What is the least likely StarTrek technologies to be developed?

[Sky Captain]

It`s long time since I have watched Star Trek but I think there were some episodes when Inertial Compensation failed and everyone was violently thrown around but Artificial Gravity still worked.

 

[Linguofreak]

It`s long time since I have watched Star Trek but I think there were some episodes when Inertial Compensation failed and everyone was violently thrown around but Artificial Gravity still worked.

Well, everybody gets thrown around when the inertial compensation *is* "working", so that proves nothing.

More seriously, if you have artificial gravity, all you have to do for inertial compensation is to apply artificial gravity pulling in the same direction as the craft is accelerating. I suppose if the gravity's working and the compensators aren't, this would indicate a computer failure in the systems controlling the compensation.

Then again, it could be that the studio was having problems with their anti-gravity machine when those episodes were filmed. :lol:

 

[gimp1992]

Right now most sound far fetched, but this may not always be the case. My sister told my mom in 1944 that men would walk on the moon one day my Mom just laughed and,remember in the 1920's they laughed at Robert Goddard for making the same prediction. MRI's CT scans all would have sounded crazy even 50 years ago. And DNA and genetics such as growing beating heart cells in a lab would have been seen as impossible only a short time ago. There is no predicting what or when breakthroughs will happen, you just have to keep an open mind.

 

[Urwumpe]

Right now most sound far fetched, but this may not always be the case. My sister told my mom in 1944 that men would walk on the moon one day my Mom just laughed and,remember in the 1920's they laughed at Robert Goddard for making the same prediction. MRI's CT scans all would have sounded crazy even 50 years ago. And DNA and genetics such as growing beating heart cells in a lab would have been seen as impossible only a short time ago. There is no predicting what or when breakthroughs will happen, you just have to keep an open mind.

Sounding crazy to whom is the question. I remember that people wrote that driving with a train faster then 30 mph would be deadly because you can't breathe at that speed. Or that the sun can't be billions of years old, because coal would last so long as power source.

Things are only impossible, if they contradict themselves. For example the inertia dampers in Star Trek. But even flying wasn't impossible for most people in the middle ages. There are enough accounts of people who tried, and discovered that their view of physics wasn't right, but close. A warp drive isn't even close - we have no warp flying birds in our world, that could inspire us to do the same.

 

[Andy44]

The people who laughed at Goddard knew nothing about science (eg. The New York Times editorial staff, who declared rockets wouldn't work in a vaccuum, when Newton could've told you they would 200 years earlier.)

The people who are skeptical about warp drives are scientists or students of science.

 

[Linguofreak]

Right now most sound far fetched, but this may not always be the case. My sister told my mom in 1944 that men would walk on the moon one day my Mom just laughed and,remember in the 1920's they laughed at Robert Goddard for making the same prediction.

The main principles behind Goddard's work had been known for centuries, and he was a physicist being laughed at by the newspapers.

With Star Trek, you've got physicists laughing at what the entertainment media is saying about what will be possible in 300 years.

MRI's CT scans all would have sounded crazy even 50 years ago.

To the common citizen, perhaps. But you could have explained the general principles to a physicist.

And DNA and genetics such as growing beating heart cells in a lab would have been seen as impossible only a short time ago.

Not to a biologist.

There is no predicting what or when breakthroughs will happen, you just have to keep an open mind.

Actually, most of the time, you can see technological breakthroughs coming a long way away. Scientific breakthroughs catch us by surprise a bit more often, but as often as not they tell us what we *can't* do.

 

[Urwumpe]

Scientific breakthroughs catch us by surprise a bit more often, but as often as not they tell us what we *can't* do.

The biggest breakthroughs of the past century actually had at least 50 years ahead warning, if you followed the explicit literature.

 

[tori]

Re: hyperdrive

What do you guys think about FTL propulsion using Heim-Lorentz force? The math presented checks out and it seems to make sense even without Alcubierre-style negative energies.

 

[T.Neo]

AFAIK, the unfounded assumptions of Heim theory are shaky at best.

 

[Hielor]

What do you guys think about FTL propulsion using Heim-Lorentz force? The math presented checks out and it seems to make sense even without Alcubierre-style negative energies.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heim_theory :

Most of their original work and the subsequent theories based on it have not been peer reviewed.

So no, the math doesn't "check out." Or at least, no one has checked it out.

 

[tori]

I've only checked the math presented in that paper I linked to O that's why I asked here.

Anyway, good, no need to have hopes anywhere above noise level.