Kyle Brady: A Blog

Let me see if I understand this. A guy, named Itzhak Bars, thinks there are 2 “dimensions” of time, which would result in having to add another dimension of space to accommodate some weird equations only a few people in the world are aware of (that’s assuming that your general college physics class sticks to the whole 3-dimensional + gravity thing).

Wow. You’re a genius. Thanks for the observation Dr. Talksalot.

Didn’t Einstein say this years ago?

I’m not sure, but that name sounds Russian. I hear that in Russia they don’t have very good public access to books, outside of school, in a public library sense. Or at least they didn’t, maybe they do now. Anyways, that would explain a lot. Come, follow me backwards through time…

Books

Hasn’t humanity learned yet? The things we typically dream and create, on a science fiction/fantasy level, are more or less based on a present or future reality. I don’t know why, but that’s what happens. Asimov imagined little robots in human veins, Orwell created the modern day security system, Wells typified a robot extistence in the future, and others envisioned traveling to the moon and beyond. Any of those sound familiar? Let’s take a look at space-time throughout literature, and why this scientist guy is a little slow.

“Lord of the Rings” [approx. 1938]

Have you heard of these books? They’re not very popular, and semi-unknown, but they’re written by a guy named J.R.R. Tolkien a very long time ago. Before computers were even imagined. There are some characters in these books, called “elves”, and one of their main characteristics are their long life, which in fact is an immortal life. If you read these books closely, and maybe some of the associated ones that are even more unknown (like “The Rillanon” for example), you find that the elves do not believe in space-time as we know it… but rather that time is more akin to a circle. Additionally, the wizard “Gandalf” is very obviously seen playing with space-time when he magically reappears from being dead/falling-through-a-never-ending-hole-with-a-giant-demon-monster.

“WoW” is a blatant theft from Tolkien. Wow.

“Ender’s Game” [1985]

By Orson Scott Card, this is another book that is slightly underground. Few have heard of it, even fewer have read it. The main gist of the story is that there’s aliens attacking humanity, and we fight back via some pre-teens who have a higher IQ than anyone in the world. Towards the end of the book, the main character (”Ender”) communicates with the enemy of future-past through his dreams… and in doing so is not only communicating across thousands of light-years, but also time.

“Dune” [1965] (and the rest of the series)

Frank Herbert. A man with a vision that no-one reads. What a shame. Long story short (and without getting into many complicated details like unpronounceable character names), across many many books one of the main characters from the first turns himself into a god via some sand-based lifeforms. He then marries his sister. Odd things continue down this line until he becomes immortal. Eventually he dies. And then is reborn / goes into the past to change things. That’s really the best I can do in a few sentences.

Edit: Apparently I need to re-read Dune, “go back in time” doesn’t apply here. But he does live a really really long time. And the books are still awesome.

Whowhatnow?

I really don’t think I can make this any clearer without listing every popular and groundbreaking scifi/fantasy novel ever written: those of use of at least average intelligence have considered the possibility of space-time being non-linear… Hell, even Star Trek touched on it at least once a season. The scifi/fantasy community will be happy to know that you finally are able to prove what many of us have already believed in, but your ideas and concepts are by no means original. Even the Bible, “written” at some point 2000 years ago, has a space-time issue.

Nerds: “You depend on us … don’t fuck with us.”

I’m not trying to be harsh or mean, but instead I’m realistic. But when you discover how to travel through time or how to visualize/interact with the 4th dimension (quantum physics, anyone?), I will be truly excited.

And I bet many other nerds, geeks, dorks, and non-norms will be too.

posted on October 13th, 2007 at 10:36 am by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Future, Invisibility, Physics, SciFi

Hmm, invisibility cloaks?

Granted, they’re a long way from being even remotely useful, let alone human sized, but it still presents an interesting question…

How will you control a population (and by association, the military) that has access to invisibility? How do you prevent rampant bank robberies by invisible people? How do you fight an enemy that is invisible? How does a cop pull over your car if it suddenly disappears?

“Big Brother”? More like “Worthless Brother”.

This is bordering on the “cloaking” used in Star Trek (on a large scale), and the invisibility cloak seen in Harry Potter (on a personal scale). On one hand, the cloaking is very useful and very much a defense mechanism (i.e. Star Trek), but it can also be used for mischief and cause immense problems (aka Harry Potter… depending on how you view his activities, of course).

There’s only two real ways this can play out in the future, and still have a functioning non-apocalyptic world:

• Government Control
• A Change in Defense Architecture

Government Control

The microwave, satellite communication, cell phones, the Internet, and many many other devices have all started as devices created, controlled, and kept confidential by the U.S. Government / Military. However, they were eventually made public and declassified for general use… a good thing. But what if the U.S. Government wants to treat this similar to, say, rocket launchers and outlaw them for public use? Realistically, it would be an exercise in failure, because the moment Special Agent Johnson brings one home to show his kids… someone’s going to find it and replicate it. And this doesn’t even take in to consideration other countries that may have access to, or license, the engineering plans (Russia, China, England, etc.)

A Change in Defense Architecture

You’ve heard about how England has spent immense amounts of money creating and monitoring a large CCTV network, becoming the “most watched” country in the world? Well, here’s a newsflash: those fancy cameras become pretty worthless once portable invisibility is possible. The only way cameras could still be useful, from a security standpoint, is to have a filter on them to monitor things other than the visible spectrum: infrared (for body heat), sonar-ish (brain waves), or some other biometric configuration.

So… is it worth it to develop an “invisibility cloak”? Are you kidding? Definitely! But it has the potential to cause many many problems, especially if there’s an attempt to control it’s usage (the drug situation, anyone?).

It goes over your clothes… duh.

A piece of business advice: if you’re in the security / monitoring / CCTV area, start developing systems that are more dependent on things other than the visible spectrum. Maybe those giant XRay scanners you see in movies with The Governator. Or “breach detection” systems of epic proportions you see in movies like Star Wars or Star Trek.

Maybe celebrities should start hiring people to protect them from invisible things. Tom Cruise already has.

posted on October 4th, 2007 at 2:07 pm by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Future, Invisibility, Physics, Technology