Technologies once confined to the realm of science fiction are apparently becoming a reality. CERN’s reporting faster-than-light neutrino, for one, left physicists with beard-stroking puzzlement and Star Trek fans with gleeful vindication.
Looking back at a few more scientific breakthroughs of 2011, real life in the lab certainly is coming to imitate art.
Time travel
Let’s suppose that the results from CERN prove scientifically sound. If so, they not only imply the possibility for long distant space travel, but they could also give credibility to the concept of time travel.
Currently, according to Einstein’s special theory of relativity, making an object with mass (even a neutrino) travel faster than light would require an infinite amount of energy. In effect, the speed of light is the ultimate speed limit.
Presuming that a vessel could be made to go fast enough, as it approached light speed the passengers’ experience of time would not be the same as, say, the experience of those standing at the point of the vessel’s departure. In fact, their perspective of time would slow down. So a journey that was observed to have taken an hour for someone standing stationary outside of the vessel would, for those inside, have taken only a few seconds. The reason for this is a concept called ‘time dilation’, meaning that the closer one gets to the speed of light, the more that speed and time will slow down to a fixed point, and never breach the speed of light.
The concept of time dilation is explained further in this clip from a documentary featuring Stephen Hawking
However, let’s presume that the laws of relativity have been broken and that the vessel’s speed can match the speed of light. As it approaches this speed, time in the vessel (in line with the principle of time dilation) would continue to slow down until it eventually stopped. If the vessel could then travel even faster, time would begin to move backwards, thus effectively causing the vessel to travel back in time.
So how plausible is this?
The results from CERN are still under peer review, and in all likelihood the speeding neutrino may eventually turn out to be nothing but a freak occurrence or an experimental error. Einstein’s theories have been the bedrock of many of the concepts we understand and observe today in the world of physics, and it will take a lot more evidence to prove otherwise.
Bionic eye
Argus II 'bionic eyes' by Second Sight
This has been seen in a number of science fiction films and TV programmes including The Six Million Dollar Man. But in real life, a 73-year-old man who lost his sight 30 years ago can now see flashes of light after being fitted with a bionic eye. The eye known as Argus II has enabled the recipient to perform tasks like sorting socks and following a white line on a road.
The eye was developed by the US company Second Sight. According to Gregoire Cosendai, the company’s vice president, Europe, “We are trying to see what level of vision we can provide with this. Theoretically, the people should be able to have reasonably good level of vision. We are not there yet, but what we are trying to see is how best they can use it in their normal life.”
How feasible is it?
This looks like a very promising technology. According to Second Sight, the trials have shown some success so far and more work is being done to improve the current technology.
Head-up display
True3D Head-Up Display and Navigation System
This can be seen in movies such as Terminator and Robocop, where the villain and hero view a holographic display with digital readout providing the subject with information on the surrounding environment. Head-up displays are already used in helmets worn by fighter plane pilots, but research is being done on applications for civilian use. This year, MVS-California was the US region and overall winner of the European Satellite Navigation Competition with its True3D Head-Up Display and Navigation System. This GPS system displays information on a car windscreen in 3D, using augmented reality. This allows the driver to receive navigation information without taking his or her eyes off the road.
On a more personal scale, Professor Babak Praviz, associate director of the Micro-scale Life Science Center at the University of Washington, is developing contact lenses that would provide the user with an experience equivalent to that of a head-up display. Advances in nano and micro fabrication have enabled the construction of extremely small electronic and sensing devices. On September 22 the professor announced to the BBC that his lenses were advanced enough to be capable of reading emails.
How achievable are these ideas? Very - the research in both examples has shown success and promise. The GPS with 3D augmented display has already got its sights set on the retail market. According to the University of Washington, their research into ‘bionic’ contact lenses is in the fine tuning stages of development.
Visualisation of thoughts
To be able to visualise someone’s thoughts is an intriguing concept, as we are never truly aware how another person perceives the world around them or how they think. In Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, Tom Cruise’s character uses the projected thoughts of psychic visions to witness future events.
This September a report was released by the University of California Berkeley with news that researchers were able to construct visual images from scans of a subject’s brain activity. Shinji Nishimoto, lead author of the study, said, “Our natural visual experience is like watching a movie. In order for this technology to have wide applicability, we must understand how the brain processes these dynamic visual experiences.”
Clip showing results of research from University of California Berkeley
Is this technology possible?
The technique involved a computer constructing a patient’s thoughts…with a little help from YouTube. Using data acquired from the patient’s brain scan, a visual approximation was created by mixing and matching images from a database of 18 million one-second video clips. The method didn’t come without limitations, and the results were mixed.
As Jack Gallant, a neuroscientist on the project, explained, “One clip that showed elephants walking left to right led to a reconstruction that looked like ‘a shambling mound’. The YouTube clips hadn’t shown elephants and so we just had to make do with what we had.’’
Bearing in mind that the research is in its early stages, it is a promising start. However, the idea of being able to read another person’s thoughts may not be an attractive proposition for everyone. After all, some thoughts are best left unknown.
Life imitating art
History has shown that although some science fiction ideas may be ludicrous, some have become fact. French science fiction writer Jules Verne dreamt up a wide range of ideas that went on to become reality. For example, in his 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Captain Nemo travels the world’s oceans in an electric submarine, something that only became a reality some 60 years later.
In the short story Verne wrote with his son Michel, In the Year 2889, people receive news through the spoken word via ‘phonographs’. It would be some 30 years before his vision - radio - would become reality.
No one knows what the future will hold, and perhaps ideas that once were judged as mere flights of fantasy could one day become fact.
Main image: Dawn Meredith via flickr
Other images courtesy of Second Sight Medical Products, Inc and Making Virtual Solid - California, LLC
Well done Danny! A really interesting read!
Good one Dannyooo! I like :)
Well done and good research!
Well done, Danny! Very impressive!