Category Archives: Technology

on technomagic and imagination

Science fiction, Technology

I was searching for the term “technomagic” (long story) and came across a post about Clarke’s quote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” It’s a favorite of mine, and of hers as well:

And it is a quote that I’ve always loved. But the more I look at it and think about it, I have to wonder if it still applies to our world.

I’m watching the Transformers movie while writing this. Huge robots from outer space coming to Earth. Does anyone think they are magic? Of course not.

“I bought a car. Turned out to be an alien robot. Who knew?”, says a nonchalant Sam Witwicky.

More technologically advanced than us? Totally. But magic? Don’t be silly! Never even enters anyone’s mind.

Yes, but no. As advanced as a transforming robot might be, I don’t think it’s “sufficiently advanced.” In terms of imagination (if not practicality), an Autobot is a simple combination of a technology we have (a car), a technology we’re working on (a humanoid robot), and a technology that’s explicitly described in the story (transformation from one machine to another.) Each step along the way is imaginable as a technology.

The problem is that we’re describing things we already understand (or have a grasp on, thanks to science fiction), so it’s hard to find something “sufficiently advanced.” Perhaps we could look at aspects of the world we don’t understand, things that spook us when they happen.

The island on LOST could be one. Crazy, unexplainable things happen. Dead people come back to give warnings, weather responds to emotions, buildings appear and disappear. Since the audience doesn’t know enough to explain all the events, they could be magic or some advanced technology. (Or the product of a deranged imagination, but Clarke didn’t say anything about that.) It’s even a theme of the show: is the Island a magical force to be obeyed, or a technological treasure trove to be exploited?

Harry Potter could be a nearer-term example. Flying broomsticks? Animal transformation? Wands that influence the world with a few words and a gesture? They’re presented as magic (and denounced as demonic), but I see technologies that aren’t far off.

wanting to be found

Technology, Web 2.0, , ,

It’s difficult to find old high-school friends on the Web. Many of them don’t have any reason to publish pages with bylines or about themselves. It’s even harder when their names have changed since they left school (i.e. most of my friends from that time). That makes it tough to do a casual “where are they now?” search on Google. Social networks like Facebook don’t help much if you’ve been out of school more than a decade, and alumni-finder sites tend to be horrible little pay-for-everything silos.

I realize that many people probably don’t want to be found under their old names, but I do, because there were some really cool people I knew back then and I know they’ve probably come into their own since. Even if they don’t have reason to publish on the Web, they might find themselves doing a casual search for my old name, so I’d like to help that link to my current online identity. The best way I’ve come up with is to make a simple Chris Craig at UCHS page that does nothing but link to my profile here. I’m hoping that’ll be enough to make the connection in the Googlebrain, but we’ll see.

Any other ideas? Have you run into this problem yourself?

Explorer beat Sputnik?

History, Science, Space, Technology

A model of Explorer 1, held by JPL

It’s the fiftieth anniversary, give or take, of Sputnik and Explorer I. While the Russians might have beaten the U.S. into space, the U.S. apparently came in first place for science. Or at least according to this op-ed from the L.A. Times:

Fifty years ago tomorrow, the United States launched its first satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit. Its success may seem to be a footnote in space history, a second-place finish to the Soviet Union’s Sputnik. After all, wasn’t it Sputnik, launched four months earlier, that represented the real scientific breakthrough and sent Americans cowering in fear at the shiny Russian ball orbiting overhead?

Not exactly. Sputnik, a “hey look at me” feat of engineering, did not throw the nation’s scientists into a panic or prompt a mad scramble to match the Soviet demonstration of power. Instead, President Eisenhower, while prodding his team for results, kept an established national space program focused on the deliberate pursuit of scientific progress, and as a result, it was the runner-up that scored a more important breakthrough for pure research.

Conceived by James Van Allen of the University of Iowa and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge, Explorer 1 carried with it instruments to detect radiation in near space and to send data back to Earth. This mission was an extension of a vast global project — called the International Geophysical Year — that involved thousands of scientists and technicians from almost every country.

Sputnik merely orbited Earth; Explorer made the first physical discovery in space, identifying the regions of high and low radioactivity now known as the Van Allen belts. These radioactive realms offered clues for understanding atmospheric phenomena such as the aurora borealis and the way radio waves behave over long distances. The belts also suggested that space might contain unusual and unimagined hazards.

Most interesting is the point made at the end of the article about how the U.S. space program is accomplishing more for science by supporting projects such as Hubble and leaving the peopled-mission fun to the private sector.