A time machine, that way we could take years to create a device that would change something 'overnight'

Spandex jackets, one for everyone.

An energy-efficient way to desalinate saltwater.

/You asked.

Nano tech looks promising. If they could develop super cheep solar cells..that would change a lot of things quickly.


For SciFi: Heinlein's "Shipstone" which was described as a battery..but calling it an improved battery would be calling an atomic bomb an improved firecracker.

For tinfoil: Time travel of information only. That might not violate laws of physics, no mass.
If they hook the receiver up to the internet....you could get spam from the future.

I'm all about FTL travel and the technological singularity.

But then again, I'm a huge geek

optikeye: For tinfoil: Time travel of information only. That might not violate laws of physics, no mass.
If they hook the receiver up to the internet....you could get spam from the future.

Ooh, and what if you could send an email and it would arrive at its destination TWO MINUTES IN THE FUTURE!

awaspaas: Spandex jackets, one for everyone.

I.G.Y. great song. The future that never was. (pops)

submitter: What recent scientific discovery gives you hope for the future?

It's not really a recent discovery or advancement at all, but I'm curious to see how far we'll go after the advent of LASIK eye surgery.

I'm apprehensive about such a procedure myself, so I guess I'm really interested to see if/how eye surgery procedures improve over the ensuing years.

Toshiro Mifune's Letter Opener: LASIK eye surgery.

After 40..I'm glad I didn't get it done. Because there's no surgery that correct needing reading glasses, and muscle focusing that happens. Now, I take just move my contacts over a bit to see super close..otherwise, I'd have to carry reading glasses.

Replicators. Turn waste molecules back into usable items. No more garbage or food shortages.

Plus you could easily dispose of all those inconvenient murdered corpses..

Quantum computers, room temperature superconductors, thermovoltaics (electricity from heat, directly), Fusion, Warp Drive, Phasers.

But change the world overnight, I'd say Fusion. Energy concerns are the biggest we have. Then we will have the power to do all those 'Big Science' things.

On Colbert last week they had that water purifier which was cool as anything. It's a reverse osmosis filter that removes anything that isn't water. We need more of that....

I just want a farking Lightsaber. It may not help "humanity" but it would help me kick some ass.

I'm going to limit myself to tech we likely could have right now if we just throw enough money at it for R&D - let's say the cost of the Iraq war for one year.

1) An ultra-capacitor or some other battery-like device that's small enough to fit in an average sized car and stores enough juice to keep the thing running for 400 to 500 miles per charge.

2) A means to produce carbon nanotubes in sufficient quantity and length to make a space elevator feasible.

Thermoacoustics. Which are only a little new. And stirling engines, which are very old. More specifically, thermoacoustic stirling engines, which are very new, and just recently hit the retail market. (new window)

Arthur Jumbles: 1) An ultra-capacitor or some other battery-like device that's small enough to fit in an average sized car and stores enough juice to keep the thing running for 400 to 500 miles per charge.

That would be Heinlein's SciFi "Shipstone". I think the other bit from the novel "Friday" was "We never had a energy problem, we had an energy storage problem". I've seen some stuff about nano-tech batteries in research that hold promise. If that happens, solar, wind and ect become practical.

Yup, in short term. A Super Battery..with a short recharge time, long life, and high capacity would be the ticket.

A better mouse trap.

1 - I second the super-cheap solar cells idea.

2 - replicators. Eliminating disparities of availability of basic needs will translate into less fighting over resources, end hunger, and completely change the way we relate to one another, IMHO.

Methane has been detected on a distant planet, possibly from Uranus (new window)

4-D Imax movies.

Richard Saunders: A better mouse trap.

Rat Zapper. (pops). Mouse, rat enters into a chamber where it trips a metallic plate and gets electrocuted Texas style. We used one about 5 years ago when a very, very, smart roof rat got in the house. "Ackbar" we called him..because he could detect traps.
He pushed spring traps under the kick plate in the kitchen and sprung them, then ate.

Unfortunately the zapper didn't work on him..he detected the danger and 'trap'. The final outcome of the battle between us and "Ackbar" was sad..painful. Live trap he escaped. Poison, he wouldn't eat opened packets..and only ate it when we left it in packaging..disguised. Poor thing came into the living room and collapsed at our feet, just walked in and looked up at us and laid down. Yup, I felt like shait.

When finished with this Kobe steak from the replicator, I will hop on the transporter, beam over to the holodeck brothel, and give this matter some thought.

Room temperature superconductors. Flying cars are just a prelude. I want flying cities!

hmmmm...could you use a replicator to create energy?

1) Efficient means of using steam power

2) Star Trek's Transporter.

optikeye: After 40..I'm glad I didn't get it done. Because there's no surgery that correct needing reading glasses, and muscle focusing that happens. Now, I take just move my contacts over a bit to see super close..otherwise, I'd have to carry reading glasses.

Hmmm... so noted, then. That, and the long-term effects (or rather, the lack of knowledge about them) would have me more than just a bit concerned.

I'll stick with glasses. No worries.


log_jammin: I just want a farking Lightsaber. It may not help "humanity" but it would help me kick some ass.

Or something that SHUTS DOWN ALL THE GARBAGE MASHERS ON THE DETENTION LEVEL, DO YOU COPY?!

SOMETHING THAT SHUTS DOWN ALL THE GARBAGE MASHERS ON THE DETENTION LEVEL!!!

