus I know and understand all possible stimuli for this computer program.

Extrapolating to the real world, if I know and understand all possible stimuli for a living thing, I can predict its behaviour based on a set of stimuli.

Sometimes you only need a sub-set to predict behaviour. So if I was to put down your significant other, I can predict with some certainty that you will not be happy.

But only some certainty. You might be going through a breakup and may agree with me. I do not have enough information (understanding).

So maybe we do not have free will. We only see free will because we do not know enough about reactions to stimuli.

Arghh.... circular argument.

Re:Time travel

[naasking]

I do not see how this applies to living things.

It is a simple matter really. If everything can be reduced to deterministic physical interactions, than we do not have free will. The proposition upon which the conclusions are based is continually being tested however.

We appear to have free will because we have imperfect knowledge of the circumstances behind any decision (neuron firings, wired pathways etc.). We can make high-level models of statistical behaviour over a limited input-output system (economics), but reducing one's scope to an individual in a particular circumstance makes prediction an intractable problem due to the sheer number of variables. The number of possible permutations of all particles in all positions in the universe is on the order of 10^10^100 (if I recall correctly). While here on earth we would only have a small subset of these permutations, it is still an astronomical figure.

It is simple to predict systems with a small number of variables (macroscopic gravitation), but very difficult with complex ones. Sometimes we can make statistical predictions of complex macroscopic systems (like your example of insulting my ex), but that is usually as good as it gets.

Re:Time travel

[khallow]

Note I said on a global scale which is compatible with your statement. But once you start looking at the quantum level, you again lose any sense of causality, namely there's no reason that time has to "flow" in a particular direction.

Re:Time travel

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie =UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=define%3A+sarcasm

Obscure technologies

[Anonymous Coward]

.NET

Re:Obscure technologies

[arduous]

Isn't a .NET something you use to catch a .FISH?

Moderation

[gantzm]

As mentioned on Nova, my great-great-grandfather Amos Ives Root published the first eye witness account of the Wright Brothers flight almost 100 years ago.

Score:-1 Buffing my own pole.

Re:Moderation

[drinkypoo]

Since that's as close to scoring as most slashdotters will ever get, I suggest its value should be more like +1, though it might not affect one's karma.

Re:Moderation

[NeoSkandranon]

No effect on karma? What about all the dead kittens?

Is obscurity still possible?

[kautilya]

We are living in an age quite different from 100 years ago. Information travels pretty fast. It is difficult for something that important to remain obscure so long today. Further, people more or less stopped noticing technological advances and taking them for granted. If any individual inventor/scientist gets some success he would want to approach venture capitalists, news papers, journals before he/she turns it into something great and useful. So, in my opinion it is difficult to find something obscure which is great. Yes, it is certainly possible that things people earlier thought wouldn't work becoming something great.

Re:Is obscurity still possible?

[10101001 10101001]

You've got to remember that at the time manned flight in anything beyond hot air balloons was in the same realm as fusion is today. Ie, lots of research, lots of failed attempts to produce a viable product, and more than a few people screwed over in the process. At the time, so many failed attempts had occurred it was just assumed that it was impossible. The last thing Scientific America wanted to do was print the story up and look like another idiot.

Meanwhile, the Wright brothers were intentionally as secretive as possible because even if they were to patent a lot of their ideas, it's still pretty conceivable that a venture capitalist funding their ideas would have been too overbearing for their tastes. So, they worked in secret. The only thing about your statement that rings true is it'd possible not be as obscure thanks to scientific tabloids which don't have a reputation to worry about. There are at least a few of those online, right? :)

Re:Is obscurity still possible?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it is difficult. But a modern example comes to mind, namely the GPL. People utterly take it for granted now, but when it first came out, the vast majority of people dismissed it (it amazes that some people still do to this day).
It was relatively obscure (or at least unappreciated) at the time. Let's not also forget that none of the GNU software ran on the 386 either.

Personally, I immediately understood what RMS was doing, and thought it was brilliant, but that's just me. I wasn't alone, but I would say I was certainly in the minority of technical folks.

And it was only by a lucky fluke that the GNU folks got a free development system so that gcc could get ported to the 386 platform; and hence be available when Linus wanted to do Linux.

Those are just some examples. I suspect there are others, as technological changes tend to "come out of left field", to quote many.

Re:Is obscurity still possible?

[Artifakt]

There's a way obscurity could still be a major factor. Science right now has become extremely poly-disciplined. Even very skilled practicioners (such as Nobel prize winners), tend to think of themselves as very specific sub-classes of scientist. Instead of saying "I'm a biologist", one is likely to say "I'm a cladistic taxononomist practicing middle Jurassic focused paleo-botany". Both good theoretical science and spinning it off into technology has become increasingly a matter of teams of such specialists working together.
Suppose there really was something to some fringe research from years or decades ago. Like Tesla really did make some theretical breakthrough in coupling broadcast power and geologic effects, or those stories about the USS Eldredge have just a grain of truth to them. If any such situation dropped into obscurity, what disciplines would you look in to build the team that might bring it out?

Re:Is obscurity still possible?

[MisterFancypants]

The GPL is gay and so are you.

Re:Is obscurity still possible?

[koekepeer]

well... one could also argue that the overload of information nowadays makes any idea harder to find. the notion that a good idea is hard to recognise remains. nowadays it's just surrounded by more stupid^H^H^H^H^H^H inviable ideas.

the haystack is getting bigger, where's the friggin' needle?

Re:Is obscurity still possible?

[Anonymous Coward]

gay adj.

2. Showing or characterized by cheerfulness and lighthearted excitement; merry.

I agree, the GPL is gay. But only because rms is so funny when he gets mad.

Promises...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the 50s and 60s, we were all under the impression that it'd be flying cars, robots and automated kitchens that cooked for you. Robots would be really smart and virtually be home helps.

None of this has happened.

This is one of the reasons I'm skeptical of current nanotechnology and genetic solutions actually being major breakthroughs. It'll be like Moore's Law for technology - things will just progress, rather than achieve sudden overnight success. I mean flying - it's boolean - you fly or you don't fly. Once you've conquered that you can improve on it. Nanotechnology I feel really needs advances in AI and other technology fields which I feel are being neglected - batteries, vision systems, sensors - they all need to improve before nanotechnology takes off big time.

So maybe it's a disparity thing. Maybe we'll be held back in certain areas because other technologies aren't available yet - like Civilization :o) So maybe, just maybe, we need to revisit some of those older ideas to progress?

Re:Promises...

[Coryoth]

I mean flying - it's boolean - you fly or you don't fly. Once you've conquered that you can improve on it.

Maybe that hints that the X prize winner might be where we ought to be looking - theres something that has a nice boolena value: You get into space cheaply in a resusable vehicle, or you don't... and there's plenty of room for improvement once someone wins the X prize challenge: Higher (LEO would be nice), and with more payload.

Cheap and easy spaceflight could well be the teach that really reshapes the next century.

Jedidiah.

Re:Promises...

[drsmithy]

I mean flying - it's boolean - you fly or you don't fly.

I'd argue there's at least one shade of grey - gliding.

Re:Promises...

[ChrisMaple]

TV dinners and microwave ovens are pretty close to a kitchen that cooks for me. I suppose I could put a hot food vending machine in my kitchen, but I prefer things the way they are.

Re:Promises...

[gantzm]

Gliding is just falling gracefully.

Re:Promises...

[DarkOx]

Space flight is a huge *waste* of valueable research dollars. We have basic space filight now. Its fairly safe and the costs are resonable. There is simple no return on investment in continued research. We have a space station or will very soon, we have the shuttle which works well enough. These things give us the ability to do the observation and transmission we need to from outside the atmosphere and conduct zero-g experiments etc, imporovements will cost more then they can ever return. There is nothing valueable in space within our grasp as far as anyone knows if that changes so does my thesis but untill then the status quo is best left to persist. Time travel is more likely possible then us ever being able to visit other galaxies or even soloar systems not and return anyway espically with anykind of freight. I read in some physics journal once that even if you could travel faster then the speed of light you probably need around 1 1/3 times the sqare of the mass you will be moving in fule. This is hopeless, there is not enough fule on earth to reach the nearest fule stop out in the universe and bring any back. Space travel is worthless becase there is too much space we cannot cope with crossing those distances , we need point to point transport if we are ever going to do any useful exploration out of sight of our little Sun. Experiments have been done with moving single protons form one place to the other without crossing the space between. That is where we should focus. That or manipulation of time, we could travel slowly with good fule efficency if we could control the time experienced by the craft.

Re:Promises...

[Anonymous Coward]

What would I do if I had a flying car? Same thing I would do with my regular car. Drive to the 7-11, pick up a 12 pack and come home and watch TV.

Why do mountain climbers climb mountains? The peak sucks. The climb makes it fun. So, what would you have done with all that technology anyways???

Maybe I can tell you that you could become president someday. Maybe you would, chances are you won't. But I think it is better than saying "Life is only gonna get worse". Perhaps building big impressions suck? Maybe it is better than dealing with reality?

Re:Promises...

[carambola5]

current nanotechnology and genetic solutions

Please, can we stop calling it "nanotechnology" and start calling it what it really is?

CHEMISTRY!

I'm not trying to be funny. That new stain-defender stuff in pants? Apparently it's called nanotechnology. No! Chemistry! It's just chemistry! Stop subjecting your minds to buzzwords.

Re:Promises...

[Coryoth]

We have basic space filight now.

Well yes, but it is pretty basic.

Its fairly safe and the costs are resonable.

Clearly costs are not reasonable if space research is not economic as you claim. Costs to get into space, currently, are extremely high. Right now you have the odd mad rich space tourist forking over $20 million to go up. If the X prize comes through, we could end up looking at costs closer to $100,000 to $1 million. That sounds a lot more reasonable to me.

We have a space station or will very soon, we have the shuttle which works well enough.

Well enough? Hasn't seemed to have worked well of late. It is extremely expensive to run. The cost of a shuttle launch is around $300 million. That's not "well enough" for most purposes. In fact, it's extremely inefficient.

The total prize money for the X prize is only $10 million. The prize is won if you can go into space and back, with 3 people (or equivalent payload) twice in 2 weeks using the same craft. You can replace at most 10% of the crafts non propellant mass between launches. That means, basically, you have to have a craft that runs at basically just the cost of propellant. I would say getting a reduction from $300 million per launch down to around $1 million or less is pretty damn significant!

imporovements will cost more then they can ever return.

The X prize is costing $10 million in prize money put up for it. That's around 3% of the cost of a single shuttle launch. The results would start to make space travel available on mass scale. Run that by me again?

As for the rest, well, you're an obvious troll so I won't bother. Thanks for providing me a nice platform to springboard some arguments off though.

Jedidiah.

Re:Promises...

[GileadGreene]

Space flight is a huge *waste* of valueable research dollars.

You forgot the "IMHO" part...

You may think that space flight is a huge waste of dollars. Many others do not. So long as it's not your money being spent, why should you care? "Ah" you say, "but it *is* my money, 'cos NASA is taxpayer funded." But that's the beauty of the X-prize competition that the grandparent post was referring to - it's purely privately funded. So it really doens't matter what you think about space flight. They're going to do it anyway. Who knows, maybe you'll even derive some benefit from it at some point.

We have basic space filight now. Its fairly safe and the costs are resonable.

Uh, in a word, bullshit. Especially on the "costs are reasonable" part. It costs on the order of $500 Million for a single shuttle launch, and they only happen a few times a year (and require a standing army of several thousand to support them). The whole point of the X-prize is to develop cheap, reliable, regular space launch. Everyone in the space industry (and I speak here as someone in the space industry) views launch costs as one of the greatest impediments to doing more in space. That applies to unmanned as well as manned missions.

There is simple no return on investment in continued research.

I won't even bother to debate the stupidity of that comment. The fact that people are investing would tend to imply that there is at least some perception of an ROI. Although it may depend on what exactly you consider an adequate ROI, and what time scales you are operating on.

We have a space station or will very soon, we have the shuttle which works well enough.

See above for the shuttle. It costs a crapload. Far more than it needs to. Mostly as a result of a piss-poor design that was more political compromise than anything else. The station is a nice idea but appears to be a bit of a white elephant. Right now it can only deal with a crew of up to 3, which is not a sufficient number to allow any science to take place (too busy just maintaining the station). And my understanding from talking to folks in the science community is that the station is essentially useless for it purported primary purpose, microgravity research, because astronaut induced vibrations screw up the "microgravity" environment in all but a very small part of the station.

There is nothing valueable in space within our grasp as far as anyone knows if that changes so does my thesis but untill then the status quo is best left to persist.

It's a cost/benefit thing - there's lots of stuff in space that's be nice to make use of, but it costs too much to get it right now. Why? Well, launch costs have a lot to do with that (see above). Highly recommend that you check out a report called "LEO on the Cheap" by Lt. Col. Jack London that discusses that cascading effects of high launch costs, and how to fix them (should be available in PDF form on line - google is your friend).

I read in some physics journal once that even if you could travel faster then the speed of light you probably need around 1 1/3 times the sqare of the mass you will be moving in fule.

Depends a lot on the efficiency of your engine. Alternatively, you could make use of something like a laser sail to accelerate - then you don't need to carry any fuel. A third alternative is not to accelerate to the speed of light, but to bypass it, i.e. use one of the various (somewhat flaky at this point) "warp drives" that have been proposed. All are at least as plausible (or more plausible) than a time travel machine. Incidentally, did it occur to you that time travel is equivalent to faster than light travel in the Einsteinian universe?

Re:Promises...

[orkysoft]

First, you write like I did when I was six. That would be a compliment, if you were six. I'm pretty sure you're not.

To get back on topic: how about all those rocks that are floating around our solar system? Many of them aren't that far away, and some of them are really big and full of elements that are rare on earth!

Also, take Mars. It's less than a year's space flight away (at current accelerations) and it's just plain interesting. Fascinating. Has there ever been life on Mars? How come it has the surface features it has? IMHO, those questions are reason enough to go there.

Of course, stars other than our own sun are currently too far away to travel to. But that might change in the future. You never know.

What would you have posted a hundred years ago, on the subject of flight? That it would be impossible to fly great distances because the flying people would tire of flapping their wings? Because it wasn't possible to fly for more than eleven seconds, so the entire continent would have to be paved with airfields? That instead, we should concentrate on moving cargo and passengers with the proven wheel technology instead?

Tell you what, both wheels and wings are very valid modes of transportation nowadays. No continent is too far away anymore. The amount of fuel that big airplanes need is actually small enough for them to carry. Bet the Wright brothers didn't know that, huh?

Don't flame new technology research. People want to research other means of getting into space, and the chance, however small, that some of them succeed, is IMHO more than enough justification for those people to continue their work. Also, they find their research interesting. If you don't find it interesting, it doesn't mean they should stop it.

Re:Promises...

[fm6]

A glider can stay up indefinitely, if the pilot can find the right thermals. A regular airplane can only stay up until it runs out of fuel.

Re:Promises...

[mike3411]

This is one of the most ill-thought out and contradictory posts I have read. This guy complains about how some technologies are insufficiently "boolean"; he cites flying cars, robots, automated kitchens, nanotechnology, and "genetic solutions" as examples. Flying, he suggests, is the opposite, in that "you fly or you dont fly". The absurdity here is that by his definition all these other technologies batch this boolean ideal, in that there have been flying cars, there exist robots that clean the house, automated kitchens, nanotechnologies, and certainly genetic research has yielded vast numbers of new knowledge and applicable treatments.

The idea he fails to grasp is that flight is not really an all-or-nothing technology, at least not in terms of its impact and importance. Would it have been particularly useful if planes remained what they were at their conception? The original flying machine built by the Wrights was celebrated when it flew a distance most of us would walk. For this tech to be really meaningul took many, many years of work and continous research, both directly applied to aviation and general research with no specific applications, such as materials science, mechanical engineering, etc. It is only through a great deal of progress that flight has become as important a technology as it is today.

Similarly, the technologies the parent poster mentions require extensive work and research to bear fruit. While there are robots that can clean a whole house, they are proof-of-concepts that cost more than my car. Similar to flight, advances need to be made before it has practical applications.

I find it somewhat humorous that he states "I'm skeptical of current nanotechnology and genetic solutions actually being major breakthroughs" when if you talk to anyone receiving current chemotherapy their lives may have been saved by these breakthroughs for which he has so much skepticism. While I encourage a healthly degree of distrust, this needs to be well directed. The fact is that new technologies and new research needs to continue in every field, and if new knowledge is being obtaining by good scientific methods, and someone is willing to spend their time obtaining it, it is hard to say that that is worthless or should be stymied.

Nanotech needs AI? WTF?

I wish all technology followed moore's law ; )

Re:Promises...

[Thing 1]

What would you have posted a hundred years ago, on the subject of flight?

