Sci-fi becoming reality?

Question

what are some of the sci-fi things(discoveries/inventions) that have become a reality or have the best chance of becoming real in the near future?

1)invisibility cloak

2)psychic-teleportation/teleportation

3)mind-reading computers

if u can then please mention the sources.

Answer 1

Several groups are playing with so-called cloaking device for personnel and vehicles. However, in order to make it a feasible device, it will involve the use of nanotechnology which is still in its infantile stages. Experts estimate they may have something to work with 10-20 years down the road.

Teleportation will have to remain in the sci-fi and theoretical stages for now; at least with the technology currently available to us. Consider that teleportation involves breaking down an original, and in the case of living beings, an original in constant motion. In order to make this feasible, you would have to find a way to take the original apart at the atomic level, transport the trillions of atoms, several of them in constant motion(meaning you'd have to hit millions of moving targets) to another location, and accurately place every atom in the precise location it was at before teleporting. Even if one could find a way to teleport at this level, how could they ensure the safety of the one being transported? How do you sustain life during transport? What happens if a couple atoms are out of place at the end? The results could be catastrophic.

Mind reading computers? For the time being I'd have to say not going to happen. But since they do have machines that read brain waves and such, so I'm not going to totally discount this one. However, it won't happen anytime soon.; and its accuracy will definitely be in question. So much is still unknown about the brain.

Answer 2

I think the issue of invisibility. I can't remember where I read an article about the military having some of that stuff already.

Answer 3

Probably number two. Invisibilty cloaks can't be invented with science, and you can't read minds unless you have psychic powers and you can't transfer that to a computer.

Some scientists in Australia have already teleported a laser beam, but it would take a while to develop technology to teleport people so I suppose it would take 100 or so years. If we survive global warming, that's the only one that has a possibility.

Answer 4

Robert A. Heinlein had a bunch of them;

Water bed (Stranger in a Strange Land)

CAD system (Door into Summer)

There are more but I can't think of them right now, I saw a list of them once. He had about a dozen hits on his predictions. Actually he appealed to engineers and engineering students that took his ideas and ran with them,

Answer 5

I am unaware of anything that might make those three things occur.  However, strange and wonderful things have been developed before.  I think of the three you mention we might be closest to allowing brain scans to interpret what sort of thing we're thinking about.

I'm sorry, but I can't provide sources for things that have yet to happen.

Answer 6

1 in the future maybe

Answer 7

number 1 and 3 maybe but not in the near future

Answer 8

1) invisibility cloak

In Scientific American Magazine, They showed how the military and other companies are working on an invisibility cloak. You could probably look it up on sciam.com .  What they have achieved is a device that can make electromagnetic waves bend around an object so that people or sensors on the other side of it would pick them up as if there was no object in the way. So far they can bend microwaves and other waves. This is usefull if you want to bend radio frequencies around mountains so that you the radio station you want even if you are in a mountain rang or in a tunnel. But this same concept can be applied to other electromagnetic waves. With enough time and tinkering we will be able to bend light waves around objects such as people, tanks, or ships, so that people would see only what was behind the object and not the onbject itself.

Answer 9

1 and 2

1) Invisibility isnt too hard to concieve. Each fiber on the back is a directional light sensor that corresponds to a led on the front. Thus whatever is color is behind the person will appear on the front of the shirt. It would like kind of like the alien on predator when turns invisible.

3) Computers of course will probably not read minds anytime in the near future like how you think. However, they already have computers that respond to alpha waves from the brain which can be controlled with thought.

Whats more, currently they have glasses like Jordy on star trek, that allow people to see with implants in thier head. Of course, the resolution is still so low they cant see real images, mostly just that there is something in front of them. However its very conceivable that in the future they will be able to pump hi resolution images into the brain of a blind person.

Teleportation, they are working on. Perhaps when our understanding of quantum physics increases we will be able to harness the tools to do that.

Answer 10

Mind reading computers already exist on a very basic level. You can see some experimental ones on YouTube. I would also add:

1. flying cars

2. interplanetary inhabitation

3. humanoid robots