Sun God: 2) Star Trek's Transporter.

How is disintegrating me and creating a copy somewhere else considered a method of transportation? I never understood that. Even if the duplicate has all of my memories he's still a copy and I'm still dead.

A teflon-coated bib for deflecting the dribble off subby's mom's chin

Toshiro Mifune's Letter Opener: Or something that SHUTS DOWN ALL THE GARBAGE MASHERS ON THE DETENTION LEVEL, DO YOU COPY?!

SOMETHING THAT SHUTS DOWN ALL THE GARBAGE MASHERS ON THE DETENTION LEVEL!!!

what's that from?

log_jammin: what's that from?

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.

Toshiro Mifune's Letter Opener: The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.

AH HA! I know I'd heard it before!

/has that movie

Arthur Jumbles: How is disintegrating me and creating a copy somewhere else considered a method of transportation? I never understood that. Even if the duplicate has all of my memories he's still a copy and I'm still dead.

Well, supergeek method of transporter would be analyzing each atom..and not 'destroying it'..but creating a projection of mini-wormholes..corresponding to atoms and projecting the endpoints to another place. Nothing gets destroyed, no copy involved. It just gets moved.

Arthur Jumbles: Sun God: 2) Star Trek's Transporter.

How is disintegrating me and creating a copy somewhere else considered a method of transportation? I never understood that. Even if the duplicate has all of my memories he's still a copy and I'm still dead.

Well, despite the fact that the science is a little weird, you could do a number of things:

1) Transport a construction team into orbit with enough supplies to build an orbiting transporter (because transporters seem to have limited range.) Then, you transport supplies to your new transporter to build another transporter. You could do that over and over, and you'd never really need a starship to travel the galaxy. It'd just take you a while to get anywhere.

2) You could go shopping at Wal-Mart, and what you bought would show up in your kitchen once you check out with your fake Federation money.

3) Sewers would become obsolete, because waste could be beamed by your toilet to anywhere. Like The Sun maybe.

4) Are you in a drought? Let's beam some water into that yucky reservoir.

genetically modified bacteria that eats all our garbage.

/but doesnt turn the world into some sort of i am legend future.


cheap fast wireless everywhere.

1. Sentient computers

2. The ability to change energy into stable matter (i.e. Replicators)

3. Trans/teleporters

Suicide robot.

Cybernetics. we're already making progress in replacing limbs and hooking our brains into machines to restore damaged organic systems...I'd like to see that accelerated. And then I'd like to see it improved. Want to bench press 900lbs? easy as cake, just come on down to the shop and we'll fix ya right up! Want to regulate your appetite? that's just a hardware tweak. run faster? last longer? same thing. Speak japanese in 2 minutes? just load in this program module. instant recall. onboard memory (with expansion slots). instant skills. direct neural interface.

THAT would rock!

Canned hugs. Hugs in a can.

Weaver95: Cybernetics. we're already making progress in replacing limbs and hooking our brains into machines to restore damaged organic systems

Ahh..this brings up another question. What if. we could replace a portion of the brain, 1 centimeter. Interface exactly to the other parts of the brain. Then replace 2..4..8..until the brain is 'machine'. Would you still be you? At what point it would it not be 'you'. if wetware was replaced inch..by inch?

Well, at the risk of stating the obvious, the internet is the biggest discovery leading to overnight change. Information used to be hard to come by, hard to share quickly or effectively, and hard to know how to use when you got it. Now obscure questions can be answered in seconds, like minded people can find each other and organize, and it's impossible for one source (e.g., government) to control all the available information. It's changing social structures, the intelligence of users (in generally very positive ways, fark notwithstanding), and more.

As with most things, science fiction pretty much missed the computer revolution and the results thereof (new window).

Anyway, continuing connectivity and the cheapness and ubiquity of computers give me hope.

Things from science fiction that would change the world overnight...sources of cheap energy (see Nancy Kress's Beggars series), cheap access to space like the space elevator (see Arthur C. Clarke's Fountains of Paradise), and surveillance technology (in a bad way overall, as our days of privacy are slipping away already, but see David Brin's Kiln People).

Toshiro Mifune's Letter Opener: log_jammin: what's that from?

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.

I loved that movie.

Penis enhancement pills can make me 3" longer and satisfy my mate and I won't have to be humiliated again! :)

1) Frickin' lasers
2) Better frickin' lasers

xtex: I loved that movie.

Agreed.

The zombie potion used by Ortega and Estrella gives me hope for the future.

Nano.
We need nano.
Tiny machines made of atoms.
Once we have that, we can have anything else.

(Read Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age for some ideas on what can be done with it.)

The recent report of a room-temperature superconductor is enormous news. I'm waiting to hear verification and some numbers on the material's performance.

I, for one, find it funny that sexbots didn't enter the thread until it hit Fark Lite ...

/used to be a TFer

jetsons houses and moving sidewalks

I want a teleporter, dammit! I keep getting emails about all of these Russian and Polish women who are dying to meet me. Rather than buy all sorts of presents and paperwork and plane tickets, I could just zap 'em over to visit. Two minutes later.. zap 'em right back.

RoyBatty: Penis enhancement pills can make me 3" longer and satisfy my mate and I won't have to be humiliated again! :)

Funnily enough I had a mail about something just like that. With the added bonus of it being safe and natural, if you want I can foreward the 300 mails on to you. Just post your e-mail address in your next comment.

Regards,

M1les1291orz