What sci-fi movie and book technologies will never be a reality?

[Maximum7]

It so hard to predict the future but are there any technologies from sci-fi movies or books that can’t happen in real life because it’s just completely impossible to create them? For now and even when we have more advanced science knowledge?

 

[DaveC426913]

Pretty sure the muck-slinging peasants of the Middle Ages had similar ideas about "impossible" things that can't ever happen.

Never say never.

 

[Hornbein]

I once tried to predict technology 25,000 years from now assuming the world continues to exist more or less as it is today. I couldn't do it. Even 1000 years is beyond me.

I thought computers wouldn't solve Go in my lifetime. Wrong.

 

[phinds]

Probably the biggest one is that as far as we know, FTL travel and FTL communications are physically impossible, so no "warp speed" and no ansible.

 

[Nik_2213]

Clarke's Three Laws caution:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
4. Corollary to #3 is that 'Magic' is but Tech you do not --Yet !!-- understand...
5. Like how to turn off this exasperatingly persistent list formatting...

 

[Vanadium 50]

Alternate histories.

 

[pinball1970]

It's a series and I loved it as a kid, Quantum Leap. Anything that messes with causality I would say never.
Some of the genetic manipulation themed films and A1 are not looking beyond the realms of possibility.

 

[Algr]

Stuff that can't happen is mostly about narrative convenience. So first on the list is the universal translator, where you can walk up to a sentient gas cloud and talk to it in English.

Star Trek style transporters seem rather unlikely due to controlling the energy involved. There is also the philosophical question of "is that really you?". Something vaguely similar using wormholes might be possible, but the hardest part would be putting the other side of it where you want it.

Time Travel to our own past seems unlikely, due to Hawking's observation about tourists. To other dimensions, who knows?

A computer or product that stays user friendly after five years of "updates".

 

[Nik_2213]

IIRC, ST:NG touched on 'Transporter' issues by 'cloning' Riker.
Seems, on an away-mission prior to Enterprise, he'd been both 'beamed out' from a hostile environment and left behind. But, he'd endured, per 'The Martian'. The years of very different experiences between made the two significantly different characters...

( IMHO, very well acted !!)

IIRC, there was also a super-snarky web-comic by Ralph E. Hayes Jr which, in passing, featured a culture recognisable as the Federation, and coldly adjudged their Transporter tech as mass-murder...

( It was a fun web-comic until author, um, went strange: Madness or genius, there can be such a fine line... )

 

[DaveC426913]

In James Patrick Kelly's 'Think Like a Dinosaur' only the information about a person was beamed from place to place. The newly-created person at the receiving end was implanted with the memories of the previous person, who was destroyed.

Kinda creepy to think about from either perspective.

"I am going to be destroyed so that a simalcrum of me can go work on Jupiter. I will actually die."

"I am not the same person as the dead one back on Earth. I have her body and her memories, but I have literally only existed for moments."

 

[Algr]

"I am not the same person as the dead one back on Earth. I have her body and her memories, but I have literally only existed for moments."

...and I have this weird feeling that I used to be a guy, but now I am exactly the kind of woman that the transporter chief likes...

 

[BWV]

There is a category of things that won’t happen because while scientifically possible, the engineering is difficult and the economic and social costs are infeasible. This is why we don’t have flying cars. I would also argue that permanent human settlements outside of Earth fit this

 

[phinds]

This is why we don’t have flying cars.

Well, we DO have flying cars. Quite a few of them actually, but not, as I assume you mean, as a common thing the way they were shown in 1950's Popular Mechanics, with one in every driveway.

 

[Algr]

To "have something" can take on different meanings based on context.

I would also argue that permanent human settlements outside of Earth fit this

I agree. Why live on Mars when Antarctica is so warm and inviting?

 

[difalcojr]

Probably the biggest one is that as far as we know, FTL travel and FTL communications are physically impossible, so no "warp speed" and no ansible.

How did the aliens get here, then?

 

[Nik_2213]

IIRC, Alcubierre found a loophole that moving matter at or FTL was impossible --By our math !!-- but moving a bubble of space with mass inside was not prohibited.

Hard, very hard, energetically unreasonable at our development level. Much, much too hard.

Bit like powered 'Heavier than air' flight pioneers who only had steam power.
Wright Bros' mechanic , who devised their remarkably light internal combustion engine, gets much less credit than he deserves...

For my Convention Sci-Fi tales, I 'hacked' this by invoking a 'Double Alcubierre Bubble,' which was practicable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limaçon

Didn't even need anti-matter fuel...

 

[sbrothy]

[…] IIRC, there was also a super-snarky web-comic by Ralph E. Hayes Jr which, in passing, featured a culture recognisable as the Federation, and coldly adjudged their Transporter tech as mass-murder...

( It was a fun web-comic until author, um, went strange: Madness or genius, there can be such a fine line... )

It’s still available online. I wasn’t aware that the author “went strange”(?). Still, that doesn’t diminish the quality of at least that particular accomplishment. I’ve enjoyed reading it more than once.

 

[sbrothy]

It’s still available online. I wasn’t aware that the author “went strange”(?). Still, that doesn’t diminish the quality of at least that particular accomplishment. I’ve enjoyed reading it more than once.

