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…