The Next A-bombFollow

I think we will eventully see stuff like:

1. Use of Various weapons that can incompacitate, rather then kill enimies
2. Use of Exotic energy sources (such as anti-matter and tacion technology) to completly crush our enimies.
3. Robot Warriors (an early verion called the SWORD is already in use in Iraq)controlled by soldiers on the battlefeild.
4. Eventully we may see Mech suits and stuff that currently is only science fiction
5. There is no limit to what we can do.

http://www.janes.com/security/law_enforcement/news/jdw/jdw051125_2_n.shtml

This is the item that was mentioned earlier in this thread, I believe.

Totem

And the first time an experiment like that goes wrong, they end up creating a miniature black hole at ground level on the Bikini Islands.

Well.. sh[b][/b]it happens.

Edited, Mon Nov 28 18:44:33 2005 by Mazra

In reply to Totem, concernint the "A.I mechano-soldiers/tanks/planes":-

The topic asked for the next radical step, the next big change. In other words, producing a laser gun, to be used instead of a bullet-gun, is not radical step, it's only radical in the sense that it will make sci-fi real, but not on real-battlefield mechanics (this is coming from someone who has served in the Army).

Replacing a TnT bomb, with a C4 bomb, with a high-explosive bomb, with a nuclear bomb, with a vacuum bomb ...etc, is no radical change, it doesn't change the way we fight battles, it just maximizes and boosts the efficiency of a weapon, and it's ability to eliminate the enemy's forces.

On the other hand, replacing Humans, with machines ..... need I continue?

Your arguement was something about politics allowing it, and something about it being sci-fi...

Well allow me to retort:-

Roughly 50% of the US' scientific minds and expertise (and funding) is labelled "US military"... A lot of the inventions we use were made in the army, whether it's the Internet, or the microwave, or the cellphone, or the computer...etc.

My from point 1 is: Not everything gets passed through the COngress, a lot of these projects were started decades ago, and "morph" into different things with time passing by.

Example: Stealth planes namely F-117 fighterjet, the contract itself was ratified by the Congress for the immense bill, but the technology itself has evolved from basic engineering conceps of reducing a plane's "fingerprints" whether optical, radio, sonic, heat ...etc, and it didn't need a congress bill, it's an ongoing process that goes under "development".

Similarly, we find that almost every weapon in the US military (and others) is computerized/mechanized with various degrees, whether it's the auto-pilot/auto-fighter computer that tracks 16 targets in real-time in F-16s, or a simpler Stinger Anti-Aircraft heat-seeking system.

The point is: It has already started, the incorporation of computer capabilities is in most military systems. The only thing left is a stable-effective machine that can either "reason" for itself according to rules we formulate(farshot), OR machines that are controlled real-time by military personnel (much like the pilot-less aircrafts used effectively by Israel and the US).

It's not around the corner, but it's the next radical change, and that's my opinion.

As for the A.I issue. Mate ..... billions of dollars of funds are spent throughout universities, research centers ...etc, in addition to the military. It's a matter of time before it's cracked, considering that the computing power is available (check Scientific American July 2003 issue), they just don't know how to wire it to work :). Whether a machine can be self-aware, in the philosophical sense, is another issue.

As for the politics, why would any parliamant/congress refuse granting it's nation the absolute weapon system? Having an army of 10 million bots saves human lives, and renders any other army obsolete (including Nuclear weapons). It achieves the paramount dominance. And considering that every nation considers it's ideals and principles "Good" and "righteous" ... I can't see why anyone would vote against it.

On a side note, be careful before you label anything a "sci-fi" item. We have no idea what goes on behind closed doors, and most scientists in military institutions and weapon companies clearly state that the technology (albight expensive) is at least 30 years ahead of current commercial technology.