Help, I'm dying of polio!

Re:Promises...

[Artifakt]

Some biologists have suggested that wings can evolve only because a wing too small to get a creature off the ground can still be used like a spoiler, held at an angle where it helps force a running animal down so it can keep more traction when dodging predators or chasing prey. Possibly, that's another shade of gray.

Re:Promises...

[Captain Beefheart]

It was blue-sky enthusiasm that drove these imaginings, not reasoned extrapolation. Meanwhile, none of them imagined the World Wide Web. Even the Internet was just an inkling, at least by the mid-1960's, if the ARPA project was any indication. But you forget the inherent impracticality of flying cars and the decadent silliness of robot maids.

In addition to the WWW, there's video-on-demand, TiVO, open source, shirt pocket-sized cell phones and digicams, Aquatred tires, night vision goggles, cordless drills, instant messaging, e-mail, Usenet, IRC, astonishingly photorealistic videogames, Pixar, digital 7.1 surround sound, plasma displays, flu vaccines, Viagra, DVD movies, compact discs, kinetically recharged watches and flashlights, LCD monitors, the iTunes Music Store, the iPod...technological evolution is a gradual thing. But when you add it all up, it's pretty damn cool.

Re:Promises...

[jcrosby]

It'll be like Moore's Law for technology - things will just progress, rather than achieve sudden overnight success.

Moore's Law is exponential growth and thus is overnight success at some point. Ray Kurzweil writes some interesting books and papers around this very topic. The pace of technological progress is not a constant. He argues that the pace is increasing exponentially. If you give this some serious thought, you will see that it has mind-blowing possibilities for humanity, assumming that he is correct.

Re:Promises...

[hyperventilate]

Chemistry is Smalley's nanotech. He is trying not to fund real nanotech. Read Eric Drexler who coined the term to find out what real nanotech is.

Re:Promises...

[koekepeer]

well, AI advances will likely not happen. it was a nice idea, but it's just not 'trendy' anymore...

one problem might be that good ideas need a certain technological context. a visionary might have some brilliant ideas, but none of them viable at a given time, thus never recognised as such.

essentialy i agree with your argument, but i worded it differently. science nowadays, more than ever, is pushed by (media?) attention towards 'trendy' subjects. very much oriented on the short-term benefits, thereby killing innovation.

maybe the very transient nature of the world today stifles innovation... bigger better faster more! we don't have time to innovate, we need to make money NOW!

hehe i sound like a friggin' anti-capitalist :)

Re:Promises...

[zarei]

But that's the beauty of the X-prize competition that the grandparent post was referring to - it's purely privately funded.

Actually since it requires a big investment this affects me (and everyone else) because the money could have been invested in something else that could change our lives, or at least standard of living.

Re:Promises...

[Quelain]

Stop calling it "computing." It's really just electronics!

Re:Promises...

[infolib]

Please, can we stop calling it "nanotechnology" and start calling it what it really is?

No way!. You know, once it became a buzzword billions in research grants flowed into "nanotech". Thousands of groups in physics, chemistry and engineering slapped "nanoscience" signs on their doors and kept doing what they always did. All of these researchers would lose their jobs if they stopped uttering the N-word. How likely is that?

Re:Promises...

[Feztaa]

I wish all technology followed moore's law ; )

It kind of does. Compare the technological development of, say, the past 5 years verses the past 500 or 5,000 years. Perhaps the total knowledge of all humans doesn't double every 18 months, but the more technology we have, the faster we get more technology.

Re:Promises...

[Anonymous Coward]

All X-prize entries use rocket tech. Rocket technology is simply not viable on large scales, due to the inherent pollution factor. I'd say our best bet for cheap ubiquitous space access is the space elevator, unless someone invents anti-grav first.

Re:Promises...

[Anonymous Coward]

Read neal stephenson's "the diamond age", and then come and tell me the nanotech examples given in that book are "just chemistry".

Re:Promises...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ofcourse, you're handily dismissing the solar-powered airplanes that are under development which would also have this "stay up indefinitely" ability, in addition to not having to ride thermals to do it.

Riding thermals is pretty interesting though. See this story of someone who rode thermals with a parachute for almost 500 miles.

Re:Promises...

[kabocox]

You missed the memo. All chemists have been redefined as nanotechnology engineers. (It helps confuse PHBs into giving projects more money. Don't knock it till you've tried it!)

Re:Promises...

[Alsee]

Gliding is just falling gracefully.

If I'm going to fall a few hundred feet I really would preffer doing it gracefully :)

-

Re:Promises...

[jafac]

I think that these "flying cars" myths were born as part of a pro-technology PR-campaign. This campaign supports a future where the total population of the Earth is perhaps a few thousand or so, descendents of today's ultra-wealthy. These people will be functionally immortal, through medical technology. All of their needs will be taken care of by self sufficient machines and technology. While the rest of humanity will be wiped out (most likely through starvation, war, possibly even a global plague), since they will no longer be necessary, and are not really the optimal solution for the needs of the Plutocracy.

All of these innovations bring us step by step closer to this future.

Re:Promises...

[Anonymous Coward]

Gliding is just falling gracefully.

Walking is just stumbling gracefully.

Re:Promises...

[vudufixit]

>A third alternative is not to accelerate to the >speed of light, but to bypass it, i.e. use one of >the various (somewhat flaky at this point) "warp >drives"

Well, an overly parsimonious NASA has cut the funding for the "Breakthrough Physics Project" which was a bunch of really brainy science guys conducting thought experiments on how we can overcome the limitations of linearly accelerated spaceflight.

The fringes of the neo-techno age

[dankdirk77]

I think Billy the Bigmouth talking bass would really blow that dudes mind...

Re:The fringes of the neo-techno age

[gui_tarzan2000]

Maybe I'm not stretching my imagination far enough, but what substantial everyday product could be discovered/invented that we don't have already? We have cars, planes, phones, radios, musical instruments, diagnostic machines, robotics, computers, refrigerators, bass boats, thinkgeek.com...

I don't know. Maybe I'm a cynic but it seems to me that we've got pretty much everything we need.

Re:The fringes of the neo-techno age

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

Maybe I'm a cynic but it seems to me that we've got pretty much everything we need.

The joy of tech is that you never realise you need something until it's put in front of you. I get this sensation everytime I go shopping.

An actual case in point for me would be WiFi. Couldn't care less until someone threw me a card, and now I couldn't live without it.

YLFI

Re:The fringes of the neo-techno age

[Steffan]

Well...

• "what substantial everyday product could be discovered/invented that we don't have already? We have cars, planes, phones, radios, musical instruments, diagnostic machines, robotics, computers, refrigerators, bass boats, thinkgeek.com... I don't know. Maybe I'm a cynic but it seems to me that we've got pretty much everything we need."

I'm sure that not that long ago, someone said "We have the printing press, the locomotive, steamships, and the telegraph...It seems to me that we've got pretty much everything we need"

Re:The fringes of the neo-techno age

[SuperMo0]

The joy of tech is that you never realise you need something until it's put in front of you.

Reminds me of a often-abused quote which I shall bring out and... abuse.

"Everything that can be invented, has been invented." -Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

Obviously, if this were true, then /. wouldn't exist. (Duh.) Just because you don't see anything else being needed doesn't mean someone else sees a problem that needs to be fixed.

Re:The fringes of the neo-techno age

[Anonymous Coward]

Food, clothing, and shelter! We've already got pretty much everything we need!

Re:The fringes of the neo-techno age

[sofakingl]

Maybe I'm a cynic but it seems to me that we've got pretty much everything we need.

If you think we have everything we need, you haven't put much thought into it. We still do not have cures for my diseases, nor methods of getting an object/person from one far away place to another within a matter of a few seconds (which would also be useful in the medical field if time is a factor to save a life). There are many more things that could be of use to us for both important and not as important reasons; you just have to stop and think about the problems and nuisances of life to come up with at least a few of them.

Re:The fringes of the neo-techno age

[gui_tarzan2000]

The thing is we we rarely see anything "new". It's pretty much all based on old stuff. The refrigerator for example was an improvement on the ice box which was the original invention to store food for an extended time period without smoking or drying it. That icebox was a true invention. The telephone was as well. The radio was. The light bulb was. The electric motor was. The original drum recorder evolved into the phonograph (record player - used pressed or engraved vinyl discs and a needle to make the sounds for the under 25 crowd) was and evolved into the CD. The steam engine was original but it evolved into a gas engine.

My point is, aside from some technologies that are digital or chemical processes we just don't see too many "original" ideas. They're all pretty much improvements or alterations of existing ideas. I know I'm drifting out to sea here but I wonder where the truly revolutionary original ideas for products have all gone. It seems like everything we come up with now is more for convenience sake than it is truly revolutionary.

Slashdot is not an original idea. There were message boards long before the computer.

Re:The fringes of the neo-techno age

[gui_tarzan2000]

Despite the way it sounds, I have put a lot of thought into this over the past several years. If we're honest with ourselves, we do have everything we need to live the way we were intended to live. Medical treatment prolongs our lives, heals sickness or injury, etc. but it isn't a "necessary" thing to live. Food, water, shelter, some sort of interaction with people and a form of entertainment are really the only things we "need" to live.

I understand the advantages of medical treatment in a hurry but that's not really what I mean. I'm talking about objects, things that we don't have now. I'm not at all suggesting that we haven't come up with new things or new ways of doing things, I'm just curious why we haven't seen anything that's as big of a discovery as the telephone for example. Before the telephone there was nothing like it. Before the television there was nothing like it. That's what I'm talking about - a truly revolutionary item that changes the world in a positive way. The Internet wasn't the first electronic transmission of data, but it certainly is the best we have right now. BBSs were fun but nothing like the 'net.

I have actually "invented" a couple of things but they're tools to make a job easier, not something that is a major discovery or breakthrough like an electric motor or a refrigerator. They wouldn't make more than a few hundred people in the world happy so I don't bother trying to take them to market. I certainly wouldn't call them inventions, that makes it sound too deep-thinker-ish.

Re:The fringes of the neo-techno age

[iggymanz]

haha - where do you think the ice for the iceboxes came from since the 1870's?????? From refrigeration systems!!

The real edge lies elsewhere...

[gregwbrooks]

You can explore the edge of technology, but you're chasing a chimera. Things change fast, they're going to change faster and future generations will think of astounding things to do with the technologies we're only now beginning to explore.

The technologies of the last 200 years have so far outstripped past human progress that the real action in the coming years/decades/centuries will be the philosophical, moral and political assimilation of technology. We've done an increasintly poor job of it as the pace of advancement has quickened; it'll be interesting to see what (if anything) causes a tipping point after which we'll really explore the full impacts of new technologies.

(Disclaimer: I think Bill Joy is an alarmist.)

Re:The real edge lies elsewhere...

[sisukapalli1]

The technologies of the last 200 years have so far outstripped past human progress that the real action in the coming years/decades/centuries will be the philosophical, moral and political assimilation of technology. We've done an increasintly poor job of it as the pace of advancement has quickened;

Do you mean to suggest that Reality TV, Hum-vees, DRM, 150 year plus copyrights, mini-nukes, "intellectual property rights", and "Fair and Balanced News" aren't the right philosophical and moral ways to utilize technology? S

Re:The real edge lies elsewhere...

[DarkOx]

Mods on crack, this is the most Insightful post I have seen in weeks yet it got moded intersting! at least the moded it up.

Re:The real edge lies elsewhere...

[Anonymous Coward]

Innovation follows from necessity. If innovation in other fields becomes impossible because of politics, someone will develop a science of politics and revolutionise the way we run the planet. Just like how open source was only created because closed source was too restrictive.

What would he be doing today.....?

[iron_weasel]

Maybe helping the Flo Fox down in Slidell code up a newer and better spam-harvester-spider/bot.

His article was a bit lengthy and had little to do with bees or gleaning.

----------------------
I never read Wired,its devil spawn.

Hello??

[rampant mac]

"If Amos were alive today, what obscure technology would he be pursuing?"

perfecting web cookies?

Re:Hello??

[Solarbeat]

oh come on, this really ought to be modded funny

Re:Hello??

[Anonymous Coward]

-lame-
Do yourself a favor, and find a gun, carefully polish and clean it, load it with a single bullet, and shoot yourself.

Sage Words

[Caveman Og]

The article ends thus:

"No drinking man should ever be allowed to undertake to run a flying-machine."

This may seem obvious to us today, but in 1905, many a carriage would be driven by a drunkard whose horses "knew the way home".

Re:Sage Words

[BiggerIsBetter]

This may seem obvious to us today...

Apparently not:

• http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_619929.html?m enu=
• http://www.washtimes.com/business/20030618-102505- 9841r.htm
• http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/top/story/0,4136,3720 2-1065196740,00.html

Feel free to mod this +1 Scary.

Re:Sage Words

[Anonymous Coward]

And can today's cars drive drunk people home? No - the best we get is GPS navigation systems. If you want a fringe technology, try artificial intelligence.

Re:Sage Words

[adept256]

With fly-by-wire, autopilot et al, I think you could safely say most modern airliners "know the way home" too. Even so, I'd prefer to fly with a drunk pilot (with sophisticated help from computers) than fly in a pilot-less vehicle. That'll NEVER catch on.

Re:Sage Words

[Anonymous Coward]

"This may seem obvious to us today..."

Apparently not: ...

Yes, further study is required.
Pass the bottle.

Heh...

[herrvinny]

"As mentioned on Nova, my great-great-grandfather Amos Ives Root published the first eye witness account of the Wright Brothers flight almost 100 years ago.

And now you're a techie too, huh? Like father, like son, like grandson... Good for you.

Scientific American had rejected his article as 'unbelievable' and 'having no practical application'.

Too bad. Scientific American would have benefited hugely today if it just had printed the article... Imagine the commercials they could make...

The secretive Wright Brothers allowed Amos to publish the article in his own Gleanings Bee magazine instead.

Good. Did your grandfather get a lot of good publicity because of this?

Because of his objective account, other experimenters may not have received the credit they deserved.I wouldn't worry about it. It's in the past. Let it go.

I recently realized that Amos was intent on investigating the highest tech advances of the day and that the airplane was the most advanced phenomenon he could find. If Amos were alive today, what obscure technology would he be pursuing?"

Well, since it would be obscure, by definition, not a whole lot of people, including slashdotters, would know about it anyway. If I had to suggest something, perhaps biometric systems, nuclear systems, and any space tech.

With China the newest country to hurl a guy into space, and with NASA and Europe firing probes at Mars, space is definitely due for a resurgence. Just wait until Christmas, when the Beagle 2 is scheduled to touch down on Mars. If Iraq would just get off the news for a while, the media will definitely pick up on Mars and space coverage. The NASA probes (Spirit and Opportunity, or something close to them) are due to reach Mars soon after that, too. We're going to be deluged with data for the techies to drool over and lots of nice pictures for the masses. Definitely space tech.

Re:Heh...

[/dev/trash]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,105513,00.html

Funny thing about that rejection

[WindBourne]

I see articles rejected here all the time, and then several days later they show up. Things have not changed.

Re:Funny thing about that rejection

[electrichamster]

Just a thought, but why doesn't slashdot implement a feature that lists all of the rejected submissions on another page.
Obviously people would submit spam, so the reviewers would also have to have a "spam" (and possibly a "duplicate submission") button as well as a "reject" button.

It would provide an interesting read for all of the smaller bits of news whizzing around that none of us get to see due to the tight reviewing process.

Re:Funny thing about that rejection

[Thing 1]

Why? Because then it takes the "editing" function away from the "editors." Your suggestion has been suggested many times over the years.

It'll never happen.

You want something like that, go to k5. But there's a lot less readership there so the homepage tends to change a lot less. (Me, I frequent /. and visit k5 once every 6 months or so.)

There's a gem every once in a while though; if you like science ficition and the Singularity, google for "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect" (I've googled for you; I love that story, and it seems he's working on a sequel).

Re:Funny thing about that rejection

[Jad LaFields]

Not exactly the same concept (and less news-oriented than Slashdot), but Kuro5shin is at least worth checking out. (they have a "story queue" where anybody can view developing stories and then vote on whether it should be put on the front page... at least I think that's the way it works, I don't go there all that often).

Re:Funny thing about that rejection

[Anonymous Coward]

you realize that that story was also posted on /., right?
link

What the future does not hold

[s20451]

The future probably does not hold any technology that is perpetually 20 years off. Thus, in the future, we will not have:

- Practical fusion energy
- Human-capable artificial intelligence
- Flying cars
- Space tourism
- The end of Moore's Law

Re:What the future does not hold

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Ah hem. Space tourism is already here... you know, Dennis Tito?

Flying cars? Depends what you mean by 'car'- plenty of millionaires run helicopters; as I say depends.

End of Moore's law? We'll see.

