Impossible Technologies: The Clarketech Compendium

any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic but what if that magic is already hiding in the universe just waiting for us to uncover its [Music] Secrets today's topic is clar Tech a term we use on this channel to reford the technologies that operate outside the bounds of known physics we've got a lot of ground to cover so you might want to grab a drink a snack or even a slice of pie to enjoy while we dive in the concept of clock Tech comes from arthos clar's Three Laws particularly the third these laws are one when distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right when he states that something is impossible he is very probably wrong two the only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible three any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic the third law is the most famous but all three emphasize why it's wise to avoid dismissing possibilities outright however this idea shouldn't be stretched too far constantly claiming anything is possible risks intellectual laziness science rarely overthrows its fundamental principles but instead Builds on them refining its understanding and discovering exceptions that often re enforce the broader rules on this channel we usually explore Futures based on known signs illustrating how many impressive achievements could be possible without needing technologies that seem magical by today's standards still we recognize that our current understanding of the universe is incomplete as science progresses answers to unresolved questions will undoubtedly lead to even more questions and possibly revolutionary discoveries akin to those brought by quantum mechanics or relativity defining clock Tech clock Tech is not simply about saying anything is possible it's about asking what might be plausible if specific aspects of our understanding of the universe turned out to be different it includes not just speculative ideas but also common Staples of Science Fiction like Ascension machines teleportation or faster than light travel many examples of clock Tech already have well-known names and while we covered some in detail in previous episodes today's focus is on providing an overview we'll discuss not just the Technologies themselves but their potential implications for civilization implications for civilizations are often overlooked when sci-fi presents examples of clock Tech particularly in films and comic books which tend to focus on the immediate utility of these Technologies rather than their broader impacts today we'll be contemplating those wider implications how such amazing Technologies could influence civilizations including alien on ones and whether they might play a role in US encountering them we will delve more into that shortly this is one of our compendium episodes where we touch on a wide range of topics briefly we've got about 30 to cover today so even a quick look at each of them will take some time hence why a drink and a snack might be a good idea and while you're at it don't forget to hit the like And subscribe buttons you always hope support the show by becoming a member on YouTube or Patron on patreon as usual for compendium episodes feel free to skip around to whatever interests you or watch them in order here are today's topics Ascension machines and apotheosis anti-gravity atote Dark Matter manipulation disintegration devices Dyson spheres entropy manipulation fast and light travel FTL fotech field nullifiers and amplifiers Hammer space cou Blitz black holes magm matter Mass manipulation matter to energy conversion negative matter and mass neutronium parallel universes and Alternate realities perpetual motion machines photog gravitics and Photon nutrino devices probability manipulation reactionless drives slowtime Fields subverse creation technological suppression zones teleportation and gateways tachon Tech time manipul ation utility fog and smart matter warm holes and Zer point energy as we'll see some of these are not really clock Tech at all even though they seem like something only the most advanced civilizations could achieve While others are common in science fiction but likely utterly impossible we often see these in the hands of fictional alien visitors but before we jump into discussing these cool clo techs let's consider what it would mean if aliens did exist and had these Technologies firmy Paradox and implications this episode is not focused on the fmy Paradox the big question of why we don't observe ancient alien civilizations in a universe so vast and old but instead considers how plausible that technology is by examining its potential impact on the firmy Paradox for example Ultra cheap energy production and practical Interstellar space travel would make it easy for a civilization to expand throughout its Galaxy and and even Beyond since life that climbs up Darwin's ladder to the top of its planet's multi-billion year tall pyramid of skulls does so by being generally inclined to grow in numbers and expand into new niches we assume most alien civilizations would be inclined to colonize empty spaces when it becomes feasible solutions to the firy Paradox therefore often need to explain why Advanced civilizations either would not want to expand would destroy themselves before they could expand or would be unable to expand alternative explanations include why they might never develop complex technology or life in the first place or why they might visit us but hide their presence or even openly visit while we refuse to acknowledge it we have episodes exploring all these possibilities including a firmy paradox compendium of terms and solutions that walks through them in light detail while other episodes Deep dive specific Solutions today however we're focusing on loud aliens these are civilizations that leave an unmistakable and enduring presence big visible and longlasting Loud aliens engage in mega engineering Feats like building Dyson swarms which block most or all of a star's light to harness its energy and doing this across many stars as they slowly expand outward such activities would create glaringly obvious signs of their existence this tendency to make enormous and detectable changes is what we call the Dyson dilemma of the firmy Paradox which explores why we don't observe such civilizations interestingly many Advanced Technologies only exacerbate this Dyson dilemma as their absence raises more questions about why no loud aliens seem to exist FTL travel for instance makes Galactic colonization significantly easier and allows intelligent life to be much rarer while still potentially reaching us a civilization could originate tens of billions of light years away and within less than a billion ion years of discovering FTL they could still manag to colonize our galaxy by now time travel clock tech means they need not even exist yet and could still colonize our galaxy right now from a distant future where they had evolved as we go through clock Tech options today we can ponder their realism at least partially through the lens of wondering what such Technologies would permit and if its existence by uto aliens might still permit us to even exist rather than being their