Flying Cars - I think we've waited long enough Corwin: According to sci-fi movies of the last century, we're supposed to have these by now. This is entirely unfair. I want my flying car! So this is how it's gonna be... one of you science geeks out there better invent a flying car soon, or the monkey gets it... and my penguin has an itchy trigger finger. Corwin: Good point. That would create an ATC nightmare at first. We'd probably have to create designated "lane-ways" of flying car airspace, complete with floating traffic signals and speed limits. BrigaBee: No, the cars. They are primarily small foldable planes, but they do drive on roads and fly in air. http://www.terrafugia.com/ Corwin: Oh yeah... I saw those on a link. LOL They don't count. I want one of the ones that defy gravity and hover silently... anti-gravity car. This kind of technology would also make space-travel a simple and inexpensive matter. We need to find a loop-hole in Physics that allows us to ignore the curvature a space-time... not an easy proposition. Geoff: Yeah, well... according to sci-fi: - There should be an island in the Pacific covered with dinosaurs. - The moon should have left orbit. - We should have had a few dozen nuclear wars by now. - We should have realistic androids. - We are all actually living in a giant computer simulation. Sci-Fi = Good on the Fi, not so hot on the Sci. Geoff: Oh, I agree that Sci-Fi is wonderful, marvellous, and thoroughly engaging. However, it's rate of success when it comes to predictions is poor. And much Sci-Fi doesn't qualify as Sci-Fi because it has zero science content, making it pure, unadulterated Fi. Take Star Wars for instance. I am a huge Star Wars fan. I have been as long as I can remember (in fact I was born in the month the movie went on general release in my home country). However, as much as I like it, Star Wars is not Sci-Fi. There is no science in Star Wars. It is fantasy. George Lucas pretty much admitted as much when he remade the film entirely in a fantasy setting. So, viva Sci-Fi, but don't put too much hope into the possibility of flying cars, or Lucy Liu-bots. BrigaBee: But again, we have flying cars and love dolls. It's the practicality Sci-fi doesn't get, but that's because of the fiction aspect. Geoff: Yes, but love dolls aren't Lucy Liu-bots "She's stuck in a loop, and he's a moron." - Professor Farnsworth. I do agree that the fiction takes precedence over the science in all popular sci-fi. Although in some cases it's for slightly weird reasons. For instance, in the original Star Trek series, they invented the concept of matter transference devices to get around the low budget not allowing them to shoot model shots of the shuttle landing in every episode. Corwin: Some things have came to pass from Sci-Fi over the years. Jules Verne wrote about a "sub-marine" boat powered by "the force of the Universe", and about trips to the moon. A.C. Clarke predicted communication satellites... and although in 2001 he shows suspended animation and advanced A.I. (which we don't have yet), but if you look at the breakfast scene aboard the Discovery, Frank and Dave are watching the news on something which very closely resembles an iPad... and Dr. Heywood talks with his daughter on a video-phone (much like a web-cam). Other sci-fi that has come true... in the 60's James Bond had something very much like a GPS nav in his Aston Martin... those are commonplace now. There are many examples...... is a flying-car too much to ask?? Geoff: A flying car that uses anti-gravity? Yes. A flying car that is essentially the bastard love-child of a Yugo and an Osprey? No, you can buy one of those. However in a recent BBC documentary, James May pointed out that in order to pilot a flying car you need a LOT of paperwork. Not just the driving licence, insurance, MOT (UK road-worthiness certificate for vehicles - substitute for local or national equivalent), and tax - to take to the road and the air, you'd need lots more - full pilot's licence, full medical certificate, CAA certification (UK air worthiness certificate for aircraft - substitute for local or national equivalent), and a few others. Acquiring all of which is actually more expensive than the cost of purchasing the flying car in the first place. So it is the paperwork, not the science that is in the way. On a slight aside, and a little off topic - when I was a Scout leader, we used to take the kids rock climbing a few times a year. When we went we always told them that if they were going to hurt themselves, to make sure they did it properly; as if they were injured we had to fill out five forms, but if they died it was only the one. We were joking. Mostly. Corwin: LOL. Yeah, I want the anti-gravity kind... I will settle for no less. I remember how disappointed I was as a child when I read Einstein's explanation of the nature of gravity based on relativity. Newton's gravity was a mystery-force, so it left with one with hope of a possible counteracting force. But according to Einstein, gravity isn't really a force at all, but a by-product of the curvature of space-time itself... Newton's apple didn't fall from the tree - the ground rushed up to meet it... there wasn't a force acting on the apple per-say, but on the surrounding space itself. How the heck do you "un-curve" space-time itself??... space curved with the force of an Earth-sized mass..... this seems like an impossibility. But I still can hope... it would require a loop-hole of some kind... a way we could cheat relativity... make space-time ignore us somehow. Something akin to "outsmarting God"(metaphorically speaking of course) . Corwin: I propose an idea… this is pure speculation, so bear with me… But what if (and this is a HUGE “what if”)… what if anti-matter bends space in the opposite direction than normal matter? What if anti-matter creates it’s own field of anti-gravity? I propose a thought experiment based on this assumption. As predicted by Einstein, we know that a mass in rotation creates an extra, localized curvature of space, apart from that which occurs from the mass alone (this has been measured around the Earth itself, caused by it’s rotation), as if the mass was pulling space-time along with it like an egg-beater in pancake batter. So, what if we created a large disk of dense anti-matter suspended in a vacuum using a powerful magnetic field (impossible with present technology), and rotated it at some ridiculously fast RPM? Might it not create a “dimple” in the Earth’s gravity-well? Imagine that a gravity-well is a large metal funnel, and we knock a little dimple into it with a ballpene hammer… just large enough so that a ball-bearing can rest in it without rolling down the chute. Of course, the downside of an experiment like this is that that much anti-matter would be capable of destroying the Earth if it ever came in contact with normal matter, making our experiment the most powerful ticking bomb ever conceived. Experiments like this should be conducted somewhere out around the orbit of Neptune just to be safe. “Some supernova are industrial accidents.” – Arthur C. Clarke And sadly, even if all this turned out to be true, it gets me no closer to my flying car. smoke4ever: the UFO technology will never be released to the public because then they would have to admit to a cover-up. | Science Chat Room 2 People Chatting Similar Conversations |