Practical fusion energy? Good news on that front! After more than 50 years of it being 50 years away, it's now only 30 years away!

Human capable AI? See Moore's law.

Re:What the future does not hold

[SuperMo0]

Space tourism is already here... you know, Dennis Tito?

Tourism generally refers to when the average citizen can go and see it as a leisurely jaunt into a place they haven't seen before. Dennis Tito paid millions of dollars and had to train for months to go up in space... hardly what the average tourist would go through to go on a vacation to, say, France.

Re:What the future does not hold

[Alsee]

what does AI have to do with Moore's Law?

Because given enough computing horsepower then you don't need to figure out how AI works, you can just emulate it without understanding it.

Lets explain it this way. Imagine someone hands you a mechanical pocket-watch. You look inside and see a hundred tiny parts, axels, gears, springs, latches, screws, hinges, counterweights, etc etc etc. A mind-boggling incomprehensible interconencted and interacting complexity. To design your own pocket watch you'd have to understand how it all works.

Instead you just copy it. You just measure the size, shape, and forces of all the parst and build a duplicate. But instead of building a duplicate you just enter all of the information into a computer simulation. The computer calculates the force of gear A pressing on gear B. We don't need to know WHY gear A should press on gear B in that way, or how that gets from gear B out to the hands on the watch. We just know that the whole thing produces the desired result.

Given enough computing power you could just simulate umpteen-billion neurons. We don't understand how the brain works, but if you copy all the parts into a computer simulation you know it will produce the same result. It is a trivial step from simulating a brain to simulating an entire human body and putting it in a simulated room. And assuming unbounded success of Moore's law it very quickly becomes possible to simulate all of the atoms making up a brain, or even to simulate the quantum level particle interactions.

I think simulating at the atomic or quantum level is totally unneccesary, cell levels simulations should be plenty. According to Moore's law there should be a handful of super-computers that could pull off a real-time brain simulation in about 20-odd years. Home PC's follow the same curve, but lag behind super-computers by 15-20 years.

The only remaining challenge then would be scan all of the measurements of the neuronal structure of a human brain. Microsocopiclly scanning and measuring the umpteen-billions neurons in a brain would certainly be quite a project, but it should be doable on about the same time scale. Once you scan one brain you can copy that data into an unlimited number of computers.

None of it is *easy*, but it does completely bypass the problem of trying to understand and build intellegence. We have a working model to copy.

-

Re:What the future does not hold

[alex_ant]

Given enough computing power you could just simulate umpteen-billion neurons. We don't understand how the brain works, but if you copy all the parts into a computer simulation you know it will produce the same result.

If we've got a computer simulating a full brain, that simulated brain would have to possess some kind of consciousness, wouldn't it? Otherwise it wouldn't be a complete simulation. What if consciousness is not strictly a result of neuron interaction, but it is also found that e.g. chemical reactions are critical for it to work? If so, then just like we can simulate a nuclear explosion in a computer, but we can't cause one, we may find that we can't "cause" consciousness... which would leave us with a pretty unexciting brain, no matter how many bajillion petaflops we have.

Re:What the future does not hold

[Alsee]

we can simulate a nuclear explosion in a computer, but we can't cause one

In this case the output from the simulated brain could be hooked up to a speech synthisizer, or even a full robitic body. Video and microphone pickups could be fed into the visual and auditory areas of the brain. You get the same inputs into the brain, you get the same processing in the brain, and the brain produces exactly the same output. If you talk to it it will react exactly the same way the originally scanned person would have reacted.

-

I can see...

[infestedsenses]

...the root jokes flying in from the horizon.

Safe Nuclear Batteries

[Amiga Lover]

Strontium Nuclear Batteries are one. Known about and succesfully demonstrated since the early 90s, a single 5gram piece can put out enough SAFE radiation to be turned almost directly into energy, that it can supply 75 watts for months on end. It's not harmful to animals, it's not expensive, it's no more expensive than sterodent.

It's also a technology that nobody believes has any use because of the words "nuclear" and "radiation"

It'll come soon enough

Re:Safe Nuclear Batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunatly they arnt that safe. The russians used them for a while but eventualy realized it was a realy bad idea... something about "what happens if blows up???" turned out to be a major issue. Sure they are safe in their lead lined cases... but once out in the open they are deadly. The russians are realy scared of these things after one turned up in Georgia without its lead case... all one would need to do is strap some TNT to it... and detoniate it near a city... instant radiation bomb.

Not to say some sort of safe nucular battery isent possible... but it will probably use something similar to a "betavoltic" battery

Re:Safe Nuclear Batteries

[Doppler00]

5 grams put out 75 watts? That doesn't sound right.

Besides, we can't have people throwing radioactive materials in dumpsters now.

Re:Safe Nuclear Batteries

[HalfFlat]

Is there any more information about this on the web? The only link I could find was on rexresearch, which while very interesting, does unfortunately taint it with associations with less plausible technology.

How much strontium-90 is currently being produced in commerical electricy-generating nuclear reactors? (and how expensive is it to extract?)
This sort of technology has huge potential, not least of which being that it can be used to extract energy from other alpha- and beta- emitters (ie a fair chunk of nuclear waste.)

Strontium-90 isn't completely benign (it is a beta source after all, and its one radioactive decay product, Yttrium-90, I think is an even more energetic beta emitter.) It behaves chemically much like calcium, so if it's inhaled or ingested, it can be incorporated into bones, etc.

On the other hand, I get the impression that it is less dangerous than oven cleaner. You wouldn't eat that either, and like strontium-90, bare skin exposure is ill-advised.

Re:Safe Nuclear Batteries

[HalfFlat]

The devices used by the Russians (eg to power nuclear lighthouses!) were thermal generators, which are about 100000 (10^5) times less efficient than the device being proposed here. Which indeed is a sort of betavoltaic device! So blowing up one of these batteries, while still dangerous, is not nearly as severe, by virtue of it using orders of magnitude less strontium.

Re:Safe Nuclear Batteries

[spongman]

You obviously haven't changed too many diapers...

Re:Safe Nuclear Batteries

[tgd]

You mean like your smoke detectors?

Re:Safe Nuclear Batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Cheap/portable sources of energy that last longer than chemical batteries really would change the way we live.

I would be shocked if there isn't some sort of "portable" nuclear power introduced over the next 20 years. When it gets to the point that *any* third world country can cobble together a nuke, there won't be any real advantage to locking this technology in the closet anymore.

Re:Safe Nuclear Batteries

[Creepy Crawler]

Smoke detecters these days have got rid of the americurium(I know, wrong spelling) and instead use a led and photosensor. That's why crap like sawdust sets off detecters these days. In the old days, the radiation could easily pass from one side to the next with macro-particles like sawdust.

Re:Safe Nuclear Batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

There's still radioactive substances in them today (bought three of them in september), hence still having the warning label, and the small cage inside with the radiation logo.

Re:Safe Nuclear Batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

WHAT IS A STERODENT?

Re:Safe Nuclear Batteries

[General_Tso]

Yeah, I'll let you power your laptop with those. My sperm are already subjected to enough from my 12" Powerbook--I'd have to trade my fire retardant boxers from some lead tighty whities...

Re:Safe Nuclear Batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, if they were freely available, you'd just use lots of them.

Re:Safe Nuclear Batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think this is likely. The inefficiencies involved with scaling down nuclear power mean it would probably be more efficient to have large fusion plants that create fuel for fuel cells. Fuel cells should also be somewhat safer.

I know where the edges of technology are

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

They're right there under your table, whenever you open your computer case to install a new card and you cut your finger to the bone with the rough cut inner edges of the PC's case.

Pentium X, XYZ Ghz, super-huge hard drive, roaringly fast computer, yet still clad in crappy sheet metal from some pervert Taiwanese case manufacturer that seems bent on making products designed to hurt you ...

Re:I know where the edges of technology are

[Anonymous Coward]

you open your computer case to install a new card and you cut your finger to the bone with the rough cut inner edges of the PC's case.

Did it about 4 months ago. I had to receive six stitches and a tetanus shot.

Re:I know where the edges of technology are

[lithiumcloud]

If you forked out for a decent case you wouldn't cut yourself.

Re:I know where the edges of technology are

[Anonymous Coward]

tetanus shot.

Did Taco give you the shot? Unless you meant tetanos of course ...

Re:I know where the edges of technology are

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

cut your finger to the bone with the rough cut inner edges of the PC's case.

Goddamn this annoys me as well. I want to buy a computer case designed for a Piersons Puppeteer.

YLFI

Re:I know where the edges of technology are

[Have Blue]

Depends on the computer... I just *tried* to cut myself on my G4 and it took quite some time and effort to find something potentially dangerous. This is why they cost more :P

Re:I know where the edges of technology are

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess that's the bleeding edge?

Re:I know where the edges of technology are

[Anonymous Coward]

I just *tried* to cut myself on my G4 and it took quite some time and effort to find something potentially dangerous.

Aha. That's because they're designed for blunt trauma - bludgeon your neighbour to death with it.

An alternative use would be a boat anchor since there are those nifty handles to tie the rope to.

Things to Come....

[Braintrust]

1. Practical Immortality
(it's right around the corner, hell, we could do it now if not for those damned ethics... that's a joke, son...)

2. Sustainable Fusion
(again, right around the corner. ITER WILL work, and unlimited, non-polluting energy is here... think what that means...)

3. The Ion Drive
(already proven, power being ramped up monthly by orders of magnitude, will open up solar system for exploration, mineral harvesting, golden age begun...)

Dozens more... it's a great, great time to be alive... although many people would have you believe different.

Re:Things to Come....

[physicsnerd]

3. The Ion Drive (already proven, power being ramped up monthly by orders of magnitude, will open up solar system for exploration, mineral harvesting, golden age begun...)

Ion thrusters actually are rapidly becoming the engine of choice for deep space missions. The only problem with them is that they are low thrust so you can't use it for an application that needs a quick boost. However for planet hopping where you can get away with long burn times and low thrust they're ideal. They're really nice because you can power them off of solar cells, such as with Deep Space 1. Plus they smaller then conventional chemical rockets, and can go faster!

More info here: http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/

Plus they're flight proven. DS1 used the NSTAR 30cm Ion Thruster which had a maximum power input of about 2.3 kW.

http://www.boeing.com/ids/edd/ep.html

Current research at NASA and other institutions is taking Ion Thrusters to power levels up to 30 kW with an Isp up to around 15,000-s. So while not being ramped up by an order of magnitude every few months, they are increasing by an order of magnitude every few years at the current rate. The problem that everyone is running into is the power supply for them. 30kW is a lot of juice, and if you bump that up to 300kW you're in need of a nuclear power plant.

Re:Things to Come....

[Jesrad]

Practical immortality is getting damn close, I second that.

But you forgot electrogravitic engines and free energy from zero-point. The technology for those has been around for up to 80 years, but we're only getting the theory behind them now.

Interesting times indeed ;)

Rename it?

[herrvinny]

What about renaming them? MRI (Magnetic Reasonance Imaging) came from NRI (Nuclear RI), renamed because doctors thought patients might not like the word nuclear.

Re:Rename it?

[WinterpegCanuck]

It worked for KFC (Kentucky Fried Pigeion)

Re:Rename it?

[HalfFlat]

Here at least, the old name was NMR (or NMRI), for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (Imaging). I used to wonder if MRI was new tech, before discovering it was just a PR move.

Of course it's completely crazy in the sense that the 'nuclear' refers to the fact that it uses a property of the atomic nucleus, and there are no nuclear reactions to be seen.

I blame poor science education!

PS: There's a nice online text discussing NMR/MRI, at least for the lay person like me.

Re:Rename it?

[Spy Hunter]

Wow. Whoever did that was very, very smart.

Re:Rename it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The story they told me in my neuro-psychology lecture was that when you say NMR it sounds too much like enema.

This caused some confusion between Doctors and Nurses to the chargrin of patients.

Will.

Re:Rename it?

[Esteanil]

Actually, the name of the technique as named by the inventor (Paul Lauterbur) was originally zeugmatography.

Re:Rename it?

[mat.h]

MRI (Magnetic Reasonance Imaging) came from NRI (Nuclear RI)

No. The old name was NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) tomography, where NMR is the name of the particular quantum mechanical phenomenon that's exploited. There are other applications of this (e.g. NMR spectroscopy), so it did make sense to coin a name for its use in tomography. (Journalists still manage to mix everything up and write that the physics department of our local university recently got new hardware for making brain scans.)

A related example in radiology would be that the "X-ray" in X-ray CT (computed tomography) is usually dropped. Whether this is done for brevity or to avoid the "X-rays -> ionizing radiation -> cancerogenous" connotation, I don't know.

Re:Rename it?

[Feztaa]

patients might not like the word nuclear.

I wonder if those same patients imploded upon learning that their very bodies were made up of nuclear particles (ie, protons and neutrons) :)

"It's nuclear! It must be bad!"

Re:Rename it?

[Anonymous Coward]

They have positively charged patients? And think of the density they must have without any electron shells getting in between nucleii!

Re:Rename it?

[PoopJuggler]

Nucular. It's pronounced nu-cue-lar.

Re:Rename it?

[Alsee]

About one-third of the code in your sig is bloat, chuckle.

for(int r=0,c=24;24-r;){printf(c--?c>r?" ":~r&c?" '":" #":(c=24,++r,"\n"));}

78 characters.

for(int r=-1,c=0;23-r;){printf(c--?c>r?" ":~r&c?" '":" #":(c=23,++r?"\n":"Pascals Triangle sig w/room to burn!\n"));}

117 characters (plus three if you convert the '>' to &gth, for 120). Note: Slashdot handled the plain '>' just fine, I didn't need to &gth.

for(int r=-2,c=0;23-r;){printf(c--?c>r?" ":~r&c?" '":" #":(c=23,++r+1?"\n":"Pascals Triangle sig w/room to burn!"));}

An interesting variation of the last version. It eliminates the \n on the text by hijacking the existing \n. Unfortunately that messes up the ++r?: test and the size winds up exactly the same.

I tried to test them in my own Slashdot sig but the "Too many junk characters" filter barfed at me. Let me know if you want help figuring out how the compressed code works.

P.S. It works fine if you set the loop to 39, I just shortened it to fit the display to the default DOS window.

-

Try this one on for size.

[illuminata]

How about investigating quantum computing?

Could a quantum computer even be built?

If so, what could it solve?

How would you have to pose the extremely tough questions for the quantum computer to solve, such as time travel?

At what point would the computers become greater than we are, if ever?

How would they impact surveillance?

Would the government try to control the technology or keep it from the people?

There's much more that would be worth asking.

Re:Try this one on for size.

[l0tu53at3r]

Serious note: What precisely is the definition of a quantum computer? Its kind of difficult to explain, and perhaps something that guy's great-grandpappy might have had fun going on for a few pages on explaining "objectively".

Not-so-serious note: Wouldn't it take the power of a quantum computer to build/use/understand output of a quantum computer?

Re:Try this one on for size.

[WinterpegCanuck]

We are due for another big leap in computing design. There are only so many .microns left until the transistors are two or three molecules in size. I fail to think this would signify the limit as there has to be another avenue that we have not tried (or has not been shown to the public) otherwise how else am I going to get my tri-corder functioning?

Re:Try this one on for size.

[xquark]

In theory it is said that a machine's output must be matched by a reader
pertaining the same complexity as the machine that produced it. In today's
terms that simply means the output can be read if the format in which the
data has been stored been is already "defined" and that the machine
decoding has this definition.

now because all computation or models of computers can be reduced into
Turing machines that means that any simple state-machine can decode any
complex looking data. regardless of how complex the machine that produced
the data in the first place is.

That said, there is no guarantee that the decoder of the data will be able
to decode the data in a reasonable and useable time period, it just means
that all machines regardless of how simple they are will be able to decode
and make sense of the data on the time line to infinity.

something like the infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number
of typewriters etc...

Arash Partow

Theories are ment to be broken

[WinterpegCanuck]

As such a machine does not currently exist, we couldn't use everyday experience to rule it out.

As mentioned in earlier /. articles, it was a widely accepted fact that a human being would go insane from overload if he traveled faster that 35 mph. Just because we can't see how it could be done at this time does not mean it is impossible.

Anti Wireless Technology

[the eric conspiracy]

Wireless technologies provide endless ways to invade privacy - RFID, Credit Cards, Cell Phones, EZPass, PDA, GPS, subcutaneous transponders implanted when you walk through a mall entrance, Microsoft License activation, whatever.

Clearly the most important technology of the future will be the development of personal jammers to silence the RF nattering of the post-PC era world of gizmos carried about one's person, implanted under skin (overtly or surreptitiously) or attached into clothing. Everyone will be looking for RF cones of silence, ways to use a taser like device to EMP a wireless spybot picked up by walking into a movie theatre (or implanted by the Selective Service) or shielded pouches to prevent RF attacks on credit cards or other payment/identification devices.

