Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I am your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech and today I have
Speaker 1: something extra special for all of you listeners out there.
Speaker 1: My good friend Ariel Casting has joined the show. Say hi, Ariel, Hi, Ariel. Okay,
Speaker 1: and I'll give you a better introduction a second. So,
Speaker 1: Ariel and I have just launched a new podcast, released
Speaker 1: an old podcast. That's a new version of an old
Speaker 1: podcast called Large Nerdron Collider, which we will talk about
Speaker 1: more at the end of this episode. But I thought
Speaker 1: it might be fun to bring Ariel onto my show.
Speaker 1: It is not her first appearance on Tech Stuff. No,
Speaker 1: we've talked about steganography and about our marine weapons before,
Speaker 1: so I feel like what we're gonna talk about today
Speaker 1: is a little bit of a revisit. Yeah, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about science fiction and speculative fiction. Some of the
Speaker 1: stuff we'll talk about, you could argue, really falls more
Speaker 1: into the realm of fantasy than science fiction, but that
Speaker 1: all kind of gets lumped under the category speculative fiction. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk about some of the stuff that
Speaker 1: appears like the popular stuff that appears in speculative fiction,
Speaker 1: and then talk about what if any corollaries there are
Speaker 1: in the real world. Uh, and if we see any
Speaker 1: technologies that are kind of like the baby version of
Speaker 1: the stuff we see in sci fi, or if we
Speaker 1: are leagues away from light years away, you might say,
Speaker 1: and yeah, and also we did, like we made an
Speaker 1: outline for this that we thought at first was you know, modest.
Speaker 1: It was. Yeah, it blew up. So we are going
Speaker 1: to go through as much of this as we can,
Speaker 1: but we're not going to turn this into a marathon
Speaker 1: length episode. We don't even know how long this is
Speaker 1: going to go. It may turn out that this will
Speaker 1: be a two parter and I'll have Aerial back for
Speaker 1: part two. We don't we haven't recorded it yet, so
Speaker 1: the time travel spoiler alert doesn't really work. So I
Speaker 1: can't tell you how long it's going to be until
Speaker 1: we do it. Yeah, we could go back and insert something,
Speaker 1: but that's not really time travel. That's work. See, that's
Speaker 1: not time travel, that's just work. And I hate work,
Speaker 1: you know me. So one of the things we wanted
Speaker 1: to chat about first is the role of technology in
Speaker 1: science fiction because obviously, you know, the two tend to
Speaker 1: go hand in hand, right. We tend to think of
Speaker 1: of science fiction and technology being integral to one another.
Speaker 1: That if you don't have at least some version of
Speaker 1: of high tech in your science fiction, it's not really
Speaker 1: science fiction. Uh yeah, but I would I would say
Speaker 1: that to me, good science fiction starts with the story,
Speaker 1: the characters and the situations that they are in and
Speaker 1: how they handle those situations, whether for good or for ill,
Speaker 1: and that all the tech stuff, not the podcast, but
Speaker 1: the stuff what is tech, is sort of window dressing
Speaker 1: for that story. And that when storytellers take the inverse
Speaker 1: of that, where the technology ends up playing the central
Speaker 1: role and the story and characters kind of take a
Speaker 1: backseat to it, I think of that as what I
Speaker 1: like to call bad science fiction. I tend to agree
Speaker 1: with you, Jonathan. I mean, there are occasions where I
Speaker 1: think that just the this scientific technology, the fantastical technology,
Speaker 1: and a story can be enough to make it fun.
Speaker 1: It might be a potato chip movie, but it can
Speaker 1: be fun just to watch that. Pacific Rim is a
Speaker 1: great example of that for me, where like watching the
Speaker 1: Yeager's Interact is more of the story. To me, The
Speaker 1: story of the technology is more of the story than
Speaker 1: the people, and I still enjoy it. But at that
Speaker 1: point the technology is almost taking on a persona itself. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And there is something to say about you know, spectacle, right,
Speaker 1: Like spectacle can be entertaining. If it weren't, then we
Speaker 1: wouldn't have movies like Independence Day, right, all the big
Speaker 1: disaster films that are just pure spectacle for like an
Speaker 1: hour and a half. Um. And I don't mean to
Speaker 1: really turn my nose up at it. I just don't
Speaker 1: think of it as being particularly artful. I think that
Speaker 1: if you have a really good story first, and then
Speaker 1: you you said it in a futuristic world, for one thing,
Speaker 1: that can give you enough distance as an audience that
Speaker 1: you can look at something that actually does relate very
Speaker 1: much to the way the real world works, but you've
Speaker 1: distanced it enough where you can think about it objectively
Speaker 1: without taking you know, the real world into account until
Speaker 1: maybe much further afterwards. Like hands Handmaid's Tale I think
Speaker 1: falls into that category. Um, although you could argue Handmade's
Speaker 1: Tale has in more recent years become far more relevant.
