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US Army To Push X-Files Tech Development
An anonymous reader writes "The US Army is ramping up the development of technology right out of the X-Files; 'making science fiction into reality' as Dr. John Parmentola — Director of their Research and Laboratory Management — puts it. The list of things currently in the works is amazing: regenerating body parts on 'nano-scaffolding,' telepathy through electronic impulses in the scalp, and self-aware virtual photorealistic soldiers that can be deployed in the battlefield through 'quantum ghost imaging.' To test these they want to use them into a massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft or Eve online."
I've watched Fringe. It's garbage.
Just FYI: Obama doesn't become president till January.
So you know...
Quantum ghost imaging is a real effect that is potentially useful, but there is skepticism that it's an "entangled photon" quantum effect and not just an effect that is due to the ordinary interference of light waves (which is also ultimately quantum of course but can be predicted with classical physics).
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present
* and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
Right, though I think Anna Torv is quite hot in an athletic girl-next-doory sort of way. Of course, they have her gratuitously strip and climb into a tank of water in like, the first or second episode, that's how I know she has a really hot body. And that fringe was utter garbage, granted. But I'll still watch it because, hot.
Fun fact: Anna Torv was also the motion-capture model and voice actress for "Nariko", the main character in recent computer game "Heavenly Sword". That much hot can make up for a lot of shitty nonsensical antiscientific plot.
"...using 'January' in that context as a metonym."
I was going for the synecdochal aspect myself.
Sig this!
While you can read off entangled states with the particles separated at any distance, you can't get any information out of them faster than c. The observation will mess up the result. You can get around that by transmitting classical information about the error in addition, but that classical transmission will be bounded by c.
In the experiment mentioned by New Scientist, note that the setup uses an external light source. Some of the photons hit the object, while others are captured at the same time (but through a different path). The photons naturally travel at c, and synchronization is required to get the correct result.