If I was looking to report on bleeding edge tech, this is where I would look.

You think spyware like Gator is bad? You haven't seen nothing yet.

Re:Anti Wireless Technology

[herrvinny]

Problem is, how do we jam them? I'm not an engineer by any stretch of the imagination, but an EMP permanently disables an electronic device. Better watch where you're aiming that thing, so you don't hit a guy with an artificial heart!

Perhaps flooding the air with bogus data/static would work, but wouldn't that take up quite a bit of energy?

Re:Anti Wireless Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

I hereby nominate tin foil hat and suit as the contenders for cutting edge technology.

C'mon guys, the theory's been in place for a while now, all we need is someone to make it work and the world'll be better for everyone...

Re:Anti Wireless Technology

[the eric conspiracy]

Yes, and what about bugs that attach themselves to the outside of the suit? Maybe even poke antennas in through the foil?

No, I do not think a simple passive tinfoil suit will work.

Re:Anti Wireless Technology

[Thing 1]

Worry about guvmint putting RFIDs in the drinking water. Like they currently do with fluoride, "for our benefit."

Yes, I realize that then the RFID tags would be random. But ... then they could start collecting data, and ultimately match us up, just like DNA evidence is "random" until they find a match.

Re:Anti Wireless Technology

[Blakey Rat]

Yikes. How about an anti-paranoia device?

Airplane, hell... this guy needs something to keep his feet solidly on the ground.

Re:Anti Wireless Technology

[Ilan Volow]

There already is anti-wireless technology. It's called a refrigerator, and anytime I get near mine, my wi-fi connection goes dead.

That being said, I think a refrigerator implanted in the body would kick ass. It would block snooping wi-fi signals, and your beer would be as cold after you drink it as it was before.

Re:Anti Wireless Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people pay the majority of their things with credit cards anyway. Your purchases are already being tracked. In the future, there will likely still be some form of cash, and this will still allow you to make purchases without being tracked, and most people will still not take advantage of that fact, because it will still be much more convenient to pay electronically.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

What technology!?!

[frank_adrian314159]

Why, the use of Slahdot to display goatse.cx, of course!

Re:What technology!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG, scarred. will......never.....click.....links.....again..*ga ck*

New techs?

[Cpl Laque]

As we aproach the physical limit of processors to scale in size I am interested in see what the industry does next. Many people have theoriezed quantum and oraganic (as mentioned before on /.)computers but I would like to see real progress made. But even still that may be the type of technilogical break through that the Wrights made.

I would hope to see some sort of fuel innovations maybe leading to commercial space flights.

For military innovations(a subject near and dear to my heart ) I would hope to see better troop armor something akin to starship troopers(the book not the movie dammit)

But in all seriousness 100years from now I suspect the world will not be much different(we had a good innovation/invention explosion in the early to mid 1900's: flight, automobile, telephone(1876ish?)light bulb(1878 but same time frame) tranisitors in 1940 leading to computers and eventually the internet. But if you examine the past 50 years there really hasn't been anything that interesting going on(with the notable exception of(space flight,and internet) At least nothing on the scale of the Wrights. People used to walk and ride horses then within a 50 year period period they had light bulbs, cars, airplanes and talking on telephones.

If I try to gauge relatively what will the next big leaps and bounds bring us..I would have to say the same thing people were saying in the fifties flying cars and automated homes. But who knows?
Semper Fi

Re:New techs?

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

As we aproach the physical limit of processors to scale in size I am interested in see what the industry does next.

How about physically increasing the size of the chip? There's plenty of room left inside the case...

YLFI

Re:New techs?

[MegaHamsterX]

The future is asynchronus analog processors, it will take a rethink of semiconductor design though.

the cutting edge

[kraemer]

Biotech, Biotech, Biotech. Out of all the fantastic knowledge we have, the human body and its related systems are the least understood. Could you even imagine the kinds of computers we could make if we could duplicate the human brain? Its astonishing that in the 21st century there is so much technology for killing the human body and far less technology for upgrading it...

Yes, I've had the same experience

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Amos Ives Root published the first eye witness account of the Wright Brothers flight almost 100 years ago. Scientific American had rejected his article as 'unbelievable'

I told them to report that I saw a large white commercial supersonic airliner called Concorde only yesterday and they didn't believe me either.

It's not the flying...

[frank_adrian314159]

I mean flying - it's boolean - you fly or you don't fly.

Flying's the easy part. It's the soft landing that's the bitch to get right...

Re:It's not the flying...

[PReDiToR]

It's the soft landing that's the bitch to get right.

Any landing you can walk away from is a good one. So they say.

Re:It's not the flying...

[mccoma]

that's not what my lawyer tells me....

Re:It's not the flying...

[babyrat]

A good landing is one you can walk away from - it's a great landing if you can walk away and use the plane afterwards.

There is no edge

[dacarr]

Just because something is said to be impossible doesn't mean that it is.

Discounting, of course, recovering data from a farmed drive.

Whoa - talk about IRONY...

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out the date on that article: September 10, 2001.

Talk about needing a machine to go back in time to warn people...

IPv6

[Daneurysm]

errr, maybe not...yet

Pursuing Technology?

[HarryCallahan]

Knowing old Amos, I reckon he'd be waddling around in circles with his pants around his ankles singing "that old grey mare she ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be..."

Here's one - cheap space flight

[ferreth]

Scaled is doing leading edge - cheap transport to space. While not a clear 'first', they could be pointed to in the future as having been the first to demonstrate cheap space flight.

I think you're underestimating the problem.

[Baldrson]

If guys like Robert Bussard can't even get serious air-time would Langley-equivalents fare much better than the Wright-equivalents today?

just basic physics

[l0tu53at3r]

I have had it come to my attention that the Wright brother's first flight was less a use of technology, but rather just the exploiting of basic physical principles. Every advancement on flight beyond their first experimental model could then be considered technology I suppose, but I contend that the first flight was merely a General Physics 101Lab [perhaps 102Lab =)]experiment that happened to work.

What if they send back a swastika?

[tjstork]

What if they just sent back a swastika?

Or a bunch of random made up stuff just to screw with the people in the past?

Re:What if they send back a swastika?

[Usquebaugh]

I'm for the screwing with people in the past idea :-)

"Buy all the SCOX stock you can"

"Bush is a noble leader, vote for him"

"Liver and kidneys every day increase lifespan 300%"

That's the sort of stuff I'd be sending :-)

my vote is for quantum teleportation

[1iar_parad0x]

My vote is for quantum teleportation
http://www.research.ibm.com/quantum info/teleportat ion/

Although the edges of technology usually aren't. Man sought flight for centuries. It was like alchemy. So, perhaps real AI and genomics are the true edge.

Re:my vote is for quantum teleportation

[iggymanz]

nah, let's do classical Newtonian teleportation first.

Where technology appears to be magic.

[Kris_J]

Just look at any technology that appears to almost be magic. This is where the edge is. Bluetooth and WiFi are up there, guesture-based interaction is close. Imagine being able to unlock the door to your house with a (specific) wave of your hand, all worked out using sensors built into a ring or glove and relayed to the house's security system using an encrypted RF data technology. Personal Area Networking is a group of technologies with a lot of potential. There are many more examples, I'm sure.

Re:Where technology appears to be magic.

[Anonymous Coward]

RF is the edge of technology??? Welcome to the 20th century!

Re:Where technology appears to be magic.

[toast0]

I can already unlock doors by waving my ass near the sensor (assuming rfid is in pocket), waving my hand seems like more work

Re:Where technology appears to be magic.

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the point of those t-shirts? I don't get it. It's not to inflate your ego by making you think you know more than those who actually have a say in world affairs is it? Prole vs. the elite; it's always a bitch being on the wrong side isn't it?

Re:Where technology appears to be magic.

[toast0]

What is the point of your bitching? Create an account, log in, and turn off sigs or mark me as a foe.

This is the last /. post I'm going to respond to you about my shirt on.

Re:Where technology appears to be magic.

[Kris_J]

That's like saying the Wright Bros' plane wasn't cutting edge because it was made of wood. Low power, high bandwidth RF data is a great enabling technology and as the power requirements drop and the bandwidth goes up the magic follows.

Re:Where technology appears to be magic.

[Anonymous Coward]

Grumpy fuck ! I just chedkd out your stupid shoirts and have to agree with the guy. Its not obvious enough irony to be interesting. If it is irony?

Re:Where technology appears to be magic.

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds complicated, but it's easly done allready. My gate and garage door opens up automaticaly. I don't even have to push a button, it's all done automaticaly by my security system. They just stuck some box under my hood. The gate is on a delay so I have to actualy 'stop' for a few seconds, but the garage is open by the time i get up the drive way. Shoot for a door it don't have to be auto... just add another button to a car door locking gizmo... when ya get close to the door push the button and it opens.

Re:Where technology appears to be magic.

[toast0]

Well it's offtopic.. and it's annoying... If you look at my recent comment history, about half of them have been replied to by the guy complaining about my shirts. Oh, and they've pretty much all been overrated too.

Re:Where technology appears to be magic.

[Anonymous Coward]

A secret handshake, for your house. Truly you are my geek overlord, and I welcome you.

Re:Where technology appears to be magic.

[kabocox]

Locking doors wouldn't be magic. Having the house automaticly throw out intruders would be though.

MS iBrain 2.0 SP1

[WinterpegCanuck]

This Service Pack addresses a security whole in which an unauthorized user can feed malformed information into the system and cause a user-level memory leak. This product contains no spy ware or RIAA malware. Really.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Genetically Modified Food

[Kohath]

The possibilities are there to cure or prevent diseases and famines. They're just getting started.

Re:Genetically Modified Food

[lithiumcloud]

The cure for famine is billions of years old. It's called food.

Re:Genetically Modified Food

[WinterpegCanuck]

Is this really a good thing? We already live in such a sterile and bubblewrapped world that when something contageous comes along, our body's can not cope. Mabey it's time to listen to our kids and start eating more dirt, regain our imune system.

Re:Genetically Modified Food

[Anonymous Coward]

the potential is also there to make crops that, when bred with other natual strains create deadly poisons, or non-seedbearing offspring.

genetic modification is so overpacked with good side/bad side equations I think it's a little early to call it a miracle...in the end it may be responsible for a WORLDWIDE famine...

too early to say.

Re:Genetically Modified Food

[bobbagum]

"Genetically Engineered? That's science fiction mumbo jumbo" - Prof. Hubert Fansworth It's worth pondering on modern day equivalent of the flying car dream of yester year... what will be laughed at in a few decades time?

Re:Genetically Modified Food

[EvilTwinSkippy]

SHHH.

Let OUR kids eat dirt, and let the random's of the world let their kids continue to wallow in lysol disinfected bubbles. That way our decendents WILL be immune to the killer whatever comes down the pike.

Then the geek shall truely inherit the Earth.

Social Engineering

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Amos would probably be studying the next step in "productivity" which will be the design of entire social systems from religion to the line at the DMV. Like it or not, we are manipulated every day by hucksters, salesmen, advertisers, even charities.

It's not going to be all that long till governments apply the same principles to "mind persuasion." Yes, the attempts in the past have been laughable, from WWII's Rationing Slogans to the War On Drugs.

But sooner or later they are going to get it right. Just look at DeBeers, who managed to invent an entire social custom wrapped around crystalized carbon. And clear, colorless crystals at that.

No imagine that persuasion in the hands of Uncle Sam.

Re:Social Engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

Sam's already got me donating parts of the 25%% levy they take from my income towards the two very important tasks of:

Anti-smoking campaigns
and
Subsidising tobacco farmers

Who needs mind control?

Re:Social Engineering

[Thing 1]

Like it or not, we are manipulated every day by hucksters, salesmen, advertisers, even charities.

(Emphasis added.)

I commute to Boston. Every day I get off at North Station and there's this annoying guy scowling at everyone, ringing a fucking bell trying to get you to give to the Salvation Army or some fucking thing. I'd pay him to stop ringing the bell but I'm out of there in less than a minute.

At the other end (since that's where the bathroom is and I've had occassion to use it in the last week) is a lady with actual jingle bells, like 5 bells on a chain, that's so much nicer. I gave her a couple bucks.

Yes, charities are competing for my money, but give me a smile and a less annoying noise and you'll get my charity dollars.

The future: analogue computers

[Anonymous Coward]

Since digital computers have effectively been unchanged apart from small increases in speed (say from 10MHz to 1GHz: a factor of 100 which is hardly worth mentioning) and memory address space (say from 64k to 2G: a factor of only 30000) in the last 20 years, the future clearly lies with analogue computers.

That is the technology to cling on to.

Tunnel diodes

[Anonymous Coward]

I am somewhat fixated on the 60s, but having never been through them, I read a lot of old technical papers instead. I also keep old electronics from that era running. I have a Tektronix 547 oscilloscope with plug-ins that let me use the thing to 4GHz either as a scope or spectrum analyzer.
The one component that seems to get the job done in all these devices is the diode. All varieties of diodes especially exotic snap diodes and tunnel diodes. Tunnel diodes where supposed to be the next greatest thing 40+ years ago, but they came at a time were ICs were just starting up, and transistors were catching up in terms of frequency response. They are now only used for very exotic stuff like picosecond pulsers or UHF triggers.
But, there was always this fascination for tunnel diodes among the traditional analog electronics freaks, and there was always research being done.
And now, they will come back!

electric bias showing

[swell]

Perhaps it is too much to expect our group to consider biological technology.

In the financial section of your newspaper you can read about developments in the drug industry. In environmental & health publications you can read about food additives/modifiers/adulterers. In the farm report you can read about animal feeds and merging of animal & plant genes for more profitable products.

I'd love y'all to consider my favorite bio tech gadget: the interface between the human nervous system and digital devices. I expect amazing bandwidth to develop and astounding results in our social lives as we use these devices to communicate with each other at the speed of thought.

Re:electric bias showing

[Tokerat]

I'd love y'all to consider my favorite bio tech gadget: the interface between the human nervous system and digital devices.

My hand?

The only way to increase the bandwidth of that is regular practice at moving it faster. Geeks everywhere are researching this as we speak...

Dumont beat them too it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Santos Dumont the real father of flight.

Dont belive the Wright Bros. Hype.

Re:Dumont beat them too it...

[Jesrad]

And Clement Ader beat Santos-Dumont to it. Don't believe the Wright hype either.

Unbelievable article rejected

[Afrosheen]

Scientific American had rejected his article as 'unbelievable' and 'having no practical application'.

Hmmm, and you are the great-great-grandson of Mr. Root? I wonder...the reason why all of my good slashdot story submissions get bounced every freakin' time. Maybe CmdrTaco and pals are the great-great-grandsons of those same Scientific American editors!

Maybe he'd admit Brazil was in the air first . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the Wright brothers!

Being both a geek, AND a beekeeper...

[Anonymous Coward]

A slight correction: that's Gleanings in Bee Culture, the pre-eminent beekeeper magazine. Also, the A.I. Root company is one of the two or three largest beekeeper-supply companies in the country.

Just some add'l trivia to stuff everyones' heads with.

Nuts.

[MarkusQ]

There is nothing valueable in space within our grasp as far as anyone knows if that changes so does my thesis but untill then the status quo is best left to persist.

Nuts. If we were to exploit the resources space offers us without going into any other major gravity wells (i.e., sticking to free space, asteroids, small moons, etc), there is (just off the top of my head):

• Enough energy for everyone alive in the world today to live better than the average American presently does.
• More gold, coal, natural gas, nickle, iron, etc. etc. than has ever been mined in the history of mankind.
• Enough room, sunlight, water etc. for us to feed many times our present population as well as we feed the richest few now.
• Enough room for all of us to spread out and live interesting lives.

What more do you want exactly?

-- MarkusQ

Re:Nuts.

[spongman]

What more do you want exactly?

low inflation?

Re:Nuts.

[MarkusQ]

What more do you want exactly?

low inflation?

If we develop the resources of space as fast or faster than governments print more money we could have no inflation and the tax rate could fall without...

*sigh* Ok, I guess that sounds like science fiction.

-- MarkusQ

Re:Nuts.

[ansible]

I think you left out sex in microgravity. :-)

Hell, I've wanted to go to the moon ever since I was able to think. Isn't that enough reason?

And then there's the whole survival of humanity issue if there happens to be a massive ecological disaster on Earth, World War III, etc.

Hopefully, we'd have self-sustaining space colonies before the technological singularity, but I doubt we'll have the luxury. Bah, I guess we're only going to have one shot at that. Cross your fingers!

Re:Nuts.

[machowsk]

>More gold, coal, natural gas, nickle, iron, etc. etc. than has ever been mined in the history of mankind.

There's coal in space? I thought coal came from dead plants and dinosaurs. Even if there was coal just floating around, would we really want to bring it back here and burn it? Don't we have enought air pollution?

Additionally, I remember being taught in grade school that if there were 100% pure gold bricks just lying on the surface of the moon for the taking, it still wouldn't be fiscally worth it to go there and bring them back. It's just too expensive. Or so I was told.:)

Re:Nuts.

[Coryoth]

Additionally, I remember being taught in grade school that if there were 100% pure gold bricks just lying on the surface of the moon for the taking, it still wouldn't be fiscally worth it to go there and bring them back. It's just too expensive. Or so I was told.:)

Presently, yes, it would be rather expensive. Most of that cost though, is getting up into space from earth. There are some promising looking developments on making that immensely less expensive (the X prize). Were that to pan out then all of a sudden it would be fiscally worth it. Technology can rapidly change the economics of a proposition.

Jedidiah.

Re:Nuts.

[MarkusQ]

There's coal in space? I thought coal came from dead plants and dinosaurs. Even if there was coal just floating around, would we really want to bring it back here and burn it? Don't we have enought air pollution?

I used coal as a shorthand for "chunks of mostly carbon that aren't diamonds or graphite"--which is close enough to the generally accepted meaning that I'm willing to stand by the useage. At any rate, there are such lumps and if you brought some back here most people would agree to call them coal.

But you'd be nuts to bring them back, and even more nuts to burn them; their primary value would be in space for use in making stuff--mostly plastics, medicines, etc., but someday diamondoid materials, buckytubes, etc.

Additionally, I remember being taught in grade school that if there were 100% pure gold bricks just lying on the surface of the moon for the taking, it still wouldn't be fiscally worth it to go there and bring them back. It's just too expensive. Or so I was told.:)

So don't take it back to your old grade school. Gold isn't just pretty, it's useful. It's wonderfully conductive, corrosion resistant, ductile, etc.

Stop thinking like a colonialist, and start thinking like a colonist.

-- MarkusQ

Re:Nuts.

[CrystalFalcon]

What more do you want exactly?

That this wealth ("enough energy for everyone alive to live better than the average American") is distributed in some other manner than 99.95% to a few hundred backscratching CEOs, with the rest of the population living below today's poverty line?

Call me socialist if you like, but it's still on my wish list for the scenario.

Re:Nuts.

[Stachel]

So the boundless resources of the universe could deliver the fuel for our greed. Great! And we wouldn't have to worry about the waste we create either: we'd just stuff it into a large rocket and set the controls for the heart of the sun.

I fail to see how that would make my life better than that of the average American though...

--Stachel

Re:Nuts.

[$hecky]

More gold, coal, natural gas, nickle, iron, etc. etc. than has ever been mined in the history of mankind.

Coal and natural gas? In space? Did I miss something about the moon having lush vegitation during the Jurassic period?

Glorified roller coasters

[Uncle Barnard's Star]

There's not much you can do with the technology being developed for the X-Prize, which focuses on suborbital "space" flight. What you get is basically a glorified theme park ride, not real space "travel". You can get much of the same experience just strapping yourself onto a high-tech simulator or riding one of those Russian zero-g space training planes.

The biggest problem with achieving orbital space flight isn't getting there but getting back (as the Columbia shuttled disaster demonstrated) in one piece. If stuff like heat shielding weren't a concern, Elon Musk's satellite launchers would probably be enough to rocket a suicidally minded space nut into outer space.

I don't know of any private entity seriously attempting a crewed orbital class spacecraft.

Something I'm tired of

[einTier]

I know this is going to get moderated down into obscurity by it's "off topic" nature, but I want to address it anyway, because I never it see it mentioned, and I think it's a valid complaint.

What's with all the useless links in Slashdot articles? Granted, this article's links are more relevant than most, but it's still got a lot of links that are unclear where they actually go. It's almost as if the article with the most links gets posted on the front page rather than the article with the most relative links. Usually, it's very difficult to tell where the links go, and which link will give you the information you need.

For instance, this article. The Nova link takes you directly to the initial article. That's useful, but typically on Slashdot, a link like this will actaully take you to Nova's root website. It's often the little thing after it that says "article" or "report on" that takes you to the actual article text. Amos Ives Root takes you to a paper on Amos Ives Root, in case you didn't know who he was. Useful, certainly, but the Nova article already gives a lot of background information. The Scientific American link doesn't bring you to Scientific American's root website like you'd think, nor does it link to article about how they initially rejected (though it's briefly mentioned as unconfirmed) the article, it's just a Scientific American article about the Wright Brothers. Useful in a way, but not really relevant to the conversation. "Rejected his article", which in keeping with the Slashdot style, you'd think would bring you to the article, or at least to Scientific American's article about rejecting the commentary, instead brings you to a sight about beekeeping. Granted, there is an article about the rejection, and Root did publish it in a paper about beekeeping, it seems incredibly off topic and obscure, and as short as the article is, not helpful.

The words Wright Brothers brings you to an article about the Wright Brothers. That's intuitive, and if someone didn't know about the Wright Brothers, they might could use it, but the Nova article contains much of the same data and renders this article ultimately redundant. "Publish the article" brings you to the actual article, which is welcome, but I didn't know that this link would actually bring me back the article text until I clicked on it for the sake of writing this comment. The link on other experimenters just brings you to another Slashdot article (+1 linking to Slashdot) about one particular early experimenter. There's not much actual data there (New Zealander Richard Pearse may have very well made several flights... before the Wright Brothers) and doesn't clear up the matter of other early pioneers of flight not getting credit. Oh wait, the next link, entitled "credit they deserve" brings you to another Slashdot article similar to the first. Now I understand.

Investigating links to yet another Slashdot article, this time a fairly irrelevant Ask Slashdot article on "Great Computer Science Papers?" Last, we have the technology link, which brings us to O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference. Lots of good information, but not linked in a way that helps you understand what you'll be visiting if you click the link.

I don't mean to single out this author, but we have a Slashdot article that supposed to be about the Nova show on Amos Ives Root, and it contains ten links to various articles of various relevance, only one of which will bring you to the article you wish to read, and it's not even clear which link that is! This is quite common with Slashdot articles, and it makes Slashdot more than a bit difficult to navigate.

Re:Something I'm tired of

[JAYOYAYOYAYO]

let me be the first to welcome you to the world wide web! if you hover your mouse cursor over a link, it shows what page the link will take you to! ;)

Re:Something I'm tired of

[einTier]

No, really?

My point is that even when you do rollover, it's not always obvious what you're clicking on ... especially in the first paragraph of a Slashdot article. Since Slashdot is at the very least, a semi-serious news site, this is inexcusible.

Re:Something I'm tired of

[Anonymous Coward]

if you cannot infer what type of page you will be going to (root site, article, etc) then you need to fucking practice, newbie.

Re:Something I'm tired of

[Feztaa]

I don't mean to single out this author, but we have a Slashdot article that supposed to be about the Nova show on Amos Ives Root, and it contains ten links to various articles of various relevance, only one of which will bring you to the article you wish to read, and it's not even clear which link that is! This is quite common with Slashdot articles, and it makes Slashdot more than a bit difficult to navigate.

I mostly agree with you, but you have to understand that there is a huge pool of people submitting slashdot stories, and all the ones that are posted are essentially posted verbatim; the editors edit nothing, they simply choose which to post and which not to post. So with a wide variety of story submitters having essentially free reign on the story text, various linking styles (including the "random garbage" style seen here) will appear in different stories.

I just rely on the statusbar in my browser to tell me if the link is worth clicking on or not. Typically I only click if the link is long (ie, not to a root page), and if the link isn't to somewhere else on slashdot. :)

Energy, especially nuclear

[vruba]

I don't know about really obscure stuff, but we could take another look at something obvious: power.

• Pebble bed modular reactors are very safe, very clean, and ready right now. Come up with some improvements on them.
• Fuel cells. They're still not good enough for general use, but they have good prospects -- look at vanadium redox batteries.
• Solar panels. They're already the best solution for most remote stuff in relatively sunny climates (navigational buoys, spacecraft), and they're still not very efficient (15%?).
• Energy transmission by microwave or laser (e.g. for orbital solar power).
• Floating seawater-cooled reactors. Don't laugh.
• Passive or semi-passive stuff: tidal, geothermal, hydroelectric, weird-ass solar chimneys, etc.
• Why muck around? Go for cold fusion. Yes, the most famous attempt was a fraud. Yes, it's not going to be ready tomorrow, even given a huge breakthrough. But the potential is amazing.

There are three basic kinds of power: grid power, which comes in bulk; portable fueled power, like a car engine; and embedded power, like a battery. All of could be a lot safer, cheaper, and cleaner. Happy research.

Technology is more of an evolution.

[jellomizer]

While there are some inventions that were a Wow thats really new. But most of them are just improvement over a long time. Lets take a look at the Modern Cell Phone which is something that back in the early 1900 would seem way far off and in the realms of complete unbelievable Science Fiction.
But first people needed a quick means to communicate over large distances so they made a telegraph which got the work done. Then it was modified to the Telephone. Which first it was limited to the select few then advancement. Then people started to want to use the phone over distance. So the Cordless and the early Cell phones were created. As cell phones became common place people are starting to demand that they fix all the shortcomings in their phone. From quality to features that they would like to have. So now our Cellphones can basically be a PDA which is a small computer. Each step in this evolution there were some early adopters who went WOW this is cool. Then there are some people who goes yea its kinda neat but I will wait until they fix x, then the last group of people go this is something that nobody really needs. But technology slowly improves. There wont be any stop in technology as long as people go well this is good but it could be better.

Re:Technology is more of an evolution.

[Creepy Crawler]

I'd buy that most people in the mid-early 1900's wouldnt believe of cordless phones... Well, except for Tesla. He made wireless controls for smallish gizmo's around his labs.

Given a decently small mic and speaker, he could have made a "cell phone" with remote power at that!

And all of those "mysterious disturbances" and other 'mystic' happenings... I dont believe it. A lot of that is plain bunk.

Ref: US patent # 685,956 on NOV 5, 1901: Appratus for utilizing effects transmitted through a natural media

US Patent # 787,412 on APR 18, 1905: Art of transmitting Electrical energy through the natural mediums.

Your gramp was late, Ader was first

[SysKoll]

Maybe your gramp should have traveled to Europe. There, he would have found that the first powered flight occured in France on October the 12th, 1897. Clement Ader flew his steam-powered (!) Avion on about 150 ft in front of his military patrons.

The French army brass, disappointed that they couldn't already have a B-52, cancelled the funding, and a bitter Clement Ader stopped his aeronautical experiments.

The real innovation introduced by the Wright brothers was an effective way of controlling the plane. The Avion was using a crude wing-warping system that didn't prove efficient. However, the Wright machine was just as unbalanced as Ader's Avion.

The steam engine was the only available motor at the time of Ader's design, and its shortcoming prevented the Avion from flying for more than a few minutes because of the water and fuel weight.

However, flight historians should say that the Wright brothers made the first powered, guided flight, wereas Ader made the first powered flight.

Innovation? Segway already changed the world!

[Solarbeat]

Remember? It really wasn't that long ago that Segway came out and changed the way we travel, changed the way we planned cities, and created world peace! We don't need any more stinkin innovation!

Re:Innovation? Segway already changed the world!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention it showed how unco the pretzeldent is.

Imaging immunity and virology

[__aadkms7016]

The coolest seminars I've seen on campus this
semester have been virologists and immunologists
making real-time movies of cells under attack
(virology) and pre-empting attack (immunology).
To sit there in the audience and watch a movie
of a flu virus (tagged with a flourescent marker
to look red) tricking its way into a cell, maneurvering
to the nucleus, and attacking it, is just stunning.
And the immunologists have the same sort of
movies with dendritic cells dancing with antigens.
Yes, I realize its a long way from having the movie
to understanding the science behind the movie
sufficiently to reach the clinic, but that fact
doesn't make it any less stunning ...

Nanotech

[MarkusQ]

Please, can we stop calling it "nanotechnology" and start calling it what it really is?

CHEMISTRY!

I'm not trying to be funny. That new stain-defender stuff in pants? Apparently it's called nanotechnology. No! Chemistry! It's just chemistry! Stop subjecting your minds to buzzwords.

Brief history:

• Some people came up with a very interesting idea, and called it "Nanotechnology"
• The word got very popular, and so people started calling all sorts of other things "Nanotechnology" in the hopes that some of the coolness would rub off.
• People who knew about the original idea got annoyed by this, and people who didn't know about it fell into two groups: the ones who had no clue said "Gee, buzzwords, swell!"; the more cluefull noticed that the word was being applied to stuff that wasn't all that special and got annoyed without realizing that the orginal idea even existed.

Nanotech (in the original sense--what is now being refered to as eutachtic chemistry and/or machine phase chemistry) is to clasical chemistry what semiconductor technology is to leyden jar and cat fur electrical science. We aren't there yet (and may never be) but the idea doesn't deserve the glib dismissal it gets from the hipply cynical.

-- MarkusQ

That's his fucking point, you moron.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's his fucking point, you moron.

Physics and Biotech.

[rice0067]

There are really cool technologies that are being molded into fantastic new medical treatments and diagnostic equipment.
Some of these are Plasmon Resonance, Optical Coherence Tomography, Photodynamic Therapy just to name a few.
You can read more about these at http://www.massgeneral.org/wellman/

Space immigration

[Uncle Barnard's Star]

Space tourism is already here. It just depends on how you define it. As a paying passenger, Dennis Tito fits the bill as a space tourist. And the X-Prize contest is bound to turn up a winner and a loser or two who could bring you to the edge of space and back. But such space tourism would be in the same category as x-treme sports, an experience to be shared by a select few. So maybe you're right. There probably won't be space tourism of the "book the next flight to Miami" variety. Space travel, I suspect, will be a one-way trip for the average Joe and Jane of the distant future, something of the American immigrant experience. "Hon, I've lost my job. I hear there's an opening on Mars!"

How is decimal limiting that edge?

[Thinkit3]

How much has decimal limited advances in science and technology? Using hexadecimal SI, couldn't the edges be brought back much further, sooner?

Re:How is decimal limiting that edge?

[jared_hanson]

What the hell are you talking about. Equivalent numbers are not limiting, they are the fucking same. The only difference between them is that people, including scientists, much more readily recognize and work with decimal numbers. Hence, hexidecimal would probably be more encumbering due to the learning curve.

As far as computers crunching data, computers only work in binary. Any decimal or hexadecimal number is converted by the compiler and therefore has zero effect on performance.

Now quit bringing up this inane shit that has no basis in practicality.

I can tell you the edge of technology.

[Omni Magnus]

They have been making incredible advances in the 3D pornography field lately. Pretty soon, nerds won't even need to date. (or get rejected while attempting)

Re:I can tell you the edge of technology.

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Actually people will start coding rejection into the simulation.

At least according to the whole non and semi-conscentual genre of Usenet postings.

The Obvious Limit

[BoRegardless]

If GGGpa were alive he'ld be interested in surfaces, substrates and substances described and builtup from the atomic and molecular level. NFC is a prime example. Near Frictionless Carbon is a plasma or similar deposition coating which is very hard and dramatically lower in friction than Teflon. The applications for this exist in tens of thousands of products eventually, from hard drive bearings to diesel engines and hardware in space.

Imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine if some guy in a garage in Wyoming managed to create some amazing new technology, be it cold fusion, a truly intuitive AI or some new medical treatment. What could this guy do? What would this guy do? Would he herald this new cutting edge technology, or would he hire a band of lawyers and seek to patent the technology? Would he not get any major corporate media to even report without them first dispatching some lackies to explore the exploitation potential? Would he have his idea snatched for a song by some corporate interest that quickly got wind of his discovery? And then if this new technology interfered with the profitable status quo of some very influential corporate entity, would it ever see the light of day?

The cutting edge of technology in modern society is being progressively dulled to butter-knife sharpness by our propensity to let ourselves be entertained into submission and medocrity via the media.

Chris Rock said it most poignantly when he pointed out that advanced in medicine haven't cured anything. Why? Because it's more profitable for you to "live with" an affliction than it is to cure it. The art of discovery takes a back seat to the process of material gain.

Nowadays, the majority of most people who aspire to create something truly innovative are preoccupied with grants and monetary issues that dwarf the energy they wish to spend on the art of discovery. It's the Roman decline revisited.

Information.

[mindstrm]

I think we are still at the very beginning of the information age... I can't imagine what kind of information storage and retrieval devices we will have in 100 years.

I'm not talking star-trek here.. let's look at what is technically feasible now, even if it's not economically viable.

Storing terabytes of information per cubic inch of some material, with picosecond access times.

Communication - Despite regulatory stifling of the internet.. the concept that if we follow standards, and cooperate, we can leverage all kinds of communication mediums, is here now. Speeds are going up and up.. the "last mile" problem is just momentary.

