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Dr. Who's Sonic Screwdriver a Step Closer To Reality
cylonlover writes "A University of Dundee research team led by Prof. Mike MacDonald has demonstrated that both levitation and twisting forces can be applied to an object by application of ultrasonic beams. The team of physicists at the University of Dundee in Scotland (with associates at Bristol University in England) have succeeded in generating an ultrasonic vortex beam strong enough to lift and rotate a rubber disk submerged in water. This latest breakthrough is part of a wide-ranging U.K. research effort to develop a device not unlike the "sonic screwdriver" made famous by the TV series Doctor Who." We covered the beginning of the sonic screwdriver project by Bristol University engineers a little over a year ago.
I bet THEIR Sonic Screwdriver works on WOOD!
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
Sorry, I'm going to be a little pedantic here, but the sonic screwdriver doesn't really have any set of capabilities to emulate. Something like the tricorder at least has some vague definition-- it's a set of sensors that can tell you about the material composition and structure of items at a distance.
But the sonic screwdriver? How the device works is something like, "point it at anything in order to get the writers out of the corner they've painted themselves into". There's nothing that it can not do, except apparently that it doesn't work on wood. How are you going to build that, and how will you know when you've succeeded?
It was a magic wand in the old series too, after a time. That's exactly why it got written out after a while, resulting in the Fifth Doctor going "hands free", as Tenant put it.
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
This is a case of feature creep.
In Fury from the Deep it was used to open things--exactly how you'd expect a futuristic, but single purpose, device to work. He uses it to weld in the Dominators, which is the start of it getting extra properties. The War Games again uses it to open things, but it became an out of control plot device soon after that.
That's why they destroyed it in the Visitation. The new series brought it back and it seemed to have been an out of control plot device from the very start.
It's still pretty damn cool. I mean, c'mon - moving shit with sound? I can see this tech coming in handy for shipwreck recovery, among other applications I haven't thought of yet...
Wonder how well it works outside a liquid medium...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
"Dr. Who's Sonic Screwdriver a Step Closer To Reality"
"application of ultrasonic beams"
Surely what we're making here is an ultrasonic screwdriver.
Who looks at a screwdriver and thinks, "Hey, this could be more sonic!"?
That's because they're not really supposed to be science based. Any good science fiction is about the people involved, not the technology. The tech is just a backdrop.
That is always a problem with Science Fiction. You have a writing paradox where the man from the future/advanced race. Has technology far exceeding our normal understanding, however if you use such technology you are using techno-babble to solve your plots.
Lets say you have a Multi-Tool and you are thrown back to the Stone age Cave man. In their mindset your Multi-tool may not seem like a threatening object, small leather pouch. Compared to the Large clubs, and spears with sharp (largish) arrow heads this collapsed multi-tool may not seem like a threat, and say you are locked into a wooden cage. You could just use the saw attachment to cut the wood and your free. If this was a stone age science fiction it would be like you multi-tool has a tool for every situation.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.