4 ms·

You can make a similar list about anything that doesn't exist yet. If it were easy, it probably would have been done. Eight years ago, you could have made an e

by jblow 12y ago

You can make a similar list about anything that doesn't exist yet. If it were easy, it probably would have been done. Eight years ago, you could have made an equivalent list about electric cars. Well, we have electric cars now and that situation is looking pretty good. Imagine you are an Elon-Musk-alike who wants to make fast air travel happen. Then this article isn't a list of why it's impossible, it is a list of problems you need to solve in order to make it work. I think we have enough examples in recent years to show that if someone with sufficient inventiveness attacks the problem hard, many of these kinds of things really are solvable.

SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
But with sub-orbital hypersonic craft, you cannot get around the fact that they move very fast and thus carry a lot of kinetic energy and can deliver it before anyone can stop them. That's just how it works. You can't "advance" past that without a warp drive. I believe that the phrase is "functionally equivalent to a kinetic impact weapon". I think that Mr Stross has relaxed his thinking on sub-orbital hypersonic craft, i.e. he suggests that they might actually be allowed, but only if they come down far from a desirable location.
- jblow 12y ago
  Like I said, that is a problem. So start thinking about how to solve it .... Like, the plane is always landed from the ground, not the air. That idea introduces new problems, but you can start thinking about those too. Come on, people.
- ctdonath 12y ago
  And that "if" turns into a delay hugely chewing up the benefits of such high speed. There was, briefly, a rather grand project implementing a "fast ferry" between Toronto (Canada) to Rochester (New York). This cut the previously 3-hour drive around the intervening lake down to about 30-45 minutes, and included the luxury of enjoying the view/bar/games/social. Price wasn't bad (comparable to gas cost for the long trip), but certainly not trivial. Anyone coming to Rochester discovered "they come down far from a desirable location": having no personal transportation immediately available, it was upwards of an hour to take a bus from the port to downtown Rochester - turning an ~80% reduction in travel time to ~40%. The project was scrapped - twice[1] - after enormous expense. When throwing lots of money at diminishing returns, encroachments on those returns are very costly. [1] - There was huge political capital invested in the ferry's success. Upon completion, ridership was dismal and the project went bankrupt within a couple months and the boat went up for auction (few want such a specialized vessel). City-scale egos intervened and bought the boat back (!) at the auction, pressed it back into service. The mayor et al were promptly voted out of office, and the replacement sold the boat and permanently shut the project down.
GuiA 12y ago
Reminded of the Hamming quote: If you do not work on an important problem, it's unlikely you'll do important work. It's perfectly obvious. Great scientists have thought through, in a careful way, a number of important problems in their field, and they keep an eye on wondering how to attack them. Let me warn you, `important problem' must be phrased carefully. The three outstanding problems in physics, in a certain sense, were never worked on while I was at Bell Labs. By important I mean guaranteed a Nobel Prize and any sum of money you want to mention. We didn't work on (1) time travel, (2) teleportation, and (3) antigravity. They are not important problems because we do not have an attack. It's not the consequence that makes a problem important, it is that you have a reasonable attack. That is what makes a problem important. When I say that most scientists don't work on important problems, I mean it in that sense. The average scientist, so far as I can make out, spends almost all his time working on problems which he believes will not be important and he also doesn't believe that they will lead to important problems.
- gaius 12y ago
  I suppose if you have those three, then a warp engine would be straightforward.

by jblow 12y ago

SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago

But with sub-orbital hypersonic craft, you cannot get around the fact that they move very fast and thus carry a lot of kinetic energy and can deliver it before anyone can stop them. That's just how it works. You can't "advance" past that without a warp drive. I believe that the phrase is "functionally equivalent to a kinetic impact weapon". I think that Mr Stross has relaxed his thinking on sub-orbital hypersonic craft, i.e. he suggests that they might actually be allowed, but only if they come down far from a desirable location.

jblow 12y ago
Like I said, that is a problem. So start thinking about how to solve it .... Like, the plane is always landed from the ground, not the air. That idea introduces new problems, but you can start thinking about those too. Come on, people.
ctdonath 12y ago
And that "if" turns into a delay hugely chewing up the benefits of such high speed. There was, briefly, a rather grand project implementing a "fast ferry" between Toronto (Canada) to Rochester (New York). This cut the previously 3-hour drive around the intervening lake down to about 30-45 minutes, and included the luxury of enjoying the view/bar/games/social. Price wasn't bad (comparable to gas cost for the long trip), but certainly not trivial. Anyone coming to Rochester discovered "they come down far from a desirable location": having no personal transportation immediately available, it was upwards of an hour to take a bus from the port to downtown Rochester - turning an ~80% reduction in travel time to ~40%. The project was scrapped - twice[1] - after enormous expense. When throwing lots of money at diminishing returns, encroachments on those returns are very costly. [1] - There was huge political capital invested in the ferry's success. Upon completion, ridership was dismal and the project went bankrupt within a couple months and the boat went up for auction (few want such a specialized vessel). City-scale egos intervened and bought the boat back (!) at the auction, pressed it back into service. The mayor et al were promptly voted out of office, and the replacement sold the boat and permanently shut the project down.

GuiA 12y ago

Reminded of the Hamming quote: If you do not work on an important problem, it's unlikely you'll do important work. It's perfectly obvious. Great scientists have thought through, in a careful way, a number of important problems in their field, and they keep an eye on wondering how to attack them. Let me warn you, `important problem' must be phrased carefully. The three outstanding problems in physics, in a certain sense, were never worked on while I was at Bell Labs. By important I mean guaranteed a Nobel Prize and any sum of money you want to mention. We didn't work on (1) time travel, (2) teleportation, and (3) antigravity. They are not important problems because we do not have an attack. It's not the consequence that makes a problem important, it is that you have a reasonable attack. That is what makes a problem important. When I say that most scientists don't work on important problems, I mean it in that sense. The average scientist, so far as I can make out, spends almost all his time working on problems which he believes will not be important and he also doesn't believe that they will lead to important problems.

gaius 12y ago
I suppose if you have those three, then a warp engine would be straightforward.