Speaker 1: But you get where I'm going here. I think, yes,
Speaker 1: yes I do, but I want to talk less about
Speaker 1: Handmaid's Tale and more about handheld tales. So I want
Speaker 1: to start with I would say what is pretty integral
Speaker 1: to a lot of science fiction, which is laser guns. Right,
Speaker 1: And we're not talking about necessarily a specific example here,
Speaker 1: just that laser guns or ray guns in general are
Speaker 1: kind of a kind of like the the stereotypical symbol
Speaker 1: of science fiction weaponry. Right, It's like the pep laser
Speaker 1: that's the go to for science fiction. Yeah, if we
Speaker 1: were to pick out specific laser guns, we'd be here
Speaker 1: all day ever talking about them. So Jonathan, So instead
Speaker 1: of saying this is how laser guns work in science fiction,
Speaker 1: because every science fiction tends to at least have their
Speaker 1: own nuances to how their technology works, our laser guns
Speaker 1: realistic in real life, not in the handheld versions that
Speaker 1: we see in science fiction. Because in order to generate
Speaker 1: a laser of sufficient energy capable of delivering a truly
Speaker 1: devastating blast, you would need such a large energy source
Speaker 1: that you could not fit it into a rifle or
Speaker 1: a pistol format. So one of the biggest challenges we
Speaker 1: have with technology today is that when it comes to
Speaker 1: energy storage and releasing energy, we are limited by physics,
Speaker 1: you know, and I mean we're limited by physics and everything.
Speaker 1: But physics has has slowed that down. Like you you've
Speaker 1: probably heard of Moore's law aerial that's the idea that
Speaker 1: computers are technically, we boil it down to computers are
Speaker 1: getting twice as powerful every two years or so. But
Speaker 1: the problem with that is that energy storage doesn't follow
Speaker 1: that same trajectory, so we don't we don't get to
Speaker 1: a point where like, oh, the batteries of today are
Speaker 1: are twice as powerful, They can hold twice as much energy,
Speaker 1: and they can release it twice as as quickly as
Speaker 1: the old batteries. That's not how batteries work. It's just
Speaker 1: it's an electrochemical process. You can't make it do more
Speaker 1: than what it physically is capable of doing. So that
Speaker 1: would mean that you would if you wanted to use
Speaker 1: like a laser rifle or a laser gun, you would
Speaker 1: likely have to have that connected to a larger power source,
Speaker 1: potentially one so large that you couldn't easily carry it,
Speaker 1: Like maybe you could have a back mount did type
Speaker 1: of power source that you could wear as like a backpack,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be able to carry much else. Uh. And
Speaker 1: even then, lasers wouldn't behave the way we typically see
Speaker 1: them in science fiction. Right. You wouldn't get a pew,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have a noise at all. There'd be no
Speaker 1: reason to have a noise. You have a noise from
Speaker 1: maybe the person who got hit by a laser. So
Speaker 1: you wouldn't even have like a no no, no, It's
Speaker 1: it's like turning on a flashlight, right like or if
Speaker 1: you have a laser pointer, you don't get a noise
Speaker 1: with that. I mean you do with me, because I
Speaker 1: supply it myself. I do the jum jum noises. But
Speaker 1: also you wouldn't get those distinct beams, like those those
Speaker 1: short blasts which we'll talk about again in in a second.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you wouldn't get those. It would be an
Speaker 1: uninterrupted beam, just as you would with you would get
Speaker 1: with a laser pointer. And assuming you don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of particulate matter or if it's a bright day,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't even see the beam, right. You would see
Speaker 1: the spot where it hit the target, but you wouldn't
Speaker 1: see an unbroken beam unless there was like a lot
Speaker 1: of dust in the air, just like you wouldn't see
Speaker 1: lasers like in any of those those movies like a
Speaker 1: heist movie where they have to blow dust in the
Speaker 1: air so that they can see the laser grid and
Speaker 1: then someone in in a cat's suit will do flippy
Speaker 1: flips through it. Um. But yeah, that's so they don't
Speaker 1: they don't work the way they do in science fiction.
