The best part about science fiction is that it allows you to imagine new inventions and technologies that can make the world more captivating and interesting. And yes, there are several products that have come up in the market, including Star Trek’s PADD’s and communicators. But not all the things can exist. Here are some of the technologies that might just never exist in reality.
- Lightsaber: This hazardous and impractical weapon may just never be a reality because stopping the beam of light at a particular point is something isn’t possible. The reason being, light cannot be stopped unless it’s obstructed or absorbed. But plasmasabers can be a reality.
- Human Teleportation: It is possible to create a replica of an object, but finding a teleport that may induce ‘destructive copying’ (as in case of Star Trek) is not only impractical but it also appears to be equally suicidal. Plus, the teleportation requirements are extreme, like instantaneous scanning, recording and relaying. So, currently it isn’t possible.
- Time Machine: Since the time Albert Einstein told the world that time travel is possible, people have been intrigued to the idea. But according to Michio Kaku, a physicist, extracting the energy of an entire star or creating black hole is too difficult and stabilizing the wormhole and aperture is difficult too, until and unless one is planning for a one way journey.
- Light Travel: Einstein’s idea of time travel is reasonably scientific, but travelling at the speed of light is outrageous and defies the laws of physics. The intense energy required by the process is more than the mass of the universe.
- Generation ships: Making a generation ships which can allow serve exactly to the requirements of biological humans, we would need Earth in microcosm so that the humans feel at home. This is a tremendous task. Plus, raising kids or family on starship would require dealing with timescales.
- Gravitation shielding: First proposed in ‘The First Men to the Moon,’ this idea discusses the possibility that people can become free from the forces of gravity. This, again, is a violation of Einstein’s laws of physics.
- Personal Force Field: Yes, you can imagine a spacecraft that could be surrounding by a protective layer of plasma or electromagnetic force, but otherwise creating a personal force field for humans seems impossible, especially because humans are electrically neutral while the idea just applies on charged objects.
- Reanimation from cryonic suspension: Since the days of Engines of Creation by K. Eric Drexeler, we have believed that it would be possible to reanimate a perfectly preserved brain using molecular nanotechnology. Although, this has been attempted time and again, but even during the freezing process, the brain undergoes severe fracturing.
- Continuity of Consciousness after uploading: Uploading our minds into supercomputers is a distinct possibility and so is continuing our consciousness once we transfer the information.
- Infinite data processing: No matter how much you try, death of the universe would lead to our demise as well. Therefore, even if people upload data, it is impossible to say that cosmological immortality could be attained.
