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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 |
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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. |
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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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Educational value in science fiction
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