Speaker 1: So we couldn't, you know, take a laser engraver, laser
Speaker 1: etcher and turn that into a weapon. I mean you
Speaker 1: could do it gold Finger style. No, Mr Bonda, expect
Speaker 1: you to die. You can do it. Like the lasers
Speaker 1: are powerful enough, Like you can get a laser powerful
Speaker 1: enough to do physical damage like to I mean, we
Speaker 1: can use lasers to cut through stuff like steel, so
Speaker 1: we could clearly use it to do damage to a person.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be like that that's super quick flash. I
Speaker 1: mean heat still has to take time to transfer and
Speaker 1: and and have an effect. But you could get some vaporization,
Speaker 1: some plasma ification of of of a site, which it
Speaker 1: could also create a shock wave and that could do
Speaker 1: damage as well. So you could weaponize lasers, and in fact,
Speaker 1: the military has looked into it. We're mostly talking about
Speaker 1: like vehicle mountain stuff, right, not like hand held things. Okay, well, okay,
Speaker 1: so no laser guns. But what about blasters? So blasters
Speaker 1: are guns and Star Wars they are part of They
Speaker 1: use particle beam energy uh, and and fire plasma bolts,
Speaker 1: so that's not laser light, that's plasma, which is different. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and maybe and then go into if it
Speaker 1: is possible can you adjust that? So could you stunn
Speaker 1: somebody with it versus killing them? All of which is
Speaker 1: possible with a Star Wars blaster? Uh? And then can
Speaker 1: you add different things to it to make them do
Speaker 1: different things? For instance, a Star Wars blaster has super
Speaker 1: cheap red bolts or orange bolts that are a little
Speaker 1: bit are used for like training, or blue bolts that
Speaker 1: are used ionized and used for machinery disruptions. So how
Speaker 1: possible is that? So these are great questions because there's
Speaker 1: a lot to pack in here, right, the blasters and
Speaker 1: Star Wars. First of all, they're called particle beam weapons,
Speaker 1: which already is kind of ridiculous. So the words particle
Speaker 1: beam tell you this is a beam of particles, and
Speaker 1: typically we talk about sub atomic particles, like you know,
Speaker 1: protons charged particles. Typically, although you could have a particle
Speaker 1: beam of neutrons, it's just harder to get it moving
Speaker 1: with particle accelerators. These used particle beams, but particle accelerators
Speaker 1: are pretty big. The large Hadron collider is more than
Speaker 1: sixteen miles in circumference. The reason for that size is
Speaker 1: that it's using very powerful magnets to push charged particles
Speaker 1: in a circle to accelerate them near the speed of light.
Speaker 1: Now they are particles, they have mass, so they'll never
Speaker 1: get to the speed of light, and we'll touch on
Speaker 1: that again later too, but they get them up really
Speaker 1: super fast so that you collide them with another beam
Speaker 1: of particles that you have traveling in the opposite direction.
Speaker 1: So think of two different beams of particles going in
Speaker 1: opposite directions around the circle. Their paths are not crossing.
