[ExI] hard science

[William Flynn Wallace]

Less than a cubic millimeter

If all human knowledge, photos, corporate records, Tv shows, everything,
can fit into one cubic millimeter, then I can attach it to some flying
contraption, duplicate it millions of times, and have it available all over
the planet.  I assume getting the data out by some sort of radio signal is
no problem.  So, everyone everywhere has access to everything instantly.
Now if a biological radio can be designed and fitted into their skulls (and
included in the DNA), then there will be no need for any sort of inorganic
gadget implantation in their heads.

The reason I think it will take tens of thousands of years is that genetics
and epigenetics is so incredibly complex that traits that depend on dozens
or even scores of genes will take a very long time to figure out.  It
wasn't very long ago that we called some of it 'junk' DNA before we learned
that maybe it did something after all.  I figure we are very, very low on
the curve - the positively accelerated part.   bill


On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 11:26 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 6:30 PM, William Flynn Wallace <
> foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Assume tens of thousands of years from now:
>>
>
> I would recommend 1-2 thousand at most.  That's time enough for
> practically anything to happen as it is; tens of thousands is time enough
> for tens - at least - of anythings to happen, each going from its own base
> rather than anything that readers in the present might recognize.
>
>
>> what kind of power will they be using?
>>
>
> That is a question with many possible answers.  What kind of power would
> be convenient for your story?  Even assuming no FTL, it's quite possible
> for mankind to have rearranged much matter from the asteroid belts and
> beyond (possibly just the Oort Cloud, if every solid body from Neptune
> inward was claimed) into a full Dyson Sphere within a couple thousand
> years, perhaps with a thin slice left open to shine upon the planets' and
> asteroids' orbital plane (which would still leave over 99% tapped), and
> ship energy around in the form of antimatter (produced, stored, and
> consumed at close enough to 100% efficiency).
>
> Compared to certain other possibilities, that's downright tame - and easy
> for an audience to relate to.  Of course, if one political entity owns the
> Dyson Sphere, it also owns the chief energy production means in the solar
> system.  Whether or not this is a good thing depends on your story; if it
> is not, then simply have multiple political entities each controlling some
> portion.
>
>
>> Will they still use wires for anything? I hate wires!  What do you need
>> to go wireless?  More wires.)
>>
>
> That's possible today - you just have to have a way to beam power and data
> from point to point.  Broadcast energy is less efficient, but given the
> time you're talking about, it's not much of a handwave to say that they've
> found a way to focus beams to coherent enough over long distances.  Just
> don't have anything get in the way - and make sure to have receivers
> specially designed, since very high energy densities are weapons-grade.
> (Or, again, just ship physical fuel around.)
>
>
>> Alternatives to circuit boards?
>>
>
> "Data crystals" are an old trope in science fiction for a reason: they're
> quite plausible, assuming standard interfaces.
>
> It might be better to think in terms of what properties you want, and then
> see if there's a hard-enough sci-fi way to achieve that.  E.g., data
> crystals - and synthetic crystals for most computing architecture - fits
> right in with the
> http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrystalSpiresAndTogas motif
> used in a lot of sci-fi, especially ones depicting the kind of society I
> suspect you're going for.
>
>
>>  Assuming everything now known is digitized and so is everything from
>> now to then:  how big a sphere or cube would it take to hold all of man's
>> digital data?  Assuming some sort of storage in atoms/molecules/???
>>
>
> Less than a cubic millimeter.  Beyond that...unless you've a good plot
> reason to care, it's probably best to just say "less than a cubic
> millimeter", so you don't get tripped up by calculation errors.
>
>
>>  I will use anti-gravity and teleportation whether they are ever going
>> to be feasible or not.  It's fiction, right?
>> Everything else is up for grabs.
>>
>
> Sure.  It's your story, and there are at least guesses for how those two
> might possibly be done given much better understanding and control of
> quantum physics than present technology affords.
>
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