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At the edge of science....things that aren't sci-fi

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I. Quantum Teleportation. You have 1 COMPLETELY isolated molecule from EVERYTHING in Chicago, and another one in Berlin. You tickle the one in chicago, and the one in Berlin laughs at that very instant. Applications: Star-trek like teleporting of people and stuff. NOTE: You are 'killed' when they scan and 'dematerialize' you, and an EXACT duplicate of you is created somewhere else. Personally, I'd be VERY scared to try that one.See:http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/II. Quantum computing. Uses the above technology to do work in a couple of seconds that would take a bank of the most powerful supercomputers to do in a million years.Applications: FS2092 will be an exact duplicate of the entire planet down to the last living cell. Oh, and the graphics will be an exact imitation of what real life looks like.See:November 2002 issue of Scientific American. Or, check their website at http://www.sciam.com If it's not up now, it should be up within a month or so.III. Faster-than-light (but not breaching the speed of light) travel. One of the key points 'implied' in Einstein's theory of relativity.Applications. Our grandchildren will be piloting space-planes carrying passengers in large amounts(just like today) throughout the local star sectors. Most popular route....Sol>Lagoon Nebula (very beautiful).:-) Oh, and we'll meet Klingons, and they won't like us. ;-)See:Tons of info about this.... www.nasa.gov is a good place to start searching, I suggest a search of "Warp Drive, When?"IV. Space Elevator. By using carbon nanotubes (cylindrical molecular shapes of carbon), which is around 1000x stronger than steel, we can build an elevator into high-Earth orbit, geosync orbit, and beyond. The material can support a structure double the lenght of what we would actually build (some 30,000+ miles in height). Will be built "50 years after everyone stops laughing", according to Arthur C. Clarke....and guess what? People are slowly starting to stop laughuing. :-)Applications: Opening up space to you and me, and rendering our Shuttle Fleet obsolete (it's already slowly on its way there anyways).See:http://popularmechanics.com/science/space/2002/7/going_up/V. Time Travel. It can be done. You may not realize it, but every time you get on a plane, you're traveling through time into the future relative to the rest of us. Of course, you would have to live on an airplane your entire life to gain at least 1 second of an advantage over us. Also, there's no law that forbids traveling back in time. Applications: We best leave this alone and make it illegal to travel back in time. After all, I don't want for someone who hates me to go back in time, kill my parents before I was born, therefore eliminating me from the universe, and forcing the world to live without me. ;-)See:Scientific American, special issue, September 2002, or their website. I also believe that popular science ran something similar to this a while back. http://www.popsci.comVI. Antimatter power. First discovered in natural state in 1933. First synthetic production in 1955. Right now, it takes far more energy to make antimatter than the energy you get from it when it touches matter and both get annhiallated completely. (about 100% matter to energy conversion, unlike uranium/plutonium, which is about 3% or so.) Therefore, right now using it is not worth the energy cost. Currently, antimatter is being made at minimal amounts, like less than 100 nanograms per year. It's also the most expensive 'substance' on the planet. :-)Applications: If you could collect enough antimatter, you would have lots and lots of energy...more than you would ever need. And that's not necessarily a good thing. If you collect enough antimatter to fill a large warehouse completely, and that somehow manages to touch any matter, well...lets just say that there will be a new asteroid field between Venus and Mars...literally.Applications: Bomb for blowing up the world. 'Limitless' energy for centuries on end.See: lots of sites. A search on nasa.gov with the text "warp drive, when?" will get you some info on antimatter as well.VII. Gravity Manipulation. Some call it antigravity. But if you walk up to a scientist who's involved in it, and ask him/her on how's he doing on 'antigravity', they'll yell at you for calling it such. They'll beg you to use the term "gravity manipulation" or "gravity modification". This topic is already being covered in another thread, so I won't continue on this.There are many more interesting things at the edge of science, but I'm running out of time to list them all. If you know of something interesting, please add to this thread.Oh, and how does this relate to Aviation? Well, to answer your question, Francois, :D all of these will have remarkable impact fast transportation (aviation)....imagine a gigantic airplane with no wings....a sphere if you will, moving about through the air very fast, with instant acceleration, from 0 to 1,000 kts in just 10 seconds....with no ill effects on the pax. Sure, it may not be today, may not occur tommorow, or in this decade. But someday, our descendants will enjoy the fruits of the technologies that originated here in the late 20th century. And I'm planning to enjoy the fruits along with our descendants. How I'll manage to survive that long, is another story. :D-Lukexcom, :-wave----BEGIN FS CODE BLOCK----G:KMSP a--- R FS+ F++ P X++ FU+++ C++ H++ O V+++ AVSIM+++ TS+++-----END FS CODE BLOCK-----

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That was some fascinating information. Are you a physics prof?Notwithstanding all the exotic goings-on at the frontiers of science, I'd personally prefer to know when we'll get access to much faster CPUs, and when satellite technology will be able to help us locate terrorists in the mountains of Afghanistan (or perhaps Washington DC for that matter).In the case of CPUs I recall reading about a breakthrough in materials in the last year or two that could lead to CPUs 70 times more powerful than the existing technology. I haven't heard anything about that since though, and progress still seems to move along steadily at a Moore's Law pace, without any sudden and spectacular improvements. And my general impression is that while there are really exciting breakthroughs here and there in science and technology, actual deployment of any practical benefits continues at an incremental and not terribly exciting rate.

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> FS2092 will be an exact duplicate of the entire planet down to the last living cell. Oh, and the graphics will be an exact imitation of what real life looks like....and I guess people will still complain about blurries :-)

[a href=http://www.xs4all.nl/~alex4all" target="_blank]Click here for 360

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:-) :-) :-) :-) Indeed, I guess they will! ;-)How close are you to EHRD? I'm a short bike ride up north!Cheers! Vince

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Hi Luke(xcom)!Of all these, I believe the space elevator is actually the one sure to happen. I've always liked A.C. Clarke's novels, and I can recommend to anyone reading "Fountains of paradise". Carbon nanotubes go a very long way to providing the strength necessary to actually build such an elevator (provided they can be manufactured in long enough lengths). Didn't Clarke suggest using articifial diamond (=carbon) for the elevator????? A visionary, for sure!Nice list!Cheers,Vince

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I read an interesting fiction book (but based on real-life experiments) by Michael Crichton called Timeline. It was about making a transporter out of Quantum Computers. It also allowed you to transport through time, in a way. It was more like transporting you to another paralell universe that was exactly the same as a former time period. Good book, and it was all based on real research.

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At the moment I live some 5 kilometres south of it (Center of Rotterdam), but next week I'll move into my new home (Oosterflank).So... you live somewhere near Berkel?Alex

[a href=http://www.xs4all.nl/~alex4all" target="_blank]Click here for 360

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Just a bit further up - Delfgauw, close to Delft. I've worked at the Groothandelsgebouw for about three years, so I do know a bit of R'dam center.Good luck on your move!Vince

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