Speaker 1: As you get that speed higher and higher and higher,
Speaker 1: and you're using very powerful, super cool magnets to do this,
Speaker 1: and then ultimately you direct them at each other and
Speaker 1: some of the particles collide, and that's where you get
Speaker 1: these collisions that we then study. Well, if you had
Speaker 1: any way of making that into a handgun, we wouldn't
Speaker 1: need a sixteen plus mile circumference facility, right, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to speed the particles up to any appreciable
Speaker 1: level using something again the size of a handgun that
Speaker 1: doesn't connect to some other larger power source. So again,
Speaker 1: same power trouble that we had with the lasers. Now
Speaker 1: you also mentioned they fire plasma bolts, So if you're
Speaker 1: talking about using the particle beam to generate plasma, that's
Speaker 1: not the most efficient way to create plasma. Plasma is
Speaker 1: um ionized gas. It is the most plentiful form of
Speaker 1: matter in the universe. It's what our son is made
Speaker 1: out of. The s u n Ariel and I don't
Speaker 1: have any kids. Uh yeah, that it would be shocking
Speaker 1: to be and to Ariel to learn that we had
Speaker 1: a son. Uh No, the sun it works, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's made out of plasma and an ionized gases
Speaker 1: is powerful stuff. We'll touch on that again too. But
Speaker 1: making a b or a bolt of it and having
Speaker 1: that bolt stay coherent in other words, it maintains its
Speaker 1: bolt shape as it travels through toward its target. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's not really realistic either from multiple reasons. Plasma is
Speaker 1: a gas. So it's like if you. If you blow
Speaker 1: out air, the air expands outward as it leaves the
Speaker 1: nozzle or your mouth or whatever. If you're blowing out air,
Speaker 1: you can't like blow so that a little bolt of
Speaker 1: air will hold its shape. You can get like interesting
Speaker 1: airgun type things that can create a sort of vortex
Speaker 1: effect that can travel much further. We've seen those in
Speaker 1: like you know, novelty stores and stuff, but you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to really keep plasma together. As for the
Speaker 1: different colors, I think they're they're relating that back to lasers,
Speaker 1: and in fact, the laser color does tell you a
Speaker 1: lot about the energy level of the laser because you're
Speaker 1: looking at the spectrum of light, and the the further
Speaker 1: toward the violet side you get, the more energy those
Speaker 1: photons can have. So red is actually very low energy,
Speaker 1: Infra red is even lower. You get up to violet
Speaker 1: and ultra volet you're getting into very high energy. You
Speaker 1: go beyond that, you start seeing you start to get
Speaker 1: to stuff like X rays and gamma rays, which are
Speaker 1: such high energy that if they if we're exposed to
Speaker 1: them for any length of time, they can ionize the
Speaker 1: atoms in our body. Then we can have real serious problems,
Speaker 1: like like problems with DNA damage and stuff. So there
Speaker 1: is something to that. As for the the blue beams,
Speaker 1: the ion cannon version of Star Wars using ions to
Speaker 1: overwhelm machinery, there's something to that. UM. When you look
Speaker 1: at an electromagnetic pulse or e m P, that is
Speaker 1: something that can disrupt electronics. It's essentially overloading the electronic
Speaker 1: circuits and causes them to either fry so it's useless
Speaker 1: or shut down. And we see that kind of happen naturally,
Speaker 1: like when UM, when there's a solar storm. So it
Speaker 1: does make sense that blaster could in theory cause uh
Speaker 1: explosion UM from vibrations and stuff like that. It sounds like, well,
Speaker 1: from imparting energy, I mean we really what you're getting
Speaker 1: too is imparting energy to a target and uh or
Speaker 1: in the case of of like the ion canon, the
Speaker 1: idea of overloading an electrical system, you're essentially you're essentially
Speaker 1: putting more juice into it than it can handle and
Speaker 1: it shuts down. UM. The word ion tells us that
Speaker 1: because ion is a charged particle, typically you're talking about
Speaker 1: an atom that has either more electrons than it would
Speaker 1: normally have to have a neutral charge, so it ends
Speaker 1: up having a negative charge or fewer electrons. So that
Speaker 1: means because there are more protons than electrons, you get
Speaker 1: a positive charge. That's an ion. So ion Cannon tells
Speaker 1: us that this has to do with electricity, um, and
Speaker 1: that that's why it works on uh, robots and ships
Speaker 1: and shields and stuff like at but it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be harmless when it hits a person as for stunning
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: it just works for the the needs of the plot,
Speaker 1: but there's there's nothing I can connect to, Like a
Speaker 1: lot of weapons that are marketed as quote unquote non
Speaker 1: lethal are really it just means that, uh in in
Speaker 1: the majority of cases, the effect of the weapon is
Speaker 1: supposed to be one that incapacitates the target and doesn't
Speaker 1: kill the target, but very frequently non lethal weapons can
Speaker 1: lead to lethal consequences. Yeah. Yeah, Well it sounds to
Speaker 1: me then that Star Wars got the Bocaster a bit
Speaker 1: closer to something that could be done in reality, simply
Speaker 1: from the fact that it is much larger. It's very
Speaker 1: very heavy, although I don't think Chewbacca is sixteen miles
Speaker 1: tall to carry a sixteen. That would be very care
Speