What will the 22nd Century bring?

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Unlikely perhaps, but not impossible

Here are some predictions of the future in the past:

There are sound reasons based on physical theory that is extremely well support (quantum theory) that matter teleportation is not going to happen. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is one of the experimentally best supported principles in physics. We are not talking about speculation or opinions. We are talking about experimental facts.

In the star-trek cannon the idea of "Heisenberg Compensators" had to be introduced to make the notion of matter teleportation not completely absurd. There ain't any such thing. So far, there is no indication of any way around the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

There is no physical basis at this juncture to support the notion of general matter transport. Not a whiff. Not an iota. Not a crumb.

It would require a revolutionary new physical theory which is nowhere on the horizon at this time.

All the other examples you gave pertained to technological feasibility, not physical possibility. Matter transport is not simple a hard technological problem. It contradicts the HUP which is one of the best supported principles in physics. I would say a perpetual motion machine which violates the second law of thermodynamics is more likely than a matter transporter of the star-trek variety.

ruveyn

I only hear "Everything that can be invented has been invented" when I read this. We are talking 88 years in the future, if we go back 88 years in the past what did we have? In the 1920s color television was invented, WITH sound. Lindberg was the first to fly across the Atlantic. This was cutting edge technology at the time. I'm not saying it will continue at the same rate of course, but I for one will not close my mind to these possibilities.

Transporters are the most far-fetched Star Trek technology by far though. "Warp Drive" is much more likely to be actually possible in my opinion.

We have physics theories that go back to Newton. Do you know why they still hold? Because they describe reality as it is.

The Heisenberg Principle has been support by -facts- (laboratory observations and experiments) for 85 years. It has never been falsified or put into doubt once during that time. Accept the HUP as fact. If HUP is true, then matter transport by broadcasting the quantum state (somehow) simply cannot be.

ruveyn

deserts

I don't dispute the reality as it is today, I only claim that what we percieve as reality today will not be the reality in the future, with a 99.999% certainty. One of the vids I posted(the shortest) don't even use quantum mechanics for a teleporter.

Oh, and when I think about it, the 22th century isn't only 88 years in the future, it is actually from 88 to 187 years in the future. In 1825 the first horse-drawn omnibuses established in London, just saying..

If the current trends hold we will end up teaching reading and writing all over again- assuming it survives.


On the "restore human" front:

Bill: "Hi tom. Where's Ed 4.0?"|

Tom: "Oh he got hit by a bus yesterday- Lucky guy"

Bill: "I know right, the paperwork is killing me.. I could use a fresh outlook"

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Filling out forms about who is married to whom is going to get a lot more complicated.

And you will have to put "Version" on any forms you fill out- HR departments are gonna LOVE that!

Half the people currently alive are under 15 years of age. There will be some who will live to the 2100 s .

The population will not collapse suddenly except if there is a major nuclear/biochemical war or a major natural disaster.

So many billions will be born in the 21 st century and live into the 22 nd century.

ruveyn

not suddenly but collapse over time like a bakery item gone wrong. without cheap oil or some other equivalently powerful and practical resource, our population cannot be sustained at its present level. we may go out not with a bang but with a whimper.


how will these billions be fed and sheltered? when the ocean levels rise, where will these billions live? when there are worldwide shortages of potable water for consumption and fertile [unexhausted] land and fresh water for agriculture, what then? earth and lard do not make for long-term sustenance- what will prevent the widespread starvation of haitians [and of those bereft of resources, in general] from being replicated over the rest of the globe? just because earth has been teeming with billions doesn't automatically mean this will continue unabated. the big brains at the pentagon and elsewhere have been pondering such for decades now, i believe they know something that most people don't know.

It's possible that the war with the machines will come about sometime in the 22nd century.
Humanity will become split between those who deeply embrace technology and those who completely reject it.

How are they managing now, then?

ruveyn

There are a lot of interesting predictions here: http://futuretimeline.net/22ndcentury/2100-2149.htm

I find it a fascinating site and I've actually stored a local copy, so that in 10, 20 - maybe even 50 - years I can see how accurate it was. (And probably laugh at it.)

They do not describe reality near the speed of light, though. It took 200 years for someone to find that little "exception".

I have nothing against the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, but in 100 years time it may just be that someone will discover such an exception and a new theory will be created to explain it (as well as all the existing data). So I agree that transporters are improbable, but not impossible.

The conservation laws still hold. The point is that physics theories are based solidly on fact. The discovery of new facts requiring theories to be updated does not invalidate previously established facts. Example: Archimedes principle of boyancy is as valid today as it was 2300 years ago. Eritosthanes estimate of the circumference of the earth as close 2300 years ago and is close now. The principle of inertia as stated by Galileo and Newton is still valid. And momentum is still conserved even after making the relativistic corrections. The basic symmetries of nature are as true today as they were when first discovered.

ruveyn

NOW is the key word here. not necessarily THEN.