So.. as our ability to store and move information goes up and up.. so what?

We are getting good at digitizing things, too.

Movies. Audio.
3d scanners. Motion capture. Auto-generated 3d meshes from image analysis of 2d images...

Despite no real big noise about it now, there is ongoing progressive work in the field of image recognition.

Teleconferencing.
VoIP.
Wireless... look at what's happenign there. Look how much 802.11b stuff is changing how we think about wireless.. how many mom & pop outfits are providing services over it.. and that's a TINY, TINY slice of spectrum.. what would happen if we REALLY got serious about open wireless communcation?

Re:Information.

[oo_waratah]

Storing terabytes of information is useless unless you can find it. Isn't the Internet starting towards becoming unsearchable because of the false hits.

Don't believe me try and find useful information on the interpress graphic format from Xerox. I am sure there is something out there, no idea where.

Re:Information.

[PetWolverine]

You aren't looking forward. We are already in the Information Age, so the question is what age comes next. I would say that as we generate and collect more and more data, and have more and more raw processing power, we will need to come up with new algorithms for manipulating and making sense of that data. The culmination of this process will be information that manipulates itself, or artificial intelligence. By that time the Internet will permeate the ether everywhere we go, but it will become a single intelligence, and we should be alert for any attempt it might make to communicate with us.

Give me an ethernet jack in the back of my skull

[danlyke]

I think the next big advances are going to be in biology. No, I don't think we're going to live forever in the near future, there's not enough room for healthcare as a percent of GNP to make that a reality. The two big advances are going to be in:

1. Biology for manufacturing. Call your "nanotech" what you will, simulating large scale mechanics at a small scale just has too many problems. However, revamp bamboo to grow me a house, or corals to grow me dishes, and we're talking something that's got a market.

2. Computer interfaces. Right now we've got a few monkeys controlling robotic arms (and world superpowers, but I digress), and there are definitely parallels to be drawn to the world of various gliders and steam powered aircraft that were burgeoning around 1903. Something with huge economic and social potential, that can completely "change the world" in the way aviation promised to, is a moderate bandwidth back that bypasses our current sensory system.

The Edge Will Be...

[No_Weak_Heart]

Slashdotted into the ground as soon as someone here figures out where it is now.

What the heck kinda question is that? All we do here is discuss the edge -- day in, day out. Have you not been paying attention? Read the stinking articles yourself.

on the edge of conspiracy

[Anonymous Coward]

I think alternative fuels and power are probably at the same point. They might get a little attention but in general they are being shut out. This probably due to our current administration. Yeah, he threw a little money or said somthing about he supports research into alternative fuels . I just wonder what would happen if we spent 87 billion on research instead of war what would come out of it?

Taonology

[EvilTwinSkippy]

We are about at the end of what the pure, objective, scientific method can tell us about ourselves. To delve any deeper into Sociology or Psychology forces us as the observer to interact with the system. It's not just "brain" studies. Physics has the same problem too. To study an atom requires bouncing a magentic field, a light beam, an electron, basically something that alters its behavior.

Whatever methodolgies we develop for dealing with this problem is going to be the successor to the scientific method. It will also put to bed a lot of the crackpot UFO and ESP crap.

Well, at least the parts that don't pan out under scrutiny.

Re:Taonology

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you name a single instance where any of that boloney has proven to be anything more than just that? Where is the starting point, who currently is the "Wilbur Wright" of ESP research? Please don't say Uri Geller or that swindler on TV who talks to the dead.

Re:Taonology

[EvilTwinSkippy]

How about Erwin Schroedinger?

Re:LET FREEDOM RING!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey dumbass, where's Osama again ?

The "war on terror" will end when there won't be a Thirld World anymore. Terrorism feeds off misery economical imperialism creates.

Yes it is!

[No_Weak_Heart]

You see, I actually know what the next big thing is going to be, I even submitted an article about it. But those dang /. editors rejected my submission! And so it remains an obscure, but decidedly great, technological advance.

At least my efforts will give something for the grandkids to post about...

Stuff that Science Doesn't believe in

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the following 'technologies' that science believes to be fake?

Lifters - http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm
Dowsing - http://www.phact.org/e/dowsing.htm
Cold Fushion - http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.11/coldfusion .html

How many technologies are ignored just like flight because people just can't believe it can be true.

Re:Stuff that Science Doesn't believe in

[FuryBuzby]

Hmm...

Teach me to use the preview button..try again

What about the following 'technologies' that science believes to be fake?

Lifters - http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm
Dowsing - http://www.phact.org/e/dowsing.htm
Cold Fushion - http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.11/coldfusion .html

How many technologies are ignored just like flight because people just can't believe it can be true.

Re:Stuff that Science Doesn't believe in

[iggymanz]

Science does believe in lifters, but they're just air ion engines, and I have to laugh at the very poor experimental technique and bad logic of those who try to "prove" they're anything but that. Dowsing: you know, anywhere in the part of the midwest I live in, you could jiggle your dowsing rod & be correct, there's a water table everywhere. Cold fusion: very reputable scientists have tried to duplicate the results, but could nothing conclusive found. Just as an aside, at U.of I. some of the senior physics professors did a number of interesting experiments to see if they could find a "fifth force" that some elements supposedly possess, and the reason I bring that up is that you're wrong if you think mainstream scientists will reject new ideas out of hand.

Re:Stuff that Science Doesn't believe in

[FuryBuzby]

Ok..I bow to your knowledge of Lifters.

Re Dowsing my father an Architect has used Dowsers on building sites to find cables, water etc.

My point is to show that some science and knowledge can't fit into present science and so has/will be discounted as quackary.

Re:Stuff that Science Doesn't believe in

[iggymanz]

I've seen too many competent, serious scientists who are willing to put "wild & crazy" ideas to serious test; even dowsers have been tested under controlled conditions. I would point out that if your father works in a large city or with structures larger than a duplex, you're going to find much the same situation as my example of the omnipresent water table (dig a hole anywhere within 100 miles of where I live deep enough and you WILL hit water, no question about it. Dig a hole anywhere within 100 feet of the 3 building x 52 unit complex along a major business corridor I live in and you will find all manner of cables, pipes, conduits, sewer lines)

Controlled Safe Fusion..

[NuWinter]

Sounds like a tall order, but this achievement will come to pass in short order once it is understood how easy it is to accomplish. Now as everyone knows Fusion is one of those perennial things trotted out during every future forecast that is always outside the realm of possibility. Well, that is because of the methods that are currently employed to achieve it.

The two main categories typically thought of as one day leading to Controlled Fusion are: Inertial Confinement using Lasers or Ion Beams to heat a small pellet of deuterium-tritium to such high temperatures and pressure that the atoms fuse.

Then, the second choice for Fusion is Magnetic Confinement, this is the method used by the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor at Princeton. The principle is to use Magnetic fields to hold plasma containing deterium-tritum together long enough for fusion to be initiated.

Now, both these approaches have been stumbling around for many decades consuming billions of dollars while scientists proclaim that the breakeven point is "just around the corner." Well enough is enough, it is time for something fundamentally different.

The new method uses a "Plasma Focus" which is a device which works with plasma rather than against it with expensive and inefficient brute force methods. Quoting from: Focus Fusion In contrast, the plasma focus device functions by using instabilities that nature provides. It is natural instabilities that cause the plasma filaments to form and later to compress themselves into an ultra dense plasmoid to generate fusion temperatures. Such instabilities are common in nature and, as Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine has emphasized, are the way that nature evolves and creates new structures and new types of order.

Focus Fusion is thus a new type of Fusion that uses Hydrogen-Boron as a fuel that will produce electricity directly (the helium nuclei) verses the water, steam, and turbines necessary to produce energy with the Tokamak and other potential methods of Fusion. Because of these advantages this Fusion device could be extremely small and inexpensive. All that remains is for the right person or persons to realize this and capitalize on this wonderful opportunity to bring cheap clean power to humanity.

Re:LET FREEDOM RING!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ossama is next baby. FUCK YOU.

ISLAM CAUSES ITS PEOPLE PAIN.

GET A FUCKING CLUE.

You will die trying tio lie to people and blame it on progress and not on the CULTS .

YOUR cults will be fucking exposed. You will die LYING and we will triumph over your backwards deconstructionist mediocrity ass.

You are the proletariat with the opiated religion fuck you and die.

How about this?

[Ghoest]

I'm creating a Gibsonian cyberspace over here. Slashdot wasn't interested in the story; I guess they are turned off by press releases or small time developers.

There's a report in this gaming journal (I am a former tactical game designer/developer).

Let me know what you guys think. I know a GUI based cyberspace isn't any more useful then the current indexing/text version, but man is it loads of fun.

Re:How about this?

[Crypto Gnome]

of course they weren't interested.

An editor obviously visited the site and saw nothing more than

• Under Construction
• Some Random Plugin required to read the news

SO they terminated your submission with extreme prejudice, as they should have.

Zero real content, lots of "aren't I fabulous" posturizing, and please make me famous on slashdot.

Geez! the NERVE of some people.

Re:How about this?

[Ghoest]

Well my apologies. I didn't know they didn't use Flash and or can't handle an animated gif. Please keep up people, and get over it: Netscape lost the battle. Good day. That is the rudest response I ever got from anyone when I all I did was put my best foot forward.

Re:How about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please keep up people, and get over it: Netscape lost the battle. Good day.

It did? Oh dear. Why wasn't I informed?

So where do I get the Debian package for this "IE" your page speaks of, which seems to have won some war I didn't even know was being fought.

(There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. In other words, man, did you mis-read your target audience!)

Art Bell

[Anonymous Coward]

Was Amos the Art Bell of the Victorian era? Perhaps today he'd be investigating crop circles or "remote viewing".

Re:Give me an ethernet jack in the back of my skul

[EvilTwinSkippy]

What you would end up creating are a set of parallel senses to the natural senses, or at least a great big "digital" sense.

Remember, sensory processing begins at the nerve endings in the sensory organs. Much of your brain's interpretation of what the eye sees is handled in the first few layers of cells in the retina.

A second problem is that of resonance. Your brain produces a reference wave and measures sensory input as an interference pattern to that wave. While you could easily exploit that phenominon to transmit data to the brain, it would be nearly impossible to make it believe the information is coming from the sensory organs.

That is not to say you could not produce very vivid images using this new sense. I recall an experiment where researchers were able to teach a blind man to see using pressure transducers on his back. They had a camera that would translate a signal from a black and white CCD into pressure intensities laid out like a grid. The subject was able to adapt that system into a crude form of vision. There are also reports of deaf people who "hear" by feeling the vibrations of speakers, at least enough to enjoy music.

This sense would have to be developed in people. But I could see it as a powerful tool. It would be cool if my car could translate data from proximity radar system into my brain. Instead of relying on mirrors I could "feel" the road around me. Know where the curb is. Sense that Kia in my blindspot. Vibe that cop over the next hill with the radar set.

Would it be sense like we know them? No. Instead it would be sensations the likes of which we had never known before.

Re:Relations

[Anonymous Coward]

Enoch Root is a character in a geeky novel. The novel spread accross two timelines, one in WWII and one in the 90s, and Enoch was the father or grandfather of a the modern day character. He was also involved in the first parts of the computer age, as part of breaking codes.

It would completely fit in with that book to have Enoch Root be related to a man present at the first flight.

Just posting this so the moderator of the above can catch the appropriate punishment in meta.

Stuff that Science Doesn't believe in

[FuryBuzby]

What about the following 'technologies' that science believes to be fake? Lifters - http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm Dowsing - http://www.phact.org/e/dowsing.htm Cold Fushion - http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.11/coldfusion .html How many technologies are ignored just like flight because people just can't believe it can be true.

naw

[themusicgod1]

that just pushes back the inevidible. sooner or later people are going to have to come to grips that unless they want a significant lifestyle change (ie go live with the ahmish / go live out in the few square inches of wildnerness left alone and without the luxory of modern life)...that they are going to have to accept some interferrence in their life from electricity(mostly, acceptable nowadays, although raw electricity is _scary) and things on a nuclear level. sure you may lose five years off your lifespan, over all. mabye more. but those five years wouldnt be with you in the first place if we were living a short few hundred years ago, period. look at the average lifespans of a human being, they have been steadily incresing for a long time, and this is no accident. conditions are improving, and much of this is thanks to electricity, and sooner or later a lot more of this is going to be because of nuclear-level manipulation and energy to some extent. does this mean we should just let companies poison us at will? of course not. be aware of what's going on in your community and make sure theres' a reasonable amount of safety checks in place. toxic things are bad, umkay. there used to be a chemical dumping ground nearby where i used to live...it had been paved over and made into a park, and me and my family used to walk through it with our dogs.(cancer got the dogs)

Psychological Camoflage and Anti-camoflage?

[Artifakt]

Given things we are just learning, from a number of fields that appear initially very far apart, I think we might be able to do some very subtle things to keep people from interpreting what they see in an undesired way, or steer them towards a desired interpretation.

I can imagine this working in a lot of ways, some good, some not so good:
You come to an intersection in a hallway. Even though there are no signs, you are normally not a person with a good bump of direction and you are deep inside a very large building, you immediately get a feeling that left leads towards the shortest route to an emergency exit. Each time you come to another junction, this feeling adjusts to the new location.
You are outside a building. There is an unlocked door there, but unless you are supposed to go inside the building, it looks so uninteresting that you ignore it. If you were actually planning to rob the building, the door looks extremely dangerous in some ill defined way.
A highway crew re-grades a stretch of interstate, and installs some new reflective edging and lane markers. Traffic flow rate increases by 50% and traffic jams during rush hour are greatly reduced. Accident rates drop. Close observation reveals that people planning to use the exits or business bypass-loop are getting over into the best lanes much sooner than before, and are somehow more prone to pick good times to pass or make lane changes.

Obviously, if this is doable, it could also be abused:

"Our country allows free emmigration. These people could leave if they wished. Unless you think they can't see the crossing gate at the border."

"It's funny, but until I made up my mind to vote for Geefler, I hadn't even noticed those new "polling place here ->" signs. They really stand out, don't they."

While all this may sound far fetched, there are already some modest examples. Disney has built a "Tiger Hunt in India" themed ride in one of its parks, and uses decorative pictograms on a mock up crumbling ancient temple to tell a story of a race who angered the generic Disney "mother earth goddess" by ecological shortsightedness. They are punished by natural disasters, and then clean up their acts and the disasters stop happening. While most visitors don't have nearly enough time to puzzle out all the pictograms consiously, supposedly this ride has the lowest littering rate of any ride in the park.
I can see how this might become a much more robust and reliable technology, but given some of the examples, I'm not at all sure I want it to. A lot of it sounds like extensions of what some advertisers are using to overcome resistance to ads, and some of it sounds Orwellian, but either way, it may be possible to go a lot further towards mind control than most expect.

Ader and other pretenders

[blitz487]

Ader has in common with other pretenders to the Wright's accomplishment,

• There is no proof that Ader accomplished any more than a couple of ineffectual hops. The Wrights, on the other hand, have incontrovertible proof of sustained, controlled, powered flight.
  
• Ader's machine made no contributions to aviation technology. The Wrights made numerous major contributions tracable right back to the 1903 Flyer.
  
• Ader made no followups. At the peak of his supposed success, he quits like all the other alleged first flighters. Except the Wrights, who built successive machines, each building on the success of the previous.
  

Color me skeptical. And btw, the Wrights contributed a lot more innovations than just control.

Re:Ader and other pretenders

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting this discussion, this everytime cause a lot of flames specially here in Brazil, where
in all history books Alberto Santos Dumont have the title for invenction.
Recently I read an interesting article explaing some points.
The idea was evolving a lot in that epoch, and there lots of
inventors, Dumont wins the equivalent of X-Prize of its time.
While Wright Brothers patented it before. Santos Dumont put its project as open source.
Wright are equivalent to Windows, Dumont to Linux. ;)

Re:Ader and other pretenders

[SysKoll]

The Wright brothers' contributions to aviation are more than counterbalanced by their attempts to get a legal monopoly on aircrafts. They smothered the development of aircrafts in the US until WWI. The legal fights between Curtiss and the Wrights have been amply documented. It's largely because of the Wright's efforts that US aeronautics lagged Europe's badly up to WWI.

So their tinkering was a mixed blessing to say the least. The Wrights might be heroes now, but as far as aviation buffs were concerned back then, they were a cross between Darl McBride and Steve Ballmer, with Hillary Rosen thrown in the mix (ugh).

Re:Divine Intervention

[Anonymous Coward]

Will all due respect, I've seen damn little intervention on "His" part in any of my fifty years.

One would think the screams of the anguished in this world would be enough to wake Him...

Umm the Dow

[panxerox]

1 particle if it goes up 2 particles if it goes down, now that would be cool.

