Vance Hall explains that technological advances thought to be impossible have nevertheless happened:
ray guns were impossible until lasers were invented;
spaceships had to expend mass in order to accelerate until artificial gravity was invented;
faster than light interstellar travel was impossible until the quantum hyperdrive was invented.
But that is as far as Hall takes us. We had hoped to find more information on cheap energy sources in Technic civilization.
The way Hall tells it, the hyperdrive does not seem to have followed from gravitics.
There might be at least an analogical parallel between quantum hyperdrives and zazen meditation:
in the Technic History version of hyperspace, the spaceship does not enter a different kind of space but makes quantum jumps through ordinary relativistic space;
in zazen, the mind does not enter a state without thought but practices not thinking about whatever thoughts do arise.
6 comments:
IIRC, there's a mention of direct-coversion fusion reactors in the Technic history too.
"The handwavium drive depends on the availability of unobtanium; we use a blend of raritanium and hardtofindium for the dampeners, and a wishalloy-eludium compound for the casing mechanism - other than that, it's pretty simple physics, really," said Chief Engineer Scott McExposition. "The only really challenging element is the modulator, which requires Eludium Q-36."
It's amusing to read learned engineers in the 1890's explain why heavier-than-air flight was impossible; I've read a couple of them doing it.
We can't anticipate what technologies will be possible in the future any more than the Victorian engineers could anticipate, say, nuclear weapons.
Einstein could, but then, he discovered the new physical principles on which they were based.
Our knowledge of physics is more extensive than that of our Victorian predecessors... but it's by no means complete.
My impression is some said 'impossible' and others said 'impossible without some engine with a much higher power to weight ration than any steam engine'.
Jim: true.
Others said it would be impossible to stabilize such flight, because they were thinking in terms of the rudder of a ship, rather than a -constant, dynamic- interaction between controls and the atmosphere moving past the flying machine.
Dirigibles were much more analogous to a ship (albeit one moving in three dimensions) than heavier-than-air craft.
And many early experimenters got the cross-section of a lifting surface wing grossly wrong.
Otto Lilienthal did, for instance. The Wright brothers credited him as an inspiration, but they discarded his calculations in that regard and went with fresh empirical studies.
They also developed a 'dynamic' stabilization/steering system. Based on wing-warping, but it was a major step in the right direction.
Gentlemen,
Fascinating comments!
Ad astra! Sean
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