Example: And this will shock many of you, Teleportation (yes like Star Trek) is already available and effective in a number of research centers in the world, like C.E.R.N (EU). Through Quantum physics (don't ask) they have made it possible, but so far it's only an object as big as a needle, to be sent a few feets away, and that would require the energy of a small nuclear plant. Scientists estimate that it will be commercially available in 15-20 years. It was published in a number of journals, european and american, 2 years ago (cant remember which scientific american issue, check the site)

Actually, it's not so much teleportation as quantum state matching. And while they have done it on solid objects, it's always been a single element (rubidium is used most frequently).

Um. Did I mention that it's not actually teleported? You have some rubidium at one point. You have the same number of atoms of rubidium at some other point. Normally, if you were to measure the states of those atoms, you'd find that they were different. After "teleporting" the state from one point to another, they'd be exactly the same. In quantum physics terms that makes them the same atoms. They're just in different points.


The big thing here is that you aren't transporting the object, but the atomic state of the object. This could theoretically be used for more complext objects then just a collection of atoms (which presumably is required for star trek style beaming), however you'd have to have the right number and type of atoms at the recieving end in order for it to work. So, when we get matter replication going, we might be close...


For right now, it's primarly uses are for communication. Quantum information theory allows for more information to be passed in a single "bit" then regular information storage methodologies. The best real applications of the technology in the short term are for incredibly fast parallel processing computers (cause you can send more data per bit).

Not even close to actual teleportation though.

An interesting possibility that hasn't been mentioned so far: Antigravity technology, in the form of gravity shielding for aircraft and electrogravitic pulse weaponry.

Disclaimer before I get going here: this stuff is out there. There is very little evidence that Antigravity is even possible, much less exists. It goes against relativity and our current understanding of physics in general. The most prominent experiments documenting gravity shielding/gravity wave generation are attributed to a Russian superconductivity specialist named Evgeny Podkletnov. His credibility is...questionable. Most of the rest of the scientific community has deemed him a crackpot, to be blunt. His experiments are not reproducible to any appreciable degree.

That said, some big players are taking an interest in this technology, including Boeing, BAE, NASA, and the US Department of Defense. I've read several articles about BAE's "Greenglow" project which deals with antigravity research, and Boeing's R&D division dubbed "Phantom Works" also has been in contact with Dr. Podkletnov and working on this as well (though they deny performing any serious research). Another article I read stated that NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics department had been dabbling in this area for near 10 years (that part of NASA is now defunct, I understand).

The benefits of this technology are obvious for these entities: If an aircraft/shuttle can be shielded from gravity in some way, or cancel out gravity's effects, then fuel economy will be dramatically increased, and engine power can go towards speed instead of maintaining lift. Wings may be aesthetic some day, who knows. This idea of gravity shielding is based on one of Podkletnov's experiments that was published in 1992. In it, he used a ring of superconducting ceramic that was levitating over magnets via the Messnier Effect (Superconductors exclude magnetic fields so they will "float" on top of magnets). This ring is then accelerated to very high RPM's, and the weight of a mass hanging over the apparatus is monitored. Apparently, a 2% weight reduction resulted somehow. I have not heard of a single successful reproduction of the experiment, which is disheartening, but it's an interesting proposition anyway.

Perhaps more interesting is the Defense Department's funding support for Dr. Ning Li, whose company AC Antigravity has had some success in producing what can only be termed "gravity waves" with, again, superconductors. Podkletnov also performed another experiment that produced a similar effect. A gravity wave is perhaps more properly named an antigravity wave, as it is a directed repulsive force with a measurable frequency thats effects are based on the mass of the target. Podkletnov claimed that the wave was strong enough to push some objects in his lab.

The idea in terms of weaponry is, if we could intensify these waves and make them coherent (same idea as a laser), it would be like having a gun that would send a pulse of "force" at a target at near the speed of light. So, depending on the intensity of the wave, you could give someone bruises or put holes in them. No more bullets, only a power supply (and coolant for the superconducting elements). Imagine a satellite defense system equipped with "antigravity beams." It would be able to effectively vaporize ICBM's in the upper atmosphere. Pretty neat stuff, if it works out that these crazy "gravity waves" even exist. There is no precedent for anything like this "force beam" crap in physics today, so it would be truly earthshaking if these experiments were somehow true.