nine trillionth Colony planet Ascension machines and apotheosis a lot of clar tech and science fiction and futurist speculation involves options for ascending to higher planes of existence the aliens and their ancient empire are gone because they ascended this might range from a pathosis device that transforms someone into an outright God to breaking out of the simulation of their reality or being elevated as an uploaded transhuman or posthuman mind on a planet-sized computer with an IQ of a billion more modern fiction tends to focus on the latter because as we explored in our post-human Pathways episode last year there are many routes besides simply pursuing Mega intelligence we also can't rule out the more classic apotheosis examples where individuals gain access to vast psychic or reality altering abilities indeed if we do live in a simulation or some other type of subforce it would be reasonable to assume the existence of equivalence to cheat codes like those exploited by Neo in The Matrix film franchise which would effectively function as magic or psychic powers that said our clearest two Pathways to effective Ascension under known science is either to become something Godlike in a simulated reality or to transform yourself into something posthuman that operates on a computer substrate millions billions or even trillions of times more effectively than neurons you might have no physical body at all be a cyborg be composed of utility fog or smart matter or have an avatar that could take on any of these forms or even a regular human body you piloted remotely when it comes to devices enabling such Transformations fiction often implies some element of self-enlightenment or spiritual growth however there are also scenarios where entire civilizations Ascend at once in practice this would likely be a person byerson process with significant portions of the population opting out this could lead to a slow Extinction or bifurcation of a civilization if the remaining population doesn't reproduce enough to offset those ascending one might wonder though what would prevent ascended individuals from reproducing post Ascension alternatively there could be factions within the civilization that refuse to use the technology discourage its use or even ban it outright the exact nature of such a device is impossible to predict but it might simply be an advanced brain scanner if so unless it operates so rapidly and with such high energy that it vaporizes your brain in the proc process which is plausible you would effectively end up with two versions of yourself the original person who was scanned and their copy now existing on some computer or other substrate that substrate could be a higher reality or even something carved into SpaceTime itself the scanned individual presumably remains around disappointed in their own lack of Ascension as again it was their copy that did that anti-gravity anti-gravity is quintessential clock Tech indeed it's the only topic specific episode we ever did as a follow-up to our original clock Tech episode but between that and our upcoming episode on gravity Technologies we'll be keeping our discussion of anti-gravity fairly brief today gravity is a fascinating and peculiar force compared to the other fundamental forces it is astonishingly weak trillions upon trillions upon trillions of times weaker unlike the other forces which have both attractive and repulsive components gravity is strictly attractive it is deeply connected to space time in ways we still don't fully understand and appears behave differently at the quantum level than it does on macroscopic scales many theories for dark matter and dark energy also question whether gravity operates differently on extragalactic scales given this complexity numerous theoretical Pathways might if true open doors to development of artificial gravity or even repulsive Gravity the implications of such Technologies are staggering if we could turn gravity off enhance it or generate a repulsive effect the possibilities would be Limitless we could Envision impossibly tall buildings or structures floating effortlessly above the ground space stations that hover stationary above the same spot on earth without needing to orbit or spacecraft capable of accelerating extreme g-forces without harming passengers a concept we explored in the gravitic proportion episode a couple months back personal flight would become a reality letting us fly around the sky like a bird but without needing Wings suspenso platforms might allow us to carry heavy loads without feeling their weight these Technologies could also open the door to advanc space-time manipulation such as fast time bubbles or other exotic effects the potential applications of anti-gravity technology are vast and transformative and could even allow truly immense civilizations to pack themselves into volumes where normal gravity would cause it to collapse or hide themselves inside black [Music] HS adote atotech takes its name for the metric prefix Ado which represents a quintillionth or 10-8 making it a billion times smaller than nanotechnology an addometer is to a nanometer or what nanometer is to a meter at this scale even a proton approximately 1,700 atom in diameter is relatively large like a mile wide dot measured in yards by comparison the electron size is still uncertain and often modeled as a point particle in many Frameworks the term atotech is far less common than fotech which is hardly a common term itself and which operates at the subatomic scale of protons and neutrons around 1 fom or 10-5 M equivalent to 1,000 atom atotech is typically resorted for specul discussions about Technologies constructed from objects smaller or more fundamental than quarks so such as magnetic monopoles strings or other as yet unknown particles mag matter a hypothetical form of matter composed of magnetic monopoles serves as a prime example of potential atotech applications the smallest mag atoms are theorized to measure just 0.3 atom meters in diameter making them ideal building blocks for devices at this scale Beyond adote we could hypothesize even smaller scales such as sepot yootech votech and kotech each step down by three orders of magnitude however these would likely require a deeper layer of physics beyond the quantum scale I generally group these speculative levels under the Tor plank Tech which refers to Technologies operating at or below the plank scale assuming such a fundamental layer of reality exists even atotech might be considered part of this realm if not for the semi-plausible example of magm matter which has its own entry today along with other interesting types of matter dark matter manipulation our best estimates suggest that there is several times more dark matter in the universe and in and around our galaxy than the normal matter we use for construction most normal matter is composed of hydrogen and helium neither of which is particularly useful for building if we could find a way to use dark matter as a construction material it would vastly expand our resource Supply the key challenge with dark matter is that while its existence is widely accepted we still don't know what it is and its existence is still not 100% guaranteed either what we do know is that it has significant Mass interacts weakly if at all with other forces or particles besides gravity and contains a lot of energy since mass and energy are equivalent eal mc² we also describe it as cold meaning the average particles aren't moving faster than the Galaxy's escape velocity this doesn't directly translate to a temperature as we don't know the size of the individual dark matter particles however since the escape velocity of the Galaxy is hundreds of km/ second far faster than the ultra hot particles emitted by a rocket engine slow might be a better term because Dark Matter interacts so rarely with itself or other matter it doesn't Clump together or form discs like normal matter which can condense into stars planets and other celestial bodies however this doesn't R out the possibility of gravitationally bound spheres of dark matter in fact it might be possible to pack Dark Matter into very high densities assuming we could find a way to gather it and ensure its particles move slower than the escape velocity of the structure this property could make it ideal for adding mass and gravity to artificial shs particularly if spin gravity environments are not preferred without more knowledge about dark matter it's challenging to propos methods for manipulating it however we explored several hypothetical variations and Technologies and the Technologies they might enable in our Dark Matter Technologies episode for providing a glimpse in the possibilities if we ever unlock its Secrets disintegration devices in science fiction disintegration beams are a popular weapon because they offer a simple way to remove things or people from a narrative perspective they're easy to depict point the weapon cut the camera remove the Target and later overlay a flashy beam effect these beams are often portrayed as strangely precise disintegrating specific objects without harming anything else nearby this might make sense that the weapon itself were intelligent which is plausible given the concept of future smart weapons this raises the big problem what happens to that disintegrated matter if the disintegration beam simply transported the matter to another reality or teleported it into say a star then there's little concern unless of course the disintegrated Target could somehow return however if disintegration means vaporizing the target at the chemical level then the matter isn't Vanishing it's being converted Ed into energy this is where things get dangerous a human body vaporized the chemical level essentially becomes a bomb the energy releases far greater than most conventional explosives the same mass because explosives like TNT are not particularly energy dense compared to chemical fuels or biological material TNT's potency comes from the rapidity of its energy release not the total energy content and equal mass of coal or oil or even body fat has more energy than TNT VAP Rising a person with a beam weapon would create a massive explosion potentially filling the room with superheated Steam while it might lack the destructive shroll of a traditional bomb it would still be catastrophic for anyone nearby even worse science fiction often describes disintegration as atomization meaning breaking matter down into individual atoms this requires about 10 times more energy than chemical vaporization if the weapon goes even further stripping away all the electrons or wor splitting nuclei then you're entering nuclear territory this energy release could rival or exceed that of a nuclear explosion making such weapons wildly impractical for Clos range use there are some practical considerations for disintegration weapons if disintegration doesn't involve teleportation or transporting matter elsewhere you're essentially unleashing the destructive power of a bomb every time you use the weapon for safety this type of weapon would need to be used at a considerable distance with the use are fully aware of the explosive consequences a simpler alternative like a high-powered laser or heat gun could theoretically achieve the same result but as we've noted such approaches are less Surgical and far more destructive dead is dead why I spend billions of jewels of energy for what 1,000 Jewel bullet might achieve or just shoot a million bullets instead an alternative concept might involve a field that suppresses the forces binding matter together such as atomic bonds while this raises energy conservation questions exp in more detail in our discussion of field nullifiers in a few minutes such a method could theoretically allow matter to unglue without the need for massive energy inputs however even this approach wouldn't eliminate the explosive energy release for example simply breaking the bonds between atoms and the human body would release energy equivalent to the body's internal temperature the average human body contains about 10 megga of heat energy roughly equivalent to 5 lbs of TNT while this wouldn't generate the shock waves or trapnel of a traditional explosive it would still create a significant blast enough to cause serious destruction in the immediate area something like a dozen hand grenades disintegration technology while a staple of Science Fiction comes with significant challenges when viewed through the lens of real W physics whether through energy release or fundamental Force manipulation the consequence of vaporizing a person or object would likely be as destructive as conventional explosives if not worse for precise use without collateral damage the concept requires Advanced solutions that may Venture into speculative or clock Tech territory like sticking them in a bubble of space that teleported to another Universe Dyson Sphere Dyson spheres along with Stellar Engineering in general are often mischaracterized as examples of false clock Tech while they're frequently portrayed in science fiction as near impossible structures that only super Advanced civilizations could construct we actually have a clear technological Pathway to building them in fact they might be more achievable than many near future Technologies like fusion power or medical Nanobots the misconception likely arises from their sheer scale this perspective extends to many Stellar engineering projects such as star lifting artificial Suns or membranes Concepts that are enormous in scope but not necessarily reliant on Advanced Technologies though such Technologies would undoubtedly help a Dyson Sphere or more accurately a Dyson swarm encircles an entire star by default offers over a billion times the surface area of Earth as many of our regular viewers know Freeman Dyson originally propos the Dyson swarm as a cloud of power collecting satellites orbiting a star these satellites don't need to be much more advanced than our current ones and the Swarm can grow incrementally potentially enveloping the star entirely to harvest its energy Beyond power collectors the Swarm could also host other facilities including classic rotating space habitats for human habitation that's said science fiction often depicts Dyson spheres as a giant Hollow inverted shell resembling a planet this design however Ventures firmly into the realm of clock Tech even with the