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Educational value in science fiction



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 6th 09, 10:03 AM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy,sci.space.shuttle
Pat Flannery
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Default Educational value in science fiction



Martha Adams wrote:

I think the above argument is right and wrong, depending upon how you
look at it. The only point I'd make against it, is that when the
writer says "physics," I'd advise him to rephrase that to "today's
physics."

I think also, it's not the purpose of science fiction to "predict" the
future. Its purpose is to write a good story and sell it. Along the
way, depending upon the author, the topic, and the science involved,
the story includes more or less science more or less stretched. If it
turns out years or decades later, that something the writer guessed
(see Brunner, Shockwave Rider or Doctorow, Little Brother) is very
relevant to something going on, the writer may get credit for
"predicting" the future. But life and the socioeconomics and
technologies we live it in are so large and various, some of this
science fiction writing shares a lot with standing inside a barn with
the door closed, and firing off a gun. In which case you somehow, hit
the barn.


Of course there are other ways of destroying something than incinerating it.
You could somehow shift it into another universe, reduce its temperature
to absolute zero, or use the green blob thing from Pal's "War Of The
Worlds" movie, which neutralized the electrical charge of the target
object's mesons, causing it to disintegrate into subatomic debris. In
the new WOTW movie, the weapon the war machines use appears to be a
extremely high powered maser which superheat the water in anyone that it
hits, causing them to blow completely apart in a violent steam
explosion, while leaving their clothing largely intact, if shredded.
In the original "The Day The Earth Stood Still" Gort's visor ray seemed
to start some sort of a reaction going in the molecular structure of
whatever it hit, somewhat like the meson neutralizer.
Small objects pretty much just vanish, larger objects are partially
vaporized, partially melted.
The Star Trek phasers are the ones that are really hard to understand,
as they appear to make objects completely vanish rather than burning
them or breaking down their atomic structure.
I imagine you could convert all the mass in a person's body into energy
and leave no residue that way, but I'd hate to be within a hundred miles
of the person the phaser hit when that happened, as the Romulan is going
to be converted into a many mile wide crater. :-D

Pat
  #2  
Old March 13th 09, 03:55 PM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy,sci.space.shuttle
[email protected]
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Posts: 1,465
Default Educational value in science fiction

On Feb 6, 5:03*am, Pat Flannery wrote:
Martha Adams wrote:

I think the above argument is right and wrong, depending upon how you
look at it. *The only point I'd make against it, is that when the
writer says "physics," I'd advise him to rephrase that to "today's
physics."


I think also, it's not the purpose of science fiction to "predict" the
future. *Its purpose is to write a good story and sell it. *Along the
way, depending upon the author, the topic, and the science involved,
the story includes more or less science more or less stretched. *If it
turns out years or decades later, that something the writer guessed
(see Brunner, Shockwave Rider or Doctorow, Little Brother) is very
relevant to something going on, the writer may get credit for
"predicting" the future. *But life and the socioeconomics and
technologies we live it in are so large and various, some of this
science fiction writing shares a lot with standing inside a barn with
the door closed, and firing off agun. *In which case you somehow, hit
the barn.


Of course there are other ways of destroying something than incinerating it.
You could somehow shift it into another universe, reduce its temperature
to absolute zero, or use the green blob thing from Pal's "War Of The
Worlds" movie, which neutralized the electrical charge of the target
object's mesons, causing it to disintegrate into subatomic debris. In
the new WOTW movie, the weapon the war machines use appears to be a
extremely high powered maser which superheat the water in anyone that it
hits, causing them to blow completely apart in a violent steam
explosion, while leaving their clothing largely intact, if shredded.
In the original "The Day The Earth Stood Still" Gort's visorrayseemed
to start some sort of a reaction going in the molecular structure of
whatever it hit, somewhat like the meson neutralizer.
Small objects pretty much just vanish, larger objects are partially
vaporized, partially melted.
The Star Trek phasers are the ones that are really hard to understand,
as they appear to make objects completely vanish rather than burning
them or breaking down their atomic structure.
I imagine you could convert all the mass in a person's body into energy
and leave no residue that way, but I'd hate to be within a hundred miles
of the person the phaser hit when that happened, as the Romulan is going
to be converted into a many mile wide crater. :-D

Pat


Yes, think of Leik Myrabo's laser propulsion experiments. Now imagine
a laser powered nanobot that rides a laser beam to a target. Then,
uses the laser's energy and the target itself to make copies of
itself, until the target was consumed, then, the robots self destruct.