Heh:

“Yes, giant alien nazi cannibal bugs from space. Can you get behind it?”

It’s remarkably “hard” SF for a funny comic though. Relatively I guess…

 

[Dr Wu]

Tobacco and deep-fat steaks in Sleeper.

 

[Algr]

So how is that Polaroid stock these days?

I once had a thought that given how bad sanitation was in the 16th century, Tobacco might honestly have been a health benefit due to all the stray germs it killed. It's probably impossible to prove, but it would make a good sci-fi nugget.

People back then avoided drinking water without alcohol because it would so often be contaminated. So the introduction of tea and coffee was far more than just a luxury - it dramatically improved personal productivity and health.

 

[DaveC426913]

Tobacco kills germs?

 

[sbrothy]

Tobacco kills germs?

I think tobacco basically kills everything in the long run.

 

[Nik_2213]

My father, a keen gardener, would routinely bag his chain-smoking office colleagues' many cigarette butts, leach those with methylated spirits and dilute the filtered brew to spray our humble apple trees: One big 'bearer', two 'skinnies' for cross pollination.

Apparently it was something he'd learned in Egypt with Monty's 8-th Army, the issued sprays both insufficient and inadequate to combat that extremophile desert fauna...
( "Else you needed a mallet for large camel spiders, while scorpions and ants could survive an air-strike...")

And, d'uh, he'd make his own white-wash by warily slaking lime. Which still often became 'Rather Too Lively'.

So, from an early age, I learned the rudiments of *safely* preparing and using toxic chemicals:
Due Care, Please !!

 

[ohwilleke]

To "have something" can take on different meanings based on context.



I agree. Why live on Mars when Antarctica is so warm and inviting?

Let alone Siberia, or the Yukon, or the Australian Outback, or the Sahara desert, or the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

 

[ohwilleke]

We're not going to see Dyson spheres. Or teleportation. Or FTL communication. Or anti-gravity tech.

The economics won't work out for anti-matter based "batteries."

While there might be some tech that makes projectile weapons like guns obsolete, it won't be a "Dune" style force field.

Death star type planet destroying beams won't be destroyed because destroying a planet isn't a useful military objective, and because this is massively inefficient compared to weapons that might, for example, destroy all life on the inhabited area of the surface of a planet.

We won't see something like the Jedi order in Star Wars because it isn't possible to confine such extreme levels of military power into such a small number of elite individuals in a way that can't be democratized.

There won't be sustained periods of time when human bodies are used for food (Soylent Green) because humans are a horribly expensive source of edible biomass compared to the alternatives.

No high technology from the prehistoric era will be found.

No new useful, stable chemical elements (Admantium, Mithrel, Kryptonite, etc.) will be discovered.

 

[DaveC426913]

We're not going to see Dyson spheres. Or teleportation. Or FTL communication. Or anti-gravity tech.

Why not?

Death star type planet destroying beams won't be destroyed because destroying a planet isn't a useful military objective, and because this is massively inefficient compared to weapons that might, for example, destroy all life on the inhabited area of the surface of a planet.

Even given the premise of tens of thousands of systems under empirical control, and the need to send a powerful and far-reaching message spanning a galaxy?

We won't see something like the Jedi order in Star Wars because it isn't possible to confine such extreme levels of military power into such a small number of elite individuals in a way that can't be democratized.

Well, The Force isn't technology, so it's outside the scope of this thread.

(The power wasn't "confined" to the individuals - it was a supernatural part of them.)

There won't be sustained periods of time when human bodies are used for food (Soylent Green) because humans are a horribly expensive source of edible biomass compared to the alternatives.

Did you even see the film?

The premise of the film - the reason human bodies became food - is because of overpopulation. In other words, we were drowning in humans. Eating them killed two birds with one stone - it helped dispose of all the bodies that were piling up.

Quite the opposite of expensive - it was a cost-savings gambit.

 

[ohwilleke]

Why not?

Everything but Dyson spheres is impossible. Dyson spheres are an engineering impossiblity.

Even given the premise of tens of thousands of systems under empirical control, and the need to send a powerful and far-reaching message spanning a galaxy?

Yes. Although the premise of a galaxy wide civilization of that kind also runs up against the lack of FTL travel or information.

Well, The Force isn't technology, so it's outside the scope of this thread.(The power wasn't "confined" to the individuals - it was a supernatural part of them.)

I'm not talking about the Force, particularly, but about the idea of an elite military/law enforcement group in which just a handful of individuals, out on the battlefield and not as strategists, are so decisively effective that one of them rivals a brigade or division of ordinary soldiers. This could, in theory, be achieved with some kinds of technology, but it will never happen.

Did you even see the film?

The premise of the film - the reason human bodies became food - is because of overpopulation. In other words, we were drowning in humans. Eating them killed two birds with one stone - it helped dispose of all the bodies that were piling up.

Quite the opposite of expensive - it was a cost-savings gambit.

Overpopulation is also something that isn't in the cards for any advanced civilization of the future.

 

[BWV]

Will never see a planet-destroying Death Star because it’s much easier to fling asteroids down than build a death ray