Necessary Technology I don't see this approach as particularly practical for creating living space similar to the erson disc though a slightly less ambitious structure like a ring Ward might work ring Wards are massive spinning rings around a star that use centrifugal force to simulate gravity these Str stres requir impossibly strong materials like magm matter though we've explored some cheats using mundane materials and active support in our ring Wards episode a series of ring Wards each at a slightly different diameter and tilted around the star could potentially create a Dyson swarm like configuration but why not stick with a simple shell a classic Dyson Sphere there are several reasons first gravity Dynamics a spherical shell generates no gravity inside if you were to dig down 100 Mil into Earth the mass above you would cancel out leaving you with the same gravity as if the planet were 100 Mil smaller in radius similarly a Dyson Sphere would have zero gravity inside except for the star at its Center This Means Everything air water and people would eventually fall into the star unless artificial gravity generators were used to keep things in place then there was structural strength the shell would need to be impossibly strong to support its own weight wait while some active support systems might offer a workaround the engineering challenges remain daunting third we have Perpetual daylight a Dyson Sphere would mean Perpetual daylight with no natural day night cycle kudos to the novel Elven star part of the sci fantasy deathgate cycle by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman for addressing this unique challenge it's one of the few works I've encountered that seriously explores the impacts of a Dyson Sphere on civilizations and ecosystems much like with a ring Ward the Perpetual sunlight issue in a Dyson Sphere could be mitigated using mirrors and shades however this design would still result in a Dyson Sphere significantly larger than Earth's orbit what we of to imagine a Dyson Sphere is a shell roughly at Earth's orbital distance from the Sun achieving earthlike conditions would require a radius nearly double that extending well past Ms and approaching the asteroid belt a significant challenge is the enormous amount of construction material needed the mass of the asteroid belt follows fall short of the required amount especially since a Dyson Sphere generally assumes a thicker layer of material than the typical space habitats or thin solar collectors even if we employ star lifting to extract metals from the Sun this might still be insufficient by an order of magnitude on the other hand a civilization with artificial gravity could overcome many of these challenges such technology would make harvesting material from Stars much more feasible they might to construct the largest sphere possible using a Stars available Mass while reducing the Stars Fusion rate to a level sufficient for comfortably Illuminating the sphere the remaining Stellar material could then be reserved to extend the star's lifespan ensuring long-term sustainability for the structure while they might be able to use gravity Tech to forge heavier elements from hydrogen and helium when building around bigger Stars we're looking at hyper Advanced Technologies today and we'll need big brains to tackle those problems but could big brains be rare out in the cosmos even on very big aliens in the big alien Theory our latest nebula exclusive episode we dive into the challenges and advantages faced by extraterrestrial species of Titanic proportions from mindbending Technologies to vast possibilities of alien intelligence nebula is the place for exclusive Explorations could bigger brains unlock impossible Technologies how do the physical and resource demands of massive alien species influence their ability to innovate and evolve find out now only on nebula sign up today at go. nebula.com creators like up and atom real engineering real science the science of Asylum Simon Clark and more nebula also offers lifetime membership and gift options so you can share incredible content like the big alien Theory with friends and family just head over to go. [Music] nebula.com of Star Wars or civilizations might be to reverse entropy in some way while this seems to blatantly violate the laws of thermodynamics and is often relegated to the realm of clock Tech it is worth noting that entropy has been increasing since the universe began this fact always comes with a caveat that the rules governing entropy must have been broken when the universe itself came into existence there's also nothing inherently Impossible about reversing entropy locally by introducing new energy or material into a system in fact we do this all the time it's how power generation works entropy only inevitably increases in closed systems and the observable universe doesn't appear to be a closed system for example the big bang and the presence of dark energy suggest that energy can enter our reality the universe isn't an explosion expanding outward from a single point in time like a shock wave instead dark energy drives the expansion of SpaceTime itself creating new space between objects the more space that already exists between objects the more new space forms creating the illusion that objects are speeding away from one another this process can even bypass limits like the speed of light an issue will return to you shortly but it is worth remembering that while nothing can cover distance faster than light speed most of the observable universe is moving away from us faster than light travels which is fine for not violating causality but raises some serious conservation of energy issues well we don't have any obvious way to violate entropy the observable universe suggests that energy isn't conserved in the same way it would be in a fully closed system dark energy for instance is a form of new energy entering our universe driving expansion is also possible this universe's energy whether from The Big Bang or dark energy could be leaking from some larger reality increasing entropy on a grand or scale beyond our own importantly we aren necessarily talking about outright entropy reversal but rather entropy manipulation there are quantum phenomena that hint at the possibility are reversing entropic processes and both dark energy and the Big Bang serve as compelling examples of energy arriving from outside or observable reality these Concepts suggest it might be possible to manipulate entropy on a cosmic scale potentially steering the universe away from the default heat death scenario we often imagine what could we do with entropy reversing technology if we had it in simple terms if it were compact and straightforward you could do something like sep at lukewarm bath water into a hot side and a cold side which is a lot more useful than it probably sounds like this assumes no external power source From Another Universe just pure entropy reversal turn the device off and the two sides would mix back into lukewarm water generating usable power in the process however it is important to avoid thinking of this as a magical time reversing device it's not as simple as pointy at a rusted iron plate to make it Factory