9. Look at how far
we’ve come...
Now, let’s look at
where we are going...
Now, let’s look at
where we are going...
Now, let’s look at
where we are going...
What tech needs to be invented to bring us up to speed with Star Trek
Radio 100 years ago - 1913
The first consumer television - TV in 1929 - 90 years ago
Away team gear, starship engineer, sickbay and what I call everyday treknology
Phasers Tricorders Communicators Transporters
One shoots charged lightning bolts down a laser beam and they call it a “Laser Inducted Plasma Weapon” - This one does more than stun Japan company is working on a sonic weapon called a phaser.
The Army is working on a couple of different versions - another is called a Personel Haltiing And Stimulation Reponse or PHaSR. PHaSR achieves the desired degree of protection through the synergistic application of two non-lethal laser wavelengths during the course of protection activities that will deter, prevent, or mitigate an adversary’s effectiveness. The laser light from PHaSR temporarily impairs aggressors by “dazzling” them with one wavelength. The second wavelength causes a repel effect that discourages advancing aggressors.
There are now many consumer devices that work with the iPhone to measure someone’s health EEG machine Fitbit measures activity and sleep They are working on blood-testing units for people with diabetes
Lab on a chip can do 50 medical tests with a few drops of blood
We already have the communicator - it’s a satellte phone. Unfortunately, it’s a little bulkier than the pocket size ones on the show.
Transporters were created as a plot device to save money. But can they actually every work? In 2006, researchers in Copenhagen used quantum entanglement to transport a microscopic hunk of matter some 18 inches. Three years later, scientists at the Joint Quantum Institute transported information between sets o f entangled atoms three feet apart. The problem is yo u’re not just transporting the atops... you’re transporting the “data” in a person’s brain. That’s a lot of information.
2.6 tredecillion So it’ll take 350,000 times the age of the universe to transport one person. Better take the shuttle.
The government is working on long range surveillance systems and satellites
Scientists have built a working tractor beam. NASA is looking to use it to collect samples - they can tune the tractor beam to collect only particular types of matter. It’s Small scale... for now.
Using metamaterials not found in nature, scientists at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have developed cloaking tech that can bend light, heat, and sound around objects . Unfortunately, the current iteration of the cloak is thinner than a human hair.
This creates artificial gravity by centrifugal force. The idea of an artifical gravity “generator” - well, I’m sure somebody is working on it.
Impulse engines on Star Trek are basically iOn drives, which are incredibly fuel efficient compared to the rockets that took us to the moon. The problem is, they are kinda slow...
Warp Drive - we’ll never have it, right? Well, not so fast. Scientists are working on the idea of an Alcubierre warp drive that folds space in front of the space ship... and allows you to travel at 10 times the speed of light. Unfortunately, you need a lot of power every time you use it. Like, enough power to destroy Jupiter. However, scientists are working on a fushion drive... fueled by tons of dueterium and lithium, fused into a crystaline form. They are calling them “dilithium crystals.” You can’t make this up folks...
Who hates needles? Well, needleness injections like Dr. McCoy’s Hypos are in the early stage of manufacture.
Scientists have had a recent breakthrough - they have been able to artificially create stem cells... whcih means that they can potentially “grow” replacement organs.
Here’s a doctor who has grown a replacement ear.
There are some amazing advances in bionics... and while we won’t all be turning into the Borg, we may someday benefit from augmented limbs or armatures that will help us walk in our old age...
Food (and material) Replication Holodeck Artificial life forms Time travel
Scientists are begining to build computers that use “Quantum computing” - which takes care of quantum mechanical phonemena has multiple logical switches instead of 1s and 0s. It’s the type of computing breakthrough that can lead to...
The positronic brain.
There's been some amazing advances in 3D printing, and not just plastics Scientists are "printing" skin and organs
We're already growing meat Genetically altered crops are helping to fee Thanks to people like Norman Borlaug
Holo-deck - It’s being developed. Microsoft is doing it.
A 360 TERARABYTE disk that can last for 1 million years Personal wearable computers that are woven into clothes Industrial scale desalination to provide drinkable water to people around the world
Closing, I’ll ask you one question: Would we be investigating these ideas if Star Trek didn’t have them first?
Who recognizes the back of the person here? I have it on good authority that Steve Jobs was a Star Trek fan – did that influence the vision behind the iPhone and the iPad? It makes you wonder. The key to all technology is, of course, its application. How will it be used? Perhaps I’m overly optimistic, but I have a feeling that advances in technology will be for (and result in) the greater good, and not be leveraged by forces bent on destruction. Lives will be made better, the poor will be better fed, and the world will be a better place.
All the information I posted here is available in my Treknology article I wrote for Trekmovie.com