Well, Hume demolished

[Anonymous Coward]

Physical causality and no one has yet managed to rebuild it. Your comment leaves me unconcerned.

propeller especially

[rebelcool]

one of the wrights key designs was the proper, efficient shape of the propeller, a very complex and difficult thing to design, but also build correctly and to the necessary tolerances with the technology of the time.

They also refined alot of the math behind the physics. When they first started building their test results didn't match the ones published in the standard book of tables of various aeronautic physics at the time. Turns out the guy who wrote that book was wrong about alot of things and they ended up rewriting everything, fixing equations and the like based on their empirical data gathered.

While it will undoubtedly be argued to death about what constitutes the first "flight", the wrights were far and away the first aeronautical engineers to build a working plane - and continue to build and improve them - on sound physics and principles.

Re:Time travel - Simpsons analogy

[CaptCanuk]

All of this is nicely animated in Tree House of Horrors V Act 2: Time and Punishment. Homer goes back into time and his seemingly minute changes have large impact on the future he returns to.

As to another reply to the parent post, "Causality implies a concious action.", I wonder why a conscious action is a requirement for a proposed chaotic universe? Kicking a rock my caught seismic activity to occur if it resonates properly on a fault line for all we know.

Doable but Laughable

[Flicker]

So what technologies are pursued today and almost certainly doable, and are widely derided or ignored by people who should know better?

Machine phase chemistry (The real stuff - Drexler)
Cryonics
Space Elevator

Re: Space flight

[some guy I know]

Space flight is a huge *waste* of valueable [sic] research dollars. [...] There is nothing valueable [sic] in space within our grasp as far as anyone knows [...] you probably need around 1 1/3 times the sqare [sic] of the mass you will be moving in fule[sic]. This is hopeless, there is not enough fule [sic] on earth to reach the nearest fule [sic] stop out in the universe and bring any back. Space travel is worthless becase [sic] there is too much space we cannot cope with crossing those distances

Your post is laden with such a huge mass of excrement that light has difficulty escaping from its surface.

The nearest "fuel stops" are the comets, some of which human-built spacecraft have already reached.
Once we get controlled fusion past the break-even point, we will have access to more fuel than we will know what to do with.
Mankind does not need to get to the stars using FTL or generation ships or any of that; we can get to the stars by hoping from comet to comet in interstellar space.
It may take thousands of years, or hundreds of thousands of years, but we will get there.

This is what humankind needs to get to the stars (that we don't already have):

• Controlled fusion past the "break-even' point.
• Better life-support technology (e.g., artificial "gravity" (by rotation or other means), resource/waste management/recycling technology, etc.).
• The will to go.

The following would be helpful, but are not necessary:

• A skyhook (space elevator).
• Advances in genetics (e.g., to allow humans to live long-term in a weightless environment, to advance the human life-span, etc.).
• Advances in A.I., and/or the ability to download wetware into software.

Space flight is not a "waste of time".
It's the only (currently known) way to ensure the long-term survival of the human species, indeed, of all known life, period.

Re: Dammit! I previewed at least five times.

[some guy I know]

That should be "hopping from comet to comet".

Quantum Computers

[Anonymous Coward]

If there is anything on the cutting edge of technology it is quantum computing. With the demonstration of up to a handful of NMR qubits by IBM a few years ago, technology is playing a short game of catchup to build a scalable QC architecture. Moore's law and it's inevitable end in the near future means that every man and his dog are beginning to pour money into viable QC architectures and the software development that will harness the true power of quantum computers.

Energy

[Anonymous Coward]

While it might not be the hippest technology, the next major breakthrough needs to be in energy. Two reasons: we will cook ourselves if we continue to burn oil and natural gas at the current rate and petroleum products will become much more expensive. Inexpensive, efficient solar, better battery technology, or major advance in nuclear or fusion technology is fundamental to maintain our current rate of energy consumption.

Why not

[metalhed77]

write a rebuttal or link to one in order to support your point. Personally I welcomed Joy's essay as a counterpoint to the writings of people like Kurzweil who can gloss over the rough spots in the technological world.

Re:Why not

[durathor]

Write a rebuttal or link to support your

recurse as necessary

Re:Why not

[B'Trey]

Not a point for point rebuttal, but I rather enjoyed what Michael Crichton had to say to the Commonwealth Club.

So true.

[Jesrad]

And even earlier people said "we have more crops growing food than we would ever need to make it through winter comfortably, everyone has a horse for quick and cheap travel, and our priests are developping effective medicine. We pretty have much everything we need".

Or even earlier: "We have very effective lances and javelins for hunt, and our shamans know which plants are edible and how to repel bad spirits. We have pretty much everything we need."

Happiness is relative. And to think we are more developped than our ancestors because of technology is one of the biggest delusion of mankind. We still are the same primates we were ten thousand years ago.

I'll tell you what we don't have yet that I want: a space elevator, immortality in a vaccine, time-travel, unlimited energy, antigravity and faster than light travel. And of course more bandwidth. Once we got all that, there will be dreamers who'll find more things to wish for, don't worry.

Re:So true.

[Anonymous Coward]

a space elevator, immortality in a vaccine, time-travel, unlimited energy, antigravity and faster than light travel. And of course more bandwidth.

Why do I get the sneaking suspicion we'll get all those other things before we get enough bandwidth?

MOD PARENT UP

[Zirtix]

Finally someone gives the obvious rebuttal, and he's AC and no-one will get it. Oh well.

Ha!

[BuckaBooBob]

"If Amos were alive today, what obscure technology would he be pursuing?"

"Trustworthy Computing" By Microsoft :) Thats a pretty obscure Technology that we will doubtfully see in our lifetime :)In fact just like in his day its 'unbelievable' but It would have a practical application :)

Insaneasylyms...

[xintegerx]

Where did you these people are?

Re:Time travel - They are on Mars!

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people are claiming that time travel is being used to hide the *gasp* military operations on Mars.

A Meta pointer to the edge of tech/knowledge

[nealborring]

A wonderful little paper inside a great book about robotics outlines a periodic table of knowledge. The book is "Robots on Your Doorstep" by Nels Winkless and Iben Browning copyright 1978. The paper is a reprint from Bell Aircraft Research by Dr. Browning originally printed in December 1956 on pages 13-36. The table discusses the binary combinations of natural and non-living (the physical), natural living(biological), non-natural non-living(technios/engineered) and non-natural living(robotic). In rereading the book this year I was struck by the authors surprise when in organizing the table diagrammatically, he observed and noted the central importance of the molecule as an organizing/ordering entity. To quote, " To the writer, the prominence of the molecule as the differentiation center of the known universe came as a complete surprise." pp. 29 "Robots on Your Doorstep".
To me Nanotechnology seemed like a stretch when I first heard about it but not surprising. I guess I was already ready for it when I read EoC around '87. Read Robots back in '80. If you want to search systematically the edges of knowledge then Robots is the place to start. Cheers.

Rooted

[Mewf]

Was your grandfather a member of the Societas Eruditorum?

The solution

[TheTranceFan]

Dude.

Go to the doctor.

Tell him how you feel.

He will say: "diazepam, haloperidol" and send you to the pharmacy.

You'll feel better. But try not to brush against the doorframe on your way out. Just in case.

Re:Ladies and gentlemen: the edge.

[Anonymous Coward]

And here we have it. As I understood the original poster, the edge of technology is defined by sceptics and unacceptance by its peers.

So, spybots it is then. Just remember this when you find yourself stuffing your clothes into microwave oven or other 'conditioning' device.

Dumont was first:

[mulhall]

Here's a pretty good arguement for Dumont:

http://www.thefirsttofly.hpg.ig.com.br/pioneer2. ht m

Although not conclusive, I would definitely be suspicious of the Wright brothers claims, even backed up by your grand-pappy I feel the European press are more solid to back a first-flight claim...

Re:Dumont was first:

[Anonymous Coward]

Not conclusive?!? After reading this page, now I'm sure countryman Dumont did the victory dance on aviation first! :-)

Unless slingshotting a mammoth into the air and hovering it into the ground (in 1908, two years AFTER Dumont's demonstration in 1906, which comprised of a plane that actually takes off) gets to count more.

And I didn't know any of this, thanks for the link.

Re:Dumont was first:

[gr8_phk]

How does 1906 predate 1903? It also claims he was the first to go over 100 meters - the Wrights beat that on their 4th flight of Dec 17, 1903. Then they went back to Ohio and steadily improved things over the next several years - beating their own records on a weekly basis.

No sir, they were the first to build a machine that took off under its own power, and only that power, and landed at or above the same altitude, while flying under complete human control.

Even if you argue who was "first" based on specific technical definitions (like the usefullness and stability of that first plane) they were also first to make something practical. Their initial accomplishment went largely unnoticed. It was in 1908 that they wowed europe with a practical Model that could carry pilot and passenger. They took many many people (including royalty) for rides in a vehicle that could cover great distance with reasonable safety. Nothing like this had ever been seen except by the locals in Ohio who had gotten used to seeing it years before.

BTW, I've heard there is a place in Ohio where you can actually get a ride on a replica of the Write model B - the first truely useful airplane.

Re:Dumont was first:

[mulhall]

I think the point was that the Wright brothers may not have actually flown in 1903, their evidence being shown in 1908...

Not saying it's true, just that that is the point being made.

Re:Time travel [still OT]

[pkaral]

The whole idea of taking traveling to the past seriously is pretty annoying. Quite simply, time travel into the past is not possible without abandoning the idea of causality.

This is simply not correct. Time travel does not contradict causality, only some people's concept of "free will".

To explain: You cannot "change" history, simply because it "is already there". The notion of going back and "overwriting" one history with another a la Back To The Future suffers from the "Second Time Around Fallacy". History can by definition not be changed.

History can, however, be influenced by a time traveler. The history we know has been produced by past events, some of which can have been caused by a time traveler. So when I go back, I know in advance that everything I do must be consistent with the history I know. How this is "enforced" is the big question, but I bet a bit of Bayesian probabilities are involved. By that I mean the following: The base probability of various events that may prevent me from killing my grandfather can be very low (e.g. the probability of loosing the gun down a chasm just before I reach his house). However, the conditional probability of these events given that I will not kill my grandfather is much higher. In fact, given that my grandfather most evidently survived my attempt, the only thing to be resolved is how my intended murder was averted. So, if I try, somehow I will fail (and this is where "free will" becomes problematic for some people).

However, I can still influence things in history. For instance, I could go back to look for some legendary treasure that hasn't been found - maybe it hasn't been found because I went back in time to find it before others and move it! The causal integrity is intact.

Two additional observations: The above disregards the possibility of "parallell universes". Conceivably, I could go back in time and start "a different history", i.e. a different universe. Given the current state of our knowledge, we cannot rule out that the universe branches into a finite or infinite number of parallell universes at intervals which could be real or infinitessimal. However, you could never move between those universes, so the integrity of the history of each universe would still be preserved. This means that a time traveler "changing history" would actually just move back to an earlier branching point and go down an alternative history.

Note also that causal loops are quite possible with time travel, and that this does not contradict causality in any way. So you could go back in time and introduce your grandparents to each other (unless you already knew for sure that they introduced themselves to each other).

Screws up your mind, doesn't it?

[I have used past and future tenses here, since Douglas Adams neglected leaving us with a copy of the book on the time travel grammar].

Re:Time travel, Teleportion, Antigravity

[Anonymous Coward]

My votes go to these three near scifi subjects, all of them having some serious researches.

Re:Give me an ethernet jack in the back of my skul

[Illserve]

BS Advisory Bulletin

The above poster who said this:

A second problem is that of resonance. Your brain produces a reference wave and measures sensory input as an interference pattern to that wave. While you could easily exploit that phenominon to transmit data to the brain, it would be nearly impossible to make it believe the information is coming from the sensory organs.

Is passing off pet theories as well established facts. While the brain does use oscillations of varying frequencies, there's not yet a good reason to consider one of them a reference wave and the input an interference pattern.

Furthermore, and even more critically, said poster is drastically incorrect about fooling the brain into thinking the input is authentic. It has been commonly demonstrated for many decades, if not centuries, that fooling the brain about sensory input is fairly trivial. Example, a vibration applied to one nerve can create the illusion of kinethesis quite some distance away from this point. Turning in circles makes you dizzy by generating spurious vestibular input.

Basically, any input coming in along nerves is treated as authentic sensory input by default, and the brain will try to incorporate it into the worldview as experience dictates.

Never heard of Google?

[theonetruekeebler]

According to Google, the Center of the Known Universe is here, in Muncie, Indiana.

On the other hand, the Centre of the Known Universe is here, in some podunk called Rockall (motto: "There's fuck all in Rockall").

Cherokee Indians claim that the Center of the World (and therefore the known universe) is about ten miles north-northwest of Elberton, Georgia, near a bizarre roadside attraction called the Georgia Guidestones.

According to my deranged ex-fiancee, however, the center of the known universe is wherever the hell she happens to be at the moment. In other words, the center of the known universe is underneath whatever guy she met not twenty minutes ago.

So opinions vary, as do spellings. Personally, I'm going to agree with the aboriginal Americans, because I can get there in about two hours. See, there's nothing like being near the CotKU without actually having to be there. It's kinda like being in the suburbs.

Re:Never heard of Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if we know the center of the known universe, we don't know the center of the unknown universe, and we don't even know if we _can_ know the center of the known universe or we don't know if we can know whether we can know about the centre of the unknown universe. Or something.

Re:Never heard of Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

More importantly, does your ex have big tits?

X Prize

[Hartley1]

The X Prize is about getting to Low Earth Orbit. Getting to the moon and back is several orders of magnitude more expensive/complicated.

Re:X Prize

[Coryoth]

Yeah, but 90% of the expense is getting into LEO. Besides, the X prize doesn't even get you that far, just 100km up - the boundary of space. Once basic cheap launch technology is in place though, the rest can be developed fairly quickly.

Jedidiah

Blunting the edges for safety

[theonetruekeebler]

Please remember that one of the Wright brothers was killed by their invention. This kind of risk-taking is Not Done anymore; more importantly this sort of dangerous invention is Not Made. If a 1910 dumbass bought and crashed his airplane, he was a dead dumbass. If a 2003 dumbass bought and crashed his airplane, he was a victim of faulty product design.

So I'm thinking that we'll see more innovations in the realm of making things safe than anywhere else. After all, who the hell would have dreamed of airbags?

Oh, and to the folks cited 1950's Kitchen of Tomorrow as a counterexample, this morning at 5:15 AM my coffee maker ground up some beans (scaring the hell out of the dog again) and brewed me a delicious pot of coffee. I took a frozen packaged meal out of my frost-free freezer, put it in my microwave and pushed one buttonand about seven minutes later enjoyed a hot meal. Then I put my utensils and mug in my automatic dishwasher. The whole time I was watching CNN on the television on my kitchen counter. Dude, if that ain't the kitchen of tomorrow, I don't know what is.

It will take commercialization & Apple

[adzoox]

Many people here on Slashdot seem to hate the ideas of capitalism. This may be partially due to the overwhelming "Open Source is King" feeling here. But whatever the next "big thing" is in technology you can bet that it will take a company like Apple to innovate it and wow the public with it, and to market it, package it, and call it a pretty name.

I think the most recent innovation in technology that we have seen push the edge of technology is Music/MP3 technology. Music is now cheap to "own", cheap to play (even if you buy an FM receiver or tape player from Walmart for $4.96), and finally: easy to organize.

At the time of the 1st iPod, it truly was somewhat of a miracle in size, ease of use, and connectivity. So, the iPod is at it's height of useable technology today. I think the next year will bring technology pushing the integration of audio and video in this way: ease of use, miniaturization, and storage capacity PLUS organization. It will be the way that a company like Apple (or Apple itself) can market this technology to the masses to gain acceptance.

Zero-Point Energy Technology

[lo_fye]

This is the bleeding edge. Space Energy Access Systems has a $1M prize up for grabs to the first one who can demonstrate a working prototype of a zero-point energy machine. If you've researched Edwin Gray Sr.'s machines, or Nickola Tesla's "Magnifying Transmitter", then you know that these machines can be achieved. Think Tesla was crazy? He invented AC electricity. He designed & installed the power-plant at Niagara Falls. He was Edison's apprentice, and Edison stole some of his work. He had one of the highest security clearances available in the US, and worked with Einstein on the Philadelphia Experiment.

slashdot research

[cascadingstylesheet]

He'd look into the ongoing research into something called "Slashdot comment preview".

They're trying to come up with something that isn't a blank templated page 4 out of 5 tries (latest stable Mozilla release, if the client matters).

here & there

[Anonymous Coward]

Accelerating Change
IdeaFlow
trends
Technologies Timeline(yawn:-)

Travel into future

[Anonymous Coward]

So what if you built two time machines turned them both on at the same time and then traveled back in time taking the second time machine with you. Then could you take someone from the past into the future which was where you originally turned on the second time machine by using it in the past?