fresh or at a human to deage them even in seemingly straightforward cases like recharging a decayed radioisotope entropy reversal isn't about neatly rewinding processes entropy is an average of countless individual interactions for example in a decayed material individual atoms have undergone radioactive decay releasing Decay products such as high energy photons these photons sland into other atoms scattering energy and creating heat other particles like neutrons decate in new particles and neutrinos like escaped into the void never to return reversing this process is far from a simple Flip or switch scenario which is why Rising entropy in closed systems is so inevitable though in a closed system it should eventually reset a PO care recurrence much as if you shuffle a deck of cards enough times it will return to a prior state or card order this would take unto eons for the deck of cards for something like the universe you are talking timelines that can only be expressed using pent ation a math notation even bigger than exponents see our episode of the library of Babel and infinite monkeys for an explanation of that if we could make entropy reversal work even in a limited capacity it would revolutionize civilization such technology would untether us from resource dependence allowing us to endlessly recycle what we have or perhaps even create new resources from nothing this would eliminate the need to colonize an entire galaxy and Incredibly challenging feat without fast light trael to secure the resources needed for growth or long-term survival this makes entry manipulation a rare example of technology that breaks the Dyson dilemma of the formy Paradox or at least pushes hard against it civilizations with this capability would not need to expand outward to obtain resources as they could sustain themselves indefinitely however they might still face challenges of expansion if population or changing lifestyle pressures necessitated taking out more space or for other reasons such as the Chronos scenarios where colonies became significant potential threats in that case outward growth might offer no substantial benefit to justify the risks faster than light travel FTL the distances between Star systems are so immense that even a single message sent to and from our nearest neighboring star systems could take a generation to complete its journey travel would likely take even longer making the desire for faster than light FTL travel unsurprising we have an entire series exploring potential FTL options and the significant challenges involved at its core FTL represents one of the most elusive forms of clock Tech arguably more challenging than perpetual motion machines or pathosis devices while the ladder might feel more Fantastical they at least have some plausible Pathways in contrast FTL seems outright prohibited by our current understanding of math and physics though some walkarounds may EX exist the main hortle is the relationship between mass and energy as an object speeds up its kinetic energy increases effectively adding Mass this makes it exponentially harder to accelerate further akin to pushing a wheel Bearer that grows heavier with every mile per hour eventually the energy required to add even a fraction of speed becomes infinite setting a hard cap at light speed to exceed that speed infinitely more energy would be required make it mathematically impossible interestingly workr arounds like warp drives warm holes and hyperspaces attempt to bypass these limitations rather than violate mathematical principles warp drives for instance contract space ahead of a ship while warm hores offer shorter paths between two points in regular space hyperspace theor suggest traveling through an alternate universe with different physical properties to shorten the journey such mechanisms are mathematically and physically permissible since SpaceTime itself can warp and expand in fact most of the observable univers is already receding from us faster than light due to Hubble expansion where distant objects are carried away by the stretching of space itself rather than moving through space however these FTR methods depend on exotic materials or other clock Tech to function and the energy requirements are staggering for example creating a stable Wormhole might require hundreds of Stellar masses to establish a single Gateway between two star systems even if the technology will feasible the sheer energy cost raises valid questions about whether such travel could ever be justified except in the most extraordinary circumstances fotech fotech refers to technology operating at the fomal scale about a million times smaller than nanotechnology this scale corresponds to the size of protons and neutrons which are typically around a couple of fers in diameter in principle we can imagine technology existing at any scale defined by the metric prefixes each step being 1,000 times smaller than the previous starting from the macroscopic scale or human scale we progress through the millimeter scale Technologies Microtech micrometer scale nanotech nanometer scale picotech picoo scale fotech ftoo scale and atotech atomo scale speculative extensions could include even smaller scales such as zotech yakoe rotech and cotech but these Del in the Realms where our current understanding of physics becomes uncertain on this show we Loosely Define nanotechnology as operating at the subcellular scale involving structures composed of at least thousands if not billions of atoms Pico technology ref Force devices made from only a handful of atoms while fto technology DS into the subatomic scale atot technology as discussed in its own entry typically refers to constructs made of magm matter or magnetic monopoles beyond that anything small is grouped into plank Tech referring to hypothetical Technologies operating below the quantum scale assuming such a domain exists this scale could also be extended in the other direction with terms like kilot megatech gigatech and Beyond we frequently discuss Mega structures which could theoretically approach the keter scale 10 to 30 m for comparison this is at the opposite extreme of the scale from a cecto meter 10 to 30 m however there's a practical issue the entire zable universe is just under 10 to 27 m in diameter a reter as a result discussing rch or kch would be somewhat redundant since nothing that large exists within the observable universe similarly with the exception of magm or based at technology anything below the fotech scale is essentially speculative and largely impractical for mean for discussion and magm often gets R into fent Tech anyway even in this context we often consider scenarios where SpaceTime itself is being manipulated such as compacting a machine into a smaller region of space this could involve foring the space or utilizing a congruent Universe for example instead of the classic hyperspace concept where a smaller alternate universe allows for quicker travel before re-entry normal space this would involve a larger congruent Universe in such a scenario a room siiz region of the alternate universe might correspond to an atom siiz region in our universe enabling a macroscopic scar of device to operate at an incredibly small