Science

Did you ever wonder how close we are to perfecting some of the wonder inventions that we have heard about for many years? There are so many devices that we heard about that are being worked on. Sometimes scientists get their ideas from science fiction writers, sometime from a brain storm, and sometimes just by accident. Take the X-Ray machine for example. Scientists had played around with sending electrons against a metal plate for years, but a scientist name Wilhelm Röntgen decided to put stuff in front of the plate to see what would happen. As he was doing this, he noticed that the bones in his hand were projected on the wall. Thus the X-Ray machine was born in 1895. It is said that an idea that came from science fiction was the idea of Artificial Intelligence or AI. It is true that there has been many books and films that have used this idea, usually in a way that would make the audience feel uncomfortable. The theme usually was that the computer becomes aware and wants to eliminate people. Today AI appears in a lot of our devices. The history of brainstorming is stated in Wikipedia as, “Brainstorming is a group creativity technique designed to generate a large number of ideas for the solution of a problem. The method was first popularized in the late 1930s by Alex Faickney Osborn in a book called Applied Imagination. Osborn proposed that groups could double their creative output with brainstorming.” An example of this was when the Nazis in World War II assembled most of their engineers and scientists in one place and then they produced weapons that were years ahead of anything that we had.

This brings us to the current time period. We have all heard about the futuristic things that await us, but how long will we have to wait for them? Did you want to store more data on a disc, perhaps the payroll records of your company, but the DVDs that are out there now are just insufficient in capacity? Well guess what, there is a new DVD disc coming out that should be here within two years, that will hold over 40 times the data of the largest capacity DVD that we have today. I guess that most of us won't need this, but look at it this way, if there is a copy program that can handle it, you will be able to put over 40 Blue-ray movies on one disc. This should save you a lot of storage space. Speaking about computers, scientists are rushing to perfect the Artificial Intelligence in computers. There is some talk that by 2060 computers might be self aware. If that happens we will have created a life form, a life form that feels no guilt, or happiness and only seems to be like us on the outside. Will this be the beginning of the end?

Raytheon technicians show the Laser Centurion Demonstrator to members of White Sands
Missile Range Navy and Test Center leadership. The system mounts a high-powered laser onto
a Centurion weapons platform to provide area defense against artillery, missile and other
aerial threats.
Photo Source: US Army

Since I was a little boy, back in the stone age, I have been hearing about laser weapons. We used to think of them as the size of a hand held gun, but a lot more powerful, because this is the image that was given to us by the movies. Our military has created a laser gun, but it takes an entire cargo plane to haul it around. Recently they have managed to make it smaller so it fits on a truck, but when will we begin to see a hand held version? Believe it or not, we have one. It was announced in 2005 by the US Air Force. The funny part of the story is that the gun is non-lethal. Here is what Janes said about the weapon, “The US Air Force has unveiled its first hand-held laser weapon that gives security forces a non-lethal option for controlling crowds and protecting areas like checkpoints, according to service officials “ You can bet that they are working on a more powerful model. This gun is not small, it is about the size of a machine gun, so it is not pistol sized yet, but almost. It has shrunk quite a bit from the original lasers. Wait a second, a company is advertising a hand held laser gun that is pistol sized and cost $1750. It is said to be so powerful that it can cut a hole in any metal and runs on AA batteries. Sounds incredible doesn't it? “" A set of Alkalines loads about a hundred-fifty 6,000 Watt shots with a 20 to 30 second recharge lag between blasts.” Would you like to see the gun? You can click the following link: http://www.engadget.com/2005/11/03/handheld-laser-gun-available-for-purchase/
By the way there are websites on the Internet that show one how to turn a flashlight into a laser gun.

Another idea that has been around forever is the plane that will not only fly in the air, but will also be able to dive underwater. The Nazis designed one in World War II, but as far as I know, that was as far as they got. Many stories were written about such planes and it has been the dream of some inventors to be able to construct something like that. When will such a device become available? In a limited way, it is said that we have them now. The US Navy is said to have a plane that is pilot less and was built by Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works. That is where such planes as the Blackbird SR-71 and U-2 came from. It is oddly shaped and could account for some of the USO sightings. USOs are unknown submerged objects, which are really UFOs that are underwater, or go underwater. Supposedly the airplane sits under 150 feet of water, shoots up to the surface, flies to its target then returns to its relatively safe base underwater. The plane is said to weigh about 4 tons and have gull wings. It is made of titanium and all empty spaces are filled with plastic foam to resist crushing. The body is filled with an inert gas. Inflatable seals keep all doors and hatches water tight. The name of the plane is the Cormorant.

Early Flying Platform
Photo Source: US Navy

Some of the things that were futuristic when I was a kid, have already come into common use. I can't help but remember the flying platform that was used by Dick Tracy once. The US military had been working on these for years. Flying platforms for individuals were worked on from the 1950s. The US Navy worked on one for years known as the Hiller Flying Platform. The current flying platform doesn't use rotors as the previous ones did, it uses a jet engine. The engine is light and it is said the platform is so stable that it will not turn upside down. Below is a video of the platform:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi5QDHKk9AY

Some of the inventions that are around today, I thought that I would have never lived long enough to see. I never thought about cell phones before they came out, I thought that hand held CB radios might be able to have their range increased and indeed I had one and so did my friends. If you would have told me that cars would have been able to parallel park themselves I wouldn't have believed it, yet there are a few that can without help from the driver. I did think that radar would be put into cars to avoid collisions and a show way back in the 1950s called You Asked For It, showed a car like that with its inventor. That show took place from 1950-1959. It took over 50 years for this option to be added to cars and then only to luxury cars so far. In my day every kid dreamed about a space plane or space shuttle and when we finally got one it was designed for only low earth orbit and ten years of use. That was in 1981 and yet it is still being flown today, 28 years later and still is the same old piece of junk. You wouldn't want to own a car that old. It would be like riding around in a 1981 rust bucket.

When will all those great inventions that we imagine come about, hopefully sooner than later. Scientists are working on things like time machines, engines for space craft that will get our speed up to almost light speed and drugs that will cure everything. Whether we will be allowed to have these things or not is the question. Companies that make drugs don't want a cure all pill, so we will have to see what happens there. The future is going to be a very interesting place and lets hope it will be a better one.