I’m a long-time fan of science fiction. Hard science fiction. This means made-up stories that are based in the physical reality as we know it, or within reasonable extrapolation of the boundaries thereof: Magicians, trolls, witches, warlocks and vampires need not apply! (Oh, I enjoyed The Tolkien Trilogy ‘way back when, but that’s not sci-fi.)
One of my favorite activities is to see what these talented prognosticators (for such they so often come to be) come up with, that have taken root in the general psyche and been realized by real-world technologists. Think of such things as Heinlein’s water bed in Stranger in a Strange Land, for example.
Image courtesy NASA
The latest chapter in this ongoing voyage of discovery is a recent report that several NASA scientists not only think that a warp drive is possible, but are actually exploring such possibilities in the laboratory, albeit on a micro scale. If they can make it work—even at such a scale—then that will serve as a proof-of-concept. The rest is, then, simply(!) engineering to scale it up to eminently usable levels.
If only!
Questions: What causes your dreams to become reality? What stops that from happening? Do you find yourself being bound by convention? If so, do you like the feeling? What can you do to think “beyond”?