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Why Don't We Invent That Tomorrow?
museumpeace writes "In the NYTimes book review blog, David Itzkoff takes a look at a new book devoted to predicting which 'science fiction' technologies may really fly some day. The author is Michio Kaku, one of the inventors of string theory, so he bears a hearing. His picks include light sabers, invisibility and force fields." Which sci-fi tech do you think needs to get invented over the weekend?
I don't expect much. Time travel of course. D'uh.
The Mothership
Why Michio Kaku may be a fine mathematician, I think his ideas of technological progress are often shaky. I remember reading his book Hyperspace as a teenager and getting really irked by his repeated and fairly unrealistic visions of godlike power in the near future (an irritation at least one Amazon reviewer shares).
I dunno, string theory always seemed to me like something you would come up with at 3am while smoking a joint after having spent the past 6 hours polishing off a keg with your physicist friends.
"Hey man, you know what would be awesome? What if the whole Universe was really made up of a bunch of vibrating strings?"
"Whoa...I think you just blew my mind man...Hey, don't bogart that!"
Duh. Anyone who has to drive to work on Mondays will want one.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No other advance would ever be as important as a quick way between the stars for colonization of other places in the galaxy. It would change our world so much indirectly just by us having the ability to leave it.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
Fembots
Already been invented. Called a gun.
The Mothership
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Seems to not break any phisical law (?) and will have a good impact in... well, anything not related with the oil industry.
I don't see why you're putting all this pressure on GM to get all of this done. Surely Ford or even, God help us, Chrysler could pitch in too?
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
unaging.
Physically staying 27 until I die from something other then natural causes.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Duke Nukem Forever!
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
We are sexy, sexy von Neumann Machines
How about an identical accordion 180 degrees out of phase with the offending accordion?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Even a magic Go Anywhere Fast drive, one that worked for interplanetary as well as across the depths of interstellar space, would not automatically open up the universe for colonization.
We'd still need great improvements in reaction drives, for example, to overcome the velocity differences between different star systems.
Lacking magical Star Trek style sensors, we'd need to find ways to detect and analyze planets.
Life support systems. Expedition craft that can handle a takeoff as well as a landing. Power sources. Cripes, it goes on and on.
Really, it's not like Masters of Orion or some other 4x game.
Me, I'd settle for that Mr. Fusion someone mentioned uptopic.
Read High Frontier, by Gerard O'Neill. Space colonies are perfectly feasible. Building one is more an exercise in putting existing technologies together than inventing new technologies.
I want to live in an O'Neill cylinder!
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
Obviously we need new souces of energy to replace fossil fuels. Zero Point energy seems to be a good choice. I don't expect that we could get a ZPM small enough to carry around in your hands like they do on atlantis, but something the size of a bus would be good enough.
I vote with the two above. Wake me up when the String Hypothesis actually earns the name "theory"!