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Joseph Newcomer
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Former Chief Software Architect (1987-2010)Updated Mon
If an alien spacecraft landed on Earth (and its crew died later for some
reason), how quickly could we learn from its spaceship how to build our
own spaceship that could match its travelling ability?
John W. Campbell got his engineering degree in 1930. In 1970, he wrote
about what would happen if an SR-71 Blackbird was magically
time-traveled to 1930.
It was clearly from the future. But how far in the future?
Electronics: not a single vacuum tube. Just little plastic cases with
pins sticking out. They decide to sacrifice one to understand it. It
appears as if the circuit diagrams are drawn on the chip. They can`t be
sure, because much of the drawing is below the resolution the optical
microscopes of the day allow. They do a spectroscopic analysis of the
material. It is 100% pure silicon. Turns out the spectroscopes of 1930
cannot detect the parts-per-billion of the dopants that create the
semiconductors.
Power: they`ve never seen a jet engine. There does not seem to be any
way for the engine to operate. They try to run it. The fuel does not
burn. Turns out the special fuel (if I recall, something called J6) can
only be ignited by throwing some hypergolic igniter in on the ground. If
it flamed out while running, it could not be restarted.
Radio: the circuitry is more magic drawings on silicon. They can`t
figure out how any of it works. Turns out it runs at a higher frequency
than anything they know how to detect.
Radar: They have no idea what that horn in the nose does. It seems to
emit some kind of energy, because a tech got his hand in front of it an
experienced some heating. So they tried using infrared detectors but saw
nothing. Centimeter radar was beyond anything they knew about, and they
had no way to detect frequencies that high, beyond anything they could
even imagine.
Construction: it is made of pure titanium. More titanium than exists in
the entire world! Extruded into thin sheets. And welded! Everyone they
checked with said that it was impossible to weld titanium because it
would essentially "catch fire" and it would start oxidizing and would
all burn away.
So how far in the future did it come from? They got all kinds of people
together, scientists , engineers, scientifiction authors. Where did this
come from? Or, when did this come from? Consensus: maybe 400 years in
the future.
No, it was 40 years.
So if we can`t reverse engineer something of human technology from 40
years in the future, do you think we have any chance whatsoever of
reverse-engineering something from an alien planet?
When I became a programmer in 1963, if you added up all of the bits of
memory in all the computers in the world, you would have at most a few
megabits of memory. I am typing this on my iPhone, which has 128
gigabytes of memory, that is, one terabit of information. Plus a GPS,
Internet access, three cameras, and a telephone that can allow me to
talk to anyone who has a telephone anywhere in the world in seconds.
That`s a bit longer than 40 years, but not that much longer. This thing
I`m holding in my hand is at a minimum 100,000 times more powerful than
the supercomputer of 1963, and could be construed as a million times
more powerful along some measures. It has more RAM than our mainframe of
1983 had disk space to support 30 programmers. If I walk a block in any
direction I will probably pass 20 phones equally powerful. And I live in
a neighborhood of single-family homes
So we probably won`t be able to do anything with that alien spaceship.
It might use quantum computers that compare to our quantum computers
like my iPhone compares to an IBM 704 vacuum tube computer.
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87 comments from
Kurt Guntheroth
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Rich Pitaluga
· Aug 25
Excellent analysis: However, I submit that knowing something is possible
- and how it HAS been done, even if you
can`t as yet entirely figure out the
exact details- is a great starting point.
Joseph Newcomer
· Mon
There was a story in which some bad movie footage of a working
antigravity machine was shown to top scientists. It smoothly floating up
about six feet from the floor Unfortunately, it included footage of the
machine then blowing up and killing its inventor. They were charged with
re-creating the machine from the few notes and machine parts that were
left after the fire.
They succeed. It was ten times larger, needed the output of an entire
fission reactor to work at all, and levitated only about an inch from
the ground.
They are called in for one last meeting. At the head of the table is the
"inventor" of the antigravity machine, very much alive. What? Well, it
was all fake. But the fact that they had seen a working machine
convinced them that one could be built.
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