scale by interacting through the spatial correspondence this concept could bridge the gap between large and small scales allowing for the manipulation of matter at Dimensions otherwise unattainable lastly it can refer to constructs made entirely of subatomic particles this could include matter composed of quarks other than the usual up and down quarks such as stable atoms formed from positively and negatively charged particles made of strange charm top or bottom quarks alternatively it could involve entirely unknown particles with properties we have yet to discover or even particles imported from other realities field nullifiers and amplifiers everything is bound together by forces the fundamental forces of gravity electromagnetism and the weak and strong nuclear forces along with some theoretical ones like dark energy or emergent ones like the vander's force there are possibilities of higher dimensional for forces arising from String Theory exotic matter forces that might interact only with dark matter or non-local forces that could explain the spooky action at a distance absorbed in quantum entanglement if you couldn't nullify or amplify such forces or control not just their strength but their Direction it would be an invaluable tool an unparalleled defense and a formidable weapon unsurprisingly the ability to control forces makes you a force to be reckoned with you might be able to nullify or dampen nuclear chain reactions concept often used by ISAC asov and other sci-fi rers to address nuclear weapons defense in various stories another example appears in the classic novel Ender game where the Ultimate Weapon the little doctor or MD device use a molecular Detachment effect to destabilize the bonds holding matter together this triggers a chain reaction causing large objects like spaceships to explode nearby ships can also be affected creating a cascading chain of Destruction this weapon is eventually used to destroy an entire planet later in the series we learned that their spaceship engines operate on a similar principle like the abuser Ramjet spaceship Drive they collect dust and gas from the interstellar void as they travel converting into unlimited Fuel and propellant this enables the ships to approach speeds arbitrarily close to the speed of light gaining the advantage of extreme relativistic time dilation for travel however the weapon isn't entirely setting breaking as allow spaceship traveling at 99.9999% of light speed could devastate

a planet on its own a concept known as a relativistic kill missile I should also knowe that if you could work with whatever spooky Force involved in quantum entanglement it might allow some form of FTL communication that did not violate causality on a more practical level the ability to nullify gravitational fields amplify or direct them could enable a range of advanced gravitational Technologies similarly altering the probabilities of nuclear interactions or decays could revolutionize energy production making Fusion or fision vastly more efficient this might lead to compact Fusion reactors or even matter to energy converters furthermore amplifying or dampening gravity with its intrinsic connection to SpaceTime could allow for warping of space or time in unexpected and potent ways Hammer space in a clock Tech context Hammer space represents a technology that ows objects to exist in extra-dimensional storage spaces effectively accessing more room than conventional three-dimensional space allows this idea originating in cartoons where characters seemingly pull objects from thin air is often implemented in science fiction as a bag of holding inspired by DND or in the Tardis from Doctor Who which is famously bigger on the inside Hammer space implies a manipulation of spatial Dimensions Beyond those we perceive a hammer space device could appear as a small object a backpack drawer container or police box but internally access vast volumes of space possibly with separate physical laws this means Hammer space could sidestep typical issues of mass and volume enabling storage of immense or cumbersome objects without size limitations the Tardis is a reminder that we're not necessarily talking just space manipulation but time as well space time being linked so you might have ones in which time slow too unless you can reach into your Hammer space pocket and pull out a sandwich you stuck in there last week that's still fresh of course your default bag of hoarding doesn't really imply a very good shuffling and sorting method which tends to imply you've got some big heap of material in your extra dimensional space that's rapidly turning into a compost pile this is where additional Technologies of a more mundane variety might come in like drones inside the hammer space that were sorting things and delivering them on request and that might include catching your sandwich and putting it into a refrigerator in that hammer space or it might be that it's a bit like a foral cabinet where you can flick through with your fingers and expand the section you want at the time or reach in and grab from you also need to ask how energy is getting put into that hammer space to run appliances how fresh air gets in how heat or carbon dioxide gets out the general author Dynamic situation inside and if there's any way to open a door inside an existing one as a back door or to conduct a heist the applications are endless if you make something like this work from obvious things like carrying a warehouse with you or having a gun that never ran out of ammo to moving planets around or hiding horse civilizations in pocket spaces while we have no obvious Pathway to this sort of Technology there are mathematical Pathways to folding space up this way and if there are near infinite other universes out there that we might be able to reach an awful lot may be small unstable universes that you might be able to connect via a portal and then tie that portal to something like a bag or pocket you could carry cou Blitz black holes Steven Hawking the vanan physicist is famously associated with black holes his most notable contribution to the physics Community was his discovery that black holes traditionally thought to trap everything within their event Horizons actually emit radiation slowly evaporate over time this phenomena now known as Hawking radiation was both groundbreaking and counterintuitive larger black holes radiate more slowly than smaller ones meaning that the more massive a black hole is the longer it takes to evaporate in fact typical black holes in the universe radiate so slowly that they absorb energy from the omnipresent Cosmic microwave background radiation faster than they lose it they won't start shrinking significantly until long after all stars have died out and their complete evaporation would take incomprehensible spans of time on the order of trillions upon trillions of trillions of years however if we could create much smaller black holes such as those with the mass of a modest asteroid say 1 billion tons we could harness them as an extraordinary power source such a gigaton black hole would radiate energy at a rate of 356 megaw equivalent to a large modern power plant even more impressively this power output