• Question: Do you think some of the things you see in Sci-Fi movies could be real? E.g laser gun, lightsaber, teleportation device....

    Asked by CJ to Anne, Beth, COLFlight, Jon, Tom on 9 Oct 2015.
    • Photo: Columbus Flight Directors

      Columbus Flight Directors answered on 9 Oct 2015:

      Sergio
      Hi CJ,
      the one that I see more difficult to be real is the lightsaber, I don’t know how it could work.
      A laser gun is definitely easy to make, but you need really a lot of energy for it. So for now the problem there is to make a laser gun small enough to be carried!
      For the teleport, I think we might find a way to teleport mass in the future, but I’m not sure we would remain alive in the process of teleportation, we would probably become a mushy agglomerate of mass…
      Or even worse, something like this could happen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etY7kbRRQ_c 😀

      Simon
      Hi CJ,
      For Sure! Infact sometimes science fiction inspires the real world. Many of the mobile devices that have showcased in Star Trek from the 1960s to the 1990s turned out to become reality: mobile phones, iPADs and pretty soon your smart phone is going to be able to start to do the cool things that “Bones” tricorder could do:

      http://tricorder.xprize.org/?gclid=Cj0KEQjwy92wBRCl7trx4PaIo8EBEiQASPhtC2esCsb3cWV-Tws4G4rYlH6C6bZeXm6PuNKTsrCMTgsaAtk08P8HAQ

    • Photo: Jonathan Scott

      Jonathan Scott answered on 10 Oct 2015:

      I’m glad Simon mentioned Star Trek – Do you remember those sliding doors? We already have them!

      Teleportation would change the world completely, and, although I’m sure that one day we’ll be able to turn people into energy, I think putting them back together again at the other end is going to a problem.

    • Photo: Beth Healey

      Beth Healey answered on 16 Oct 2015:

      Hey CJ,

      Great question.

      We have lasers here at Concordia, they are used to measure the atmosphere and are pretty cool! It’s called a LIDAR which stands for Light Detection and Ranging. The machine which forms the laser is pretty large though so not very portable, it would definitely do some serious damage if you got in its way though! There is a picture of me stood next to it on my profile and here is a link to a few more… https://t.co/npCKF77Aal

      As the others mention the hardest part of teleportation would be to put the person back together. I guess the first step would be to develop some kind of sophisticated skype where you can ‘visit’ somewhere in 3D via sensory stimulation rather than physically moving there (e.g. using cameras so you feel like you are actually there and can move around). I think this won’t be far off.

      It’s strange to see that some of the technology which seamed so far off in early space movies is now a reality (e.g. mobile phones and sliding doors!). I wonder what the next will be. What do you think?

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