Re:Maybe he'd admit Brazil was in the air first .

[Call Me Black Cloud]

No way. Brazil is much too large to get into the air.

Recast the question: what are the big dreams

[fygment]

Maybe we should look for dreams not things.

Flight wasn't a technology. The Wright brothers were addressing a dream. Humanity had wanted to fly since antiquity. New technologies over time merely addressed the dream until one was successful. Note too that flight was enabled by technology that wasn't cutting edge (levers, wire, canvas, internal combustion engine).

So if a technology is not a purpose and nothing is "cutting edge" without a context, then what are the dreams of today? We've been to the moon. We can travel the planet on a whim. We can eat what and when we want. We live to a ripe old age and can stave of suffering and needless death. (Caveat: when the preceding is economically advantageous.) So what does humanity want?

For example, nanotechnology seems cutting edge but the uses for it seemed to have followed rather than preceded its development. Besides being a neat thing to do, why exactly are we doing it? What is the vision?

Currently, humanity's dreams seem to revolve around the ideal entertainment device (the drive towards a holo-deck experience has been pushing the world of PC development). That seems a bit meagre compared to the dream of flying.

I imagine your head would hurt!

[filmsmith]

That was more comma splices and run-on sentences than I've seen in a long time.

fs

Coal and natural gas

[MarkusQ]

Coal and natural gas? In space? Did I miss something about the moon having lush vegitation during the Jurassic period?

No, you just missed noticing that the lush vegitation we had here didn't actually create any new elements by transmutation; the carbon and simple carbon compounds that they left for us were here long before they were.

If it makes you more comfortable, call it amorphous carbon deposits and methane gas. It's the same thing as coal and natural gas though.

-- MarkusQ

Re: Mallet Temporal Network Card

[A55M0NKEY]

I remember this guy, he wants to be able to send a neutron into the past. Because a neutron is a piece of matter, a person might even be feasible someday if the engineering challenges are overcome. Unless that is, that the advent of the much easier Temporal Network Card brings progress to a standstill. Let me explain:

The creation of one of Mallet's light vortexes allows one to send matter into the past. It is no leap, in fact it is probably even easier to send a radio, or infrared light signal into the past using that technique.

It would be easy to write software that saves all outbound network traffic to the hard disk together with a 'do not deliver till X-Mas' send date. The computer would then on say next Christmas, send the packets out to the internet.

When the computer, on X-Mas, recieved the inbound response, it would then send them back in time to the present through the time vortex.

So little Jill could promise to send herself an email when she opened her presents detailing what she got, and then read that email a month before she wrote it.

One could in effect browse the web of the future.

I wonder what would happen to the stock market if anyone who made money from inside knowlege could be scooped by a leach from the past?

I wonder if anyone would bother to get a patent when someone from the past could steal it from them before they even thought of it?

Would anyone write books, or record songs? What would happen to the RIAA?

Would anyone write the next big game when it is already available for download?

Would anyone even publish their opinions at all when anyone could steal the credit? How about free software?

I think most of these questions are forms of the: "If I promise to send an apple into the past, and *poof*, an apple pops out of the machine, and then I wait a day and send that same apple back to myself through the machine, then where did the apple come from?" paradox.

Alternate realities seems the only paradigm ( i hate that word ) that might possibly provide an answer. Maybe, in an alternate reality, no apple popped out into the past and I scratched my head wondering why my time machine didn't work, went to the store, bought an apple and threw it into the machine wondering where the hell it went.

Then in another ( past ) reality the apple popped out seemingly from nowhere. The apple traveled between realities. How many realities does it travel through though? If it pops out once and I throw it back into the machine a day later, then it pops out again, waits a day, and then pops out the machine and then a day later gets thrown back into the past ad nauseam, the apple, which gets a day older (apple time) each time it waits a day to be sent back will soon turn into apple ad nauseum. ( could be good for aging wine though.. )

If I promise to, if no bottle pops out, send a new bottle of wine back, but if a bottle does pop out wait ten years, and send it back to myself after putting a tick mark on it unless there are ten ticks in which case I will drink the 100 year old wine then what are my odds of getting 100 year old wine to pop out?

There are eleven possibilities: either 100, 90, 80, 70.. or no wine pops out. I'd say my chances of being in the reality where the 100 year old wine pops out are 1/11.

What if I promise that if I do not get any bottle of wine, I will send 2 bottles of wine? What are the odds that at least some wine pops out? P(2 bottles) + p(1st bottle) + p(2nd bottle) = 3/4?

I bet you could increas your odds of getting at least one bottle out as much as you wanted provided you had the ready cash and commitment to fulfill the promises to buy new bottles of wine. Unless there is a problem here....

Problem 1: If there are 3 chances out of four that you will get at least one bottle out if you promise to send 2 bottles through if you don't get any bottles back, then you have one unlucky you th

Other ways of traveling in time

[blankinthefill]

That's not the only way that has been theorized, either. Popular Science ran an article sometime in the last year about time travel. While it will probably never happen, it has been theorized that if you took a black hole and twisted it, you would be able to travel through the black hole and into the past/future. I don't have anymore info on this, but I thought it was interesting all the same.

Re:Promises... (missing the point)

[McLae]

All the benifits from the trip to the moon had nothing to do with the rocks we got back. Short list: Computers that are smaller than a truck. Heart monitors. Without Apollo, you would not have a PC. Going back to the moon is a good idea, just for the side-benifits.

Decentralized Manufacturing

[randall_burns]

One of the more interesting recent developments IMHO are advances in decentralized manufacturing. This isn't as dramatic as what the Wright Brothers did-but I suspect it will have quite a bit of impact on the structure of the US economy in 50 years. This stuff is right now at the point where fax machines were in the early 60's--stuff exists and is being used, but is clunkly, unreliable and expansive.

Robotics and biotech are other obvious candidates for areas where some serious technical advancements are taking place.

Not first publication, actually

[Anonymous Coward]

my great-great-grandfather Amos Ives Root published the first eye witness account of the Wright Brothers flight almost 100 years ago.

Sorry to disabuse you of your forebear's first. He may indeed have been the first to publish an eye-witness account in a popular publication, but there was a prior publication, perhaps not by an eye-witness but at least a collaborator, who was even part of the scientific establishment, in a journal of the scientific establishment.

The Nov-Dec issue of Weather-Wise magazine has an article titled Wright Weather for this anniversary that, while discussing their search for ideal winds and other meteorological trivia regarding the Wrights, Flight, and Kitty Hawk, includes the factoid that the first public disclosure of the secretive Wright's success was by the Weather Bureau local forecaster who'd helped them,

Joseph J. Dosher, the observer and lone Weather Bureau employee at Kitty Hawk [...] That afternoon, the brothers walked four miles to the Kitty Hawk Weather Bureau station. Joseph J. Dosher, who three years earlier had responded to the Wright's inquiry about wind conditions at Kitty Hawk, reported news of the first flight in a telegram to the Wrights' father in Dayton. Dosher also published an account of the events, titled "Meteorology and the Art of Flying," in the December 1903 issue of the Monthly Weather Review . In the brief article, he wrote: "Their success is undoubtedly due in great part to the preliminary careful study of the winds, and for this reason, although machinery is essential, . . . consider that meteorology also has played an important part in their work."

The magazine article has great pictures that aren't on the website, and I enjoyed the other articles too (and the ads, even).

-- Bill N1VUX
Posted as A/C since I already moderated.

Clarke's Law

[sydbarrett74]

Arthur C. Clarke posited a statement that has come to be known as Clarke's Law: 'We tend to OVERestimate short-term changes and UNDERestimate long-term changes.' If you look at sci-fi from the 1950's, you see starships that travel faster than light, but all of the astrogation and calculation of co-ordinates being done by teams of humans. They simply didn't foresee 50 years ago that computing power would become too cheap to measure. My Sprint PDA phone has an embedded processor with more computing power than a 50's-era mainframe. This would be simply unfathomable to someone from back then. The problem with foreseeing the future is that most people simply extrapolate from the present, and are unable to anticipate second-, third-, and nth-order effects. That's not how the real world works.

Re:Clarke's Law

[czephyr]

I used to tell my clients in the 90's that their PC's had the computing power of the world in the 70's. Might be incorrect but the point got across.

Re:Time travel [still OT]

[starseeker]

Your first arguement involves the assumption that there is some degree of influence one can exert which does not involve change. I'd argue that influencing a situation changes it, by definition. It's not just not killing your grandfather the universe has to worry about, it's preserving everything in the world environment which had anything to do with your motivations, anything you ever learned about the world, etc. The complexity of such arguments becomes incredible. I rather doubt either of us is up to convince the other, but I'll just say for the record in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary I'll assume that, given the sensivity of a chaos sytem to initial conditions, there can be no influence of the past without causality violation in the natural world.

The second point, about the possibility of multiverse branching, I still don't find convincing. Nor, if you think about it, is it particularly useful. If you succeeded and created a new timeline, you could never communicate this knowledge to your original time line - to their eyes, your attempt would have failed. So for each time line, the rule still holds that time travel doesn't work. Whether it works from the perspective of the individual trying it is not known and can never be known, since there is no way any evidence could ever be produced in any time line to prove it works. Each person attempting it would be taking a blind leap of faith that an unverifable assumption about how the universe works is true. Not exactly an ideal situation.

Curiously enough, I notice virtually ALL the answers are trying to argue in favor of time travel. I wonder if that says something about human beings.

Everything we need

[Anonymous Coward]

We won't have everything we need until we can transport an exact copy of ourselves (with instantaneous telepathic link intact) instantly from any one part of the universe to any other part of any other universe and any other time, while also remaining constant where we are now, and selectively accessing (remembering) ancient knowledges of things stored in what is colloquially called "akashic record". We are a long way off and luckily will be for quite some time.

Great link

[metalhed77]

I really appreciated what Chrichton had to say. It wasn't point to point however and doesn't address some of Joy's main points. I think that it isn't enough to really undermine Joy's speech to the commonwealth club or the wired article.

Joy simply states that highly dangerous technologies like BioTech run the risk of causing severe damage in the future. One example Joy gives is genetically engineered viruses created expressly for the destruction of humanity.

Quite simply, future technologies enable one person, or small groups of people, to wreak havoc in massive scales. We see today how hard it is to restrict Nuclear technology, further tech may be far easier to acquire needing much smaller supply chains and fewer people.

If we look at Joy as one of these 'religious' environementalists I suppose that Chriton is speaking out against Joy. I do not however, believe that Joy fits into this camp.

The example of DDT could not be used against BioTech. The difference being that DDT allready existed and was banned based on poor observation. When Joy speaks of BioTech he speaks of a technology whose potential destructive power is agreed upon, but the likelihood of this destruction being utilized is harder to measure as the future has not yet arrived. Quite simply, Joy isn't "lying" as the DDT people were, he is speculating on the future.

All this being said, unless something comes along to mitigate the power of Bioengineered chrises, the tech should have limits. BioTech is a great unkown in many ways and caution is welcome.

As food for thought, I'd like to add that there is no reason for technology to advance infinitely. It is not inscribed in stone. A short trip to the amazon will (or used to) yield many societies that did not progress. That being said I'm a gadget fanboy so I say bring it on :).

Ummmm

[metalhed77]

Any time before nuclear weapons? If your 50% number was correct there'd be very few species on the planet!

Re:Ummmm

[mwood]

The human race was in far more danger of extinction when there were fewer of us. A long cold snap could've wiped us out in pre-civilized times. A number of diseases almost did for us. It's rather amazing that humankind survived long enough to have the leisure to think up uses for nuclear energy. I believe that any species smart enough to invent an A-bomb is probably smart enough to survive it.

The world was full of danger before we arrived and will be when we've gone. It's a bit arrogant to think that the end of the world only became possible with the advent of humans. Ask any dinosaur.

Genetic Engineering

[cerebralpc]

Genetic Engineering is the most exciting and cutting edge science today. Scienists are splicing genes that could never meet in real life. For instance taking genes out of fish that make them cold resistant and putting them into grain to make the grain resistant to cold. This is a clumsy example but genetic engineering has amazing possiblities.

Causality

[Whitehawke]

You know, this whole concept that causality is necessarily inviolate has always struck me as foolish.

I have never seen, nor even heard of, a mathematical proof for cauality. It has always been stated as an assumption. Until it can be proven, I see no reason to accept it blindly.

Where's the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything moves through four dimensional space-time at light speed. Mere mortals travel mostly in time, photons on the other hand do not travel in time at all (from their perspective).

If you can predict the displacement in temporal dimension, you can calculate the displacement in space and vice versa, no? If you cannot, start far away from material objects.

Cetacean acoustic communication

[sm0]

To research Cetacean communication does not require devices as fancy as a Mars rocket or cold fusion but it requires great intelligence on both sides, on the human side as well as the Cetacean side. Do we have enough intelligence to do it? Is our civilisation advanced enought to allow a few of us to stop fighting long enough to do it?

decimal time?

[Thinkit3]

You'll got really confused stares if you start claiming ten hours in a day. We already use a varity of radices. Even hexadecimal, if you consider measurements like pounds. Hexadecimal conversions are much easier to the computer than decimal. I'm doing a binary floating point math library, and hexadecimal conversions are trivial. Using hexadecimal literals will improve complie time, and %X will improve time required to output numbers.

Think before posting

[jared_hanson]

I'm not sure what this whole time thing is about, but you can keep track of it anyway you want. If you decrease the "hours" equivalent, you will simply have to increase the "minutes" equivalent. Whatever you do when making up new units, there equation needs to be balanced. That doesn't mean I'm going to use your equivalent, however.

I gaurantee you that whatever difference there is for a computer to convert from decimal to binary and from hex to binary, it is negligent, if it even exists at all. But in any case, if your math library uses hex, I'm gonna sit with a calculator and convert to decimal just to understand what the fuck is going on. This will take far longer than if you wrote it in decimal and let the compiler covert to hex. The compiler can do the conversion in nanoseconds, where it will probably take me a few seconds to hit keys on my calculator.

In short, standardizing on hex would be a huge waste of time. Now grow up.

After all, who the hell would have dreamed...

[cr0sh]

...of airbags?

I'll tell you who: Preston Tucker.

Many of the technologies we take for granted today on automobiles were first utilized by Preston Tucker. Padded dashboards, airbags, disc brakes - so many others - were things that Preston Tucker was ultimately responsible for implementing into an automobile.

Ultimately, the Big Three (and arguably the US Government) brought him down - but they had no problem incorporating his designs into their automobiles (all in due time, of course), and calling them their own.

Check out Preston Tucker's life story - and prepare to be amazed (the video is highly recommended, but I also suggest you read the various books, and period magazine articles about his car. Finally, if you get the chance, take a look at one of his 50 cars, which are still around, among the rarest of automobiles in history, and marvel at the vehicle compared to others of the same period)...

If there were no birds

[Webmoth]

If there were no birds, would we have dreams of flying? Would we have had aspirations to build a flying machine? Would there be airplanes today?

If there were no fish, would we have dreams of living underwater? Would we have aspired to sail the seven seas? Would there be submarines today?

The base technologies we have (and by base, I mean those things that are so revolutionary as to change our world) are often inspired by comparing nature with our inability as men* to equal the greatness we see in the natural world. The steam engine was the brainchild of man wanting to harness the power of a thousand elephants at his will. The telegraph to give man the ability to communicate as gods. Explosives to make the earth shake. The airplane to fly with the eagles, and the ship to sail the seas with the fish.

Looking at the present, what is it about nature that inspires us, that makes us feel small; what power can we see but do not posess?

Or have we conquered nature? Is there nothing more to be invented that will change the world? Is there nothing that, when created, will strike in us a sense of awe making us proudly say "look what we have created?"

*By "man" I mean mankind, including homo sapiens of all sexes, races, and creeds.

Revolutions

[Webmoth]

1. Fire
2. Wheel
3. Ship
4. Explosives
5. Steam engine
6. Electricity
7. Telegraph
8. Airplane

Here we have probably the six most significant inventions in history, approximately in order.

Some may list other things (telephone, computer, toilet tissue), but these inventions have fundamentally changed the way we live, work, communicate, and travel like no other inventions before or since.

It may be argued that explosives is a subset of fire, but one must consider how explosives changed the nature of warfare and the ability of people to control other people.

What's next?

Time.

[Thinkit3]

Time is based on prime factors 2, 3, and 5. Decimal has 2 and 5. You cannot represent time fractions in decimal (just like we have so much problem representing decimal fractions in binary). Decimal time systems work and have been tried (see Napoleon), but inertia makes it hard to change.

Re:Relations

[Vainglorious Coward]

Just posting this so the moderator of the above can catch the appropriate punishment in meta.

Done. [Smug satisfaction]