would last for approximately 1.5 trillion years more than 100 times longer than the the current age of the universe unlike most power sources which weaken over time a small black horse radiation output would actually increase as it loses Mass becoming more powerful as it nears the end of its lifespan one that had evaporated to a th000 that original Mass would also be a th000 squared or a million times more powerful at this point 356 million megawatts and would keep climbing slowly in output over it remaining 1500 years of life clear we would love to have such things and the science strongly suggest they can exist but unless we want to wait several UND sillion years which is 10 to the 66 years we would either have to make one or find one created by other processes which we think might have happened and produced lower Mass primordial black holes right after the big bang the cougal blitz method is a proposed way to create artificial black holes the idea hinges on the fact that gravity is generated by energy not just mass mass is simply one form of energy if enough energy is concentrated into a small enough region within a short time frame it should form an event horizon and collapse into a black hole once created the black hole could function as a power source or battery with the potential to sustain it by feeding it additional material however adding Mass to such a black hole is more challenging than it might seem as precisely targeting The Event Horizon is difficult amongst other problems creating a cougar Blitz black hole would require either providing ultra dense rods of material at relativistic speeds or firing immense array of lasers to focus energy on a single point such an Endeavor demands an enormous power supply ideally harnessing the energy of an entire star while this may sound like Advanced clock Tech constructing a basic Dyson Sphere to collect Stellar energy often viewed as a foundational Mega structure for advanced civilizations is relatively low Tech by comparison for more discussion see our episode on coug Blitz black holes but if this technology becomes feasible it could revolutionize space travel by providing highly efficient spaceship drives and serve as a long-term power source for advanced [Music] civilizations mag matter mag matter or magnetic monopole based matter is a theoretical substance composed of magnetic monopoles instead of traditional Atomic nuclei and electrons I tend to be rather skeptical of magnetic monopoles existing but there's good theoretical reason to think they might and if they do they open the doors to some truly amazing materials that make steel or graphine look like tissue paper and might let us build Mega structures such as ring Wards Banks orbitals or even structures greater in scope than a Dyson Sphere in conventional matter atomic structure is governed by the electromagnetic force with electrons orbiting protons and neutrons in the nucleus mag matter by contrast relies on monopoles hypothetical particles with isolated magnetic charges just a positive magnetic or negative magnetic pole to form the foundation of its structure these monopoles interact through magnetic forces analogous to how electrical charges form Atomic Bonds in ordinary matter but with vastly greater strength and stability due to the inherent energy scale of monopo inter actions one of the most critical features of Mag matter is its extreme density and strength unlike ordinary matter which is largely empty space within and between atoms mag Matter's binding forces allow for extraordinarily compact configurations enabling the creation of materials millions or even billions of times denser than any known substance including neutronium such density would make mag matter incredibly resilient to forces that would obliterate ordinary matter and offer tensile strength orders of magnitude higher than carbon nanot tubes this opens the door to super huge mega structures and other ultra high performance materials like armor that might shrug off a direct Nuclear Strike however this density also makes mag matter incompatible with ordinary matter on a fundamental level even assuming monopoles exist its interaction with standard atomic matter would likely result in catastrophic energy release as nor more atoms are ripped apart by the intense magnetic fields and energy of the monopoles meaning it would also make for potent weapons still this can probably be gone around so if monopour do exist it opens the door to impossibly strong materials and impossibly awesome things made from them Mass manipulation mass is an interesting thing and has properties folks tend not to think about for one thing under special and general relativity it is the quantity that lets us experience time massless particles like photons and maybe gravitons do not experience time whereas things with imaginary Mass like the hyp itical tachon experience time backward even just its best known properties resisting forces King inertia and attracting objects gravitationally or being attracted by them are thought to be potentially separate quantities that might be manipulated individually we might one day be able to adjust mass either decreasing or increasing it for an object inertial Mass passive gravitational mass and active gravitational Mass could each be individually controlled imagine an object that could be made lighter in terms of inertial mass so it accelerates faster than the force exerted on it should allow or conversely resist Force by increasing its neore mass such manipulation could have applications ranging from spaceship drives to personal defense systems against punches bullets or explosions raising the active gravitational mass of a brown dwarf or gas giant might cause it to ignite Fusion effectively turning into a star conversely lowering the gravitational mass of a super Earth could make it habitable by reducing surface gravity or it might help with resource extraction on mining WS similarly adjusting passive gravitational Mass on a spaceship could allow for faster Falls toward a planet by enhancing gravitational pull while reducing upon X imp plant could make departure easier and vastly boost slingshot Maneuvers and the oth effect this concept could also be weaponized for instance by creating kinetic impactors that accelerate impossibly fast under enhanced gravity or bullets whose a noal mask could be modified to hit harder we discussed additional possibilities for power generation and proportion in our gtic proportion episode a couple months ago matter to energy conversion your typical chemical fuel provides tens of millions of Jews per kilogram or liter depending on whether you're talking about gasoline firewood body fat or other common fuels nuclear fusion fuels like uranium plutonium and thorium perform far better about a million times more energetic delivering tens of trillions of jewels per kilogram Fusion surpasses even this with ideal hydrogen to helium Fusion Ying approximately 640 trillion jewles per kilogram about 10 times more efficient than fision under Einstein's equal MC squar however a single kilogram of mass contains an astounding 90,000 trillion jewles which is 140 times better than ideal fusion and more than 10,000 times better