That way, a very tiny bullet is needed - a 1 microgram nanobot - and
in 10 doubling periods - say 0.1 seconds - that microgram becomes a
milligram, and 0.2 seconds 1 milligram becomes 1 gram. in 0.3 seconds
kilogram, 0.4 seconds 1 metric ton, 0.5 seconds kiloton in 1.1123
seconds - 5.2e+24 kg - the mass of the Earth.

A quick comparison of the energy it takes to vaporize steel for
example, or cut it up into tiny pieces with laser energy should
convinece you of the gains obtained using laser powered nanobots
rather than lasers alone.

A few 50 MT Tsar Bomba's cpmverted tp ;aser emergu powering a self
replicating nanobot population would decimate the Earth - with this
technique, whereas the bombs by themselves would do little damage on
anything beyond a local scale otherwise.
  #3  
Old March 13th 09, 04:13 PM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy,sci.space.shuttle
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Default Educational value in science fiction

The laser LED of a blu-ray disk writer operates in the blue region of
the specturm and puts out about 1/8th watt. Thatt's enough to light a
match at a distane, or burn a whole through black plastic trash bag
material. (I've seen it done) at a distance.

They put out 1/8th watt and consume about 1/2 watt.

A sheet of 50 x 50 LEDs (availble in reels from the manufacturer) may
be assembled on a square foot of PC board - that's 2,500 units -
populating both sides of the board - a total of 5,000 units. Two
boards each a square foot contains 10,000 units - producing a total of
1,250 watts of laser energy - powered by 6,250 watt DC power
supply..

Mount an optical fiber on each of the 10,000 LED lasers apeture -
which is 0.4 mm in diameter - and cut their length so that they are
all the same. Then arc them so they all come to the same plane -
forming an optical fiber bundle 40 mm in diameter - a little les than
2 inches. A set of 2 inch optical elments in an optics rack produce a
well collimated beam.

The beam line is fed through a roof mounted LIDAR beam steering system
- and operates in parallel with a high definition LIDAR system.

The LIOAR system does not use this laser beam. It uses its own laser
elements - but operates through the same optics.

In this way LIDAR picks up an image and displays it on a compuer
screen. The operator identifies a target, and when the LIDAR
'refreshes' over the target area, the 1,250 watt blue beam comes on -
burning the target where indicated. This continues until the target
is no longer registered, or until the operator shuts the system down.

This would be an interesting means to deny access to a well defined
region.

The system would cost arond $400,000 to build.

And be capable of targeting any number of threats simultaneously.

A more traditional ray gun would take the two one foot square PC
boards and implement them as a 3 inch diameter four foot long tube,
whose inner lining was populated with 10,000 LED lasers - each
equipped with an optical fiber, that ran down the interior of the tube
to an optical system at one end. A microturbine weighing only a few
ounces - MEMs based - powered by butane provides the needed 6.3 kW
electrical output - and a single 8 oz can provides 4 hours firing
time. The narrow angle blue laser beam operates in conjunction with
LIDAR again, but here the field of view is restricted to about 40
degrees - with targets designated on a small LCD screen - you show the
gun your target(s) designate them on the screen, and the gun does the
rest.

The more compact unit, with the mems based butane powered microturbine
would cost around $1.2 million to build first time -and $800,000 per
copy. Rebuilds for $200,000 after 3,000 hours of firing time - normal
service.


 




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