I remember reading in some military newspaper about how they were developing weapons that used sound waves. they would induce instant stomach aches & diahreah.
if youa re interested one of the links on it is http://www.rense.com/general/soundwaves.htm

Not sure if it's changed at all. At issue is that since no one has really come close to figuring out how you could generate gravity (other then naturally from a large mass), so far the only people *claiming* to know such things are generally crackpots. I don't think any serious scientist or group of scientists would skoff at the idea of trying to do such things. It's only the reception of the fringe trying to claim that they've actually done it. And since so far that's really all the public's seen on this topic, it tends to be percieved that way.

I'm reasonably certain that if any scientist could come up with a way to generate and manipulate gravity that could stand up to scientific scrutiny it would be hailed as the greatest discovery since electromagnetic theory. And would likely revolutionize the world just as much.



Heh. Actually, my understanding (and I'm *not* a physicist, just an interested party who reads stuff) is that's almost completely backwards (or sidewards?).

Gravity fields create distortions in space time, but most physicists do not believe that they actually *are* just those distortions. The reasoning is generally explained in this way. Take two satellites orbiting the earth (stable orbits at the same altitude and in the same direction but some distance apart along that orbit, so that one's following the other). Tie a string between them. Stretch the string so it's tight, representing the shortest distance between those two satellites. If gravity were a distortion of space/time only, then the shortest distance would be the same as the orbit of the satellites (it would appear that they were moving in a straight line, but since space was curved, the end up going in a circle). But if we actually do this, we find exactly what we'd expect. The shortest distance between them does not follow the orbital path, but cuts across it. Clearly, space is not being curved to the same degree that the orbital path is, so also clearly, gravity is not *just* a distortion of space. It does generate one, but it *also* generates a real accelleration in real space between two objects.

Gravity waves can be a couple different things. There are "waves" generated by changes in gravitational state of an apparent object. They're not really waves, although they're called that. There are also waves caused by an asynchronus change in gravity (like from a supernova explosion or other massive event). Those are waves that are really a propogation of a space/time distortion across space. They propogate at light speed (or do in theory, if we can ever spot one). They're aren't really attractive or repulsive, but more like a wake. That's why I talked in terms of tossing things around. That's what the generation of such a wave would do to something in its path.

Normal gravitational effects generate a real attractive force between two objects, with the effects occuring instantaneously over any distance, but with the strength of the effect diminishing as the square of the distance (if I remember my physics equations correctly). They *also* bend space, but that effect is actually minor in relation to the direct attractive force involved. Heh. Another proof of the faster then light nature of gravitational effects lies in simple thought about black holes. If a black hole is massive enough that it's gravitational field is sufficient to prevent light from escaping, then wouldn't that *also* prevent gravity from escaping? If gravity moved at the speed of light, it would. Well. It doesn't... ;)

Well, to judge by the vast amount of suckage that this board produces with its' socks and n0obies, we invented the vacuum bomb years ago. I nearly blow out my eardrums every time I open a new thread these days.

Totem

I gotcha. I had no idea, that's very interesting. I wonder what the nature of that attractive force is then? Perhaps that provides a basis for the odd phenomena these oddball scientists are coming up with. Maybe it IS electromagnetic somehow.



I understand what you're getting at, but that's not the same concept these experiments I'm referring to are about. It makes more sense to me that a wave of gravity would act the way you describe, with an alternation of attractive and repulsive qualities that end up just knocking things around, but the effect described in these experiments is different. I figure I might as well just link you to the actual experimental writeup by Podkletnov here. It describes in detail the effect, how it penetrates various things, and is oddly affected by the mass of the target (which it shouldn't be if it's true gravity).

With that, I also found this little gem, which is a pretty harsh smackdown directed towards Podkletnov's methods and conclusions. Take that how you will.