than nuclear fision this is what makes antimatter so potent as it annihilates with an equal mass of regular matter releasing nearly 100% of the mass energy it's also the source of a quazar incredible power where stars or massive gas clouds devoured by black holes convert much of their Mass into energy in the future artificial micro black holes could achieve High matter to energy conversion rates potentially yielding 18,000 to 40,000 trillion Jews per kilogram or we might find ways to cheaply produce and safely store antimatter yet the ultimate breakthrough would be a device that could literally convert matter into energy safely and efficiently at a controlled rate imagine a generator akin to those used at construction sites or during power outages that requires no traditional fuel just air or even water a device like this running on water as a fuel could produce 10 Kow of power and would take 285 million years to consume a single liter of water a simple rain collector could replenish it in indefinitely in fact a single drop of water could power it for approximately 14,000 years as long as human civilization has existed it's worth noting that while we might refer to a matter to energy converter in practice the energy it produces would take some specific form even with antimatter Annihilation the process involves two particles colliding and converting to other particles typically a pair of photons but not always photons would be ideal for energy harvesting as they are relatively straightforward capture for power generation however high energy photons like the Gamay produced by anti Annihilation are much harder to manage effectively a practical Mount energy converter might function more like a wood chiper from particles breaking them down into a million Tony Flex of low energy photons similar the kind of light plants use for photosynthesis so that we use to C on the other hand some products of matter energy conversion like neutrinos would be far less useful neutrinos interact so weakly with matter that they are almost possible to harness for power or proportion however if directed rather than emitted randomly neutrinos could make excellent propellants since they pass homeless through most matter they wouldn't cause damage even at high intensities allowing a spacecraft to achieve the extreme power levels needed to move Megaton scale ships without becoming destructive nearby planets or habitats this concept of a spaceship Drive powered by matter to energy conversion has been a staple of Science Fiction one of the first and most popular examples is Robert Highland's torch Drive which employed this technique the torch drive has since inspired and lent its name to many fictional spacecraft propulsion systems embodying the potential of such technology for high power efficient space travel though often as a fusion drive like the Epstein drive from the expanse in space such technology would revolutionize proportion enabling near light speed spacecraft and powering space habitats for durations far exceeding the lifetimes of stars civilizations with this capab might view stars as inefficient energy sources with much of their potential wasted instead they would likely focus on stock pollen mass and substellar Depot dismantling stars and repurposing their material for more efficient energy production these civilizations despite their technological prowess would still be constrained by finite resources they would have strong incentives to colonize space leaving unmistakable footprints on an astronomical scale their Mastery of Stellar engineering and mass stockpiling would make them inv visible and loud in the context of the formy Paradox as their activities were both highly motivated and easily detectable negative matter and mass negative mass is a hypothetical constant in physics where negative matter would possess properties opposite to those of ordinary matter in conventional physics mass is always a positive quantity leading to attractive gravitational forces and behavior consistent with Newton's Laws of Motion negative Mass however would behave counterintuitively under these laws if subject to a force it would accelerate in the opposite direction of the applied force moving toward whatever pushed on it this peculiar Behavior has made negative Mass a popular subject in speculative physics particularly for its potential applications in advanced proportion systems as discussed our gravitational spaceship proportion episode it's also Central to theories about warm whall creation and warp drives unlike ordinary Mass which compresses space time and slows time due to gravity negative Mass would theoretically expand SpaceTime and might even accelerate the passage of time these properties could enable revolutionary Technologies if negative Mass were found to exist to date no actual examples of negative Mass have been observed and many physicists myself included viewed as a mathematical construct rather than a physical reality no more tangible than a negative cookie or negative gallon of water nonetheless if negative Mass did exist the possibilities it would unlock in proportion power generation Mega structural construction and warmo Fabrication would be nearly Limitless even as a theoretical concept inspires imagination and offers insights in the boundaries of our understanding of the universe neutronium neutronium is a term used to describe the ultra dense material composed almost entirely of neutrons this is what neutron stars are made of and only the insane gravity of an object just below the threshold to be a black hole can hold this matter together at the unimaginable pressures and densities involved is akin to if you squeeze an entire Mountain into something you could hold in your hand needless to say this is not stable requires forces beyond belief to squish together and neutrons themselves decay in mere minutes yet it would be essentially incompressible by outward forces and invincibly strong against even nuclear level attacks or monomolecular Ultra Shar blades the reasoning goes if you could stick stabilize it somehow you would have indestructible armor and it is popular in science fiction for this usage but at a density of around 400 quadrillion kg per cubic meter even a plate just a nanometer wide would Mass 400 million tons per square meter which might be a bit hard to carry around in theory you could build this down at the fomo scale and you might use it in fotech constructions in which case you might get all the way down to several hundred tons per square meter which would be just one Neutron thick however we could imagine that the same technology that let you hold it stably at such pressure might also let you nullify the mass of neutronium armor we might imagine it that is something like Thor's hammer which only he can move because without its cooperation it's too heavy to budge this would make sense as an object the size of that hammer would have a mass of around a trillion tons more than Mount [Music] Everest parallel universes and alternate realities as we explored our episode on parallel universes and Alternate realities there are compelling reasons to

2025-02-21 14:41

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