Thread: Future tech

Hi all,
I'm looking for info on future technologies...what kind of battery might run a vehicle, or what kind of new engine might replace what we have now? I'm envisioning a very quiet-running vehicle. Would the fuel cell, or whatever powers it, be replaced, or recharged? What I'm interested in is what kind of things are being speculated now, things on the distant horizon, not entirely unattainable. My story will take place in the not-too-distant future (50, 75, maybe 100 years from now). Are there any online resources that can help me come up with such technologies (not limited to vehicles)?

I'm also wondering what buildings might be made of if traditional construction materials were scarce. Is carbon fiber feasible? Or carbon-based-something? I picture black skyscrapers, smooth and sleek. Again, I want to use ideas that aren't far-fetched, but at the same time aren't quite possible yet. I'm sure there is a website about such things, and maybe you know exactly what I'm looking for.

Thanks!

there are no sources that i know of. Don't expect a silvery world where anyhting is possible. Use your imagination, it's your future, your imagination, let the reader expereince your mind.

if construction materials were scarce, there would either be extra-terrestrial mining, or they would be using advanced chemical engineering to make thier own materials.

there are a lot of good speculative documentaries on the subject. The discovery channel often releases series or stand alone documentaries. When it comes to vehicles, the fuel cell is an option, and from what I understand it is rechargeable. It's also not the most likely candidate for a new fuel source, even if it's the most promoted one at the time. Look up the documentary called "who killed the electric car" if you want the whole scoop. Basically electric cars are already within reach, and in 50 years they will possibly be more potent than petrol-based vehicles.

As for carbon, I like your idea. Compressed carbon of some sort. It would be cheap, and after all with some advances in technology you could surely build carbon"bricks" that would be incredibly durable. After all, Diamond is a carbon allotrope, just don't ask me about the chemical process involved.

I just finished reading a couple of Jack Vance's sci-fi novels (Big Planet, Durdane). In each of them a world is posited where metal of any type is a great rarity; though the human populations of these planets have backslid somewhat with regard to technology, in every case they come up with something very ingenious to solve the problems of transportation and shelter.

I could see some logistical problems arising from the "traditional building materials being scarce" issue. If those materials are scarce, where does the technology come from in the first place?

Technology that can invent a super-quiet-running vehicle powered by something other than the expected--internal combustion, battery cell, ion drive, nuclear drive, etc--would not be encumbered by lack of materials, traditional or otherwise.

Does that make sense?

Also, assuming that there is this quiet, fuel-efficient type of motive power, wouldn't the Earth people have the problem of what to do when Earth starts to run low on ore all figured out already? (to wit: mining on the moon or other planets, etc., as noted by another member above)

Even if you had this high-tech building material, how would you fashion a building out of it without the "traditional" means of rivets, girders, welding, etc...?

Here's one I've never seen anyone use in the past: In a future where bioengineering has advanced to the level where it's cost efficient, where "smart DNA" can make cells self-replicate and grow in very specific ways with little more then the needed nutrients, one could engineer structures out of bone-like materials. This could also be done by some bio-tech nanobots. give it 75 years and the technology would have time to reach that level and make it economically viable.

That's a decent idea, but the technology has to arise on some sort of "traditional" basis, and would presumably have to be contained, if not maintained, by more or less traditional means; otherwise your scenario would play out to be a kind of "sorcerer's apprentice" type deal. (I'm not arguing "for" tradition, btw--just wondering how any high technology could develop independent of what went before it).

All good stuff, guys, thanks for your replies.

There will definitely be a nanobot component to my story, and possibly for buildings (I read somewhere about an idea for self-healing structures).

High-technology not able to be supported or produced without the basics is something that I did not consider, so thanks for that.

The lack of traditional building materials is not a necessary plot item, I really just wanted to make use of something else, and planned to use that as the excuse. I want my story to focus on the struggle of the characters more than the intricacies of the world itself, but at the same time, I'd like everything to be plausible. For me, when I read a story, if something seems so far-fetched and unlikely, I tend to lose interest.

I appreciate all the ideas, so keep 'em comin'!

Scarlett_156 - Many new technologies arise with little or no basis in traditional technology. The entire field of electrical engineering arose in a couple of generations and it was not built on anything that went before. The early experiments in electricity in the 18th Century played little part in the work of those like Ohm and Ampere and Volta other than to get them thinking that something could be made of the phenomenon. Nuclear power, either destructive or constructive, has no basis in traditional technology. The concepts were developed by men with blackboards and chalk who had little experience in the technology of their day. If you read how much of our technology that we take for granted today arose from the mental exercises of such people, it would seem far fetched except you know already that the technology exists.

When I was in high school our physics teacher said that a computer that could play chess, even at a beginner's level, would have to be the size of the Empire State Building. That was in the mid 50s, and 20 years later I had a computer built into the base of a small chessboard that played a very decent game of chess. The high speed solid state devices that make today's world possible owe nothing to 'traditional' technology. You cannot show me anything 'traditional' that can be shown to be a basis for the tunnel diode.

Edit - Here's something else to consider. At one time there was no 'traditional technology' to serve as the basis for anything. We dropped out of the trees and started eating grass, and someone got the idea of deliberately planting the best kinds of grass. I suppose you could trace everything back to that, and to using rocks to kill animals for food. But the point is that technology does not flow smoothly from one level to the next. There are jumps that can, indeed, appear magical.

And you have the whole field of quantum mechanics that owes nothing to 'traditional' science or technology. None of these constitute a god from a machine. They all come from the minds of people.

And just wait another hundred years. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

That's quite a good point, of course, but it would be hard to call anything "technology" unless it had moved from the non-material realm (idea) to the material, production side of things--since the OP was asking about battery power, building materials, etc.

The phenomenon of electricity had material effects that made human beings wish to study it in the first place. Besides the noise and flashes of light, a completely measurable, material effect of electricity was that it could of course, with a single strike, cause a fire capable of eradicating an entire forest.

By comparison, mathematics takes place wholly in the realm of ideas and imagination; there must be a mind to conceive of it in the first place, and other minds to receive the idea, for it to exist.

And... I aint seen nothing yet...? I don't remembering that I announced skepticism about anything, but: Ok!!! Cool. Can't wait.

Scarlett_156 - There was no intention to imply any scepticism on your part about what the future may hold. As for electricity, there were observations of its effects in nature, but no technology until a few people invented one.

Here's an example for the future. We all see the effects of gravity, and there have been many studies made and much theory proposed about the nature of gravity, but the only technology using gravity that we have is the water wheel. The electricity running this computer is generated by water falling through a pipe and spinning a turbine connected to a generator. But there are many who see the possibility of a new technology not derived from that somewhat crude use of gravity. In the future people may, I believe will, directly harness the power of gravity fields. That will be a technology that will not be based on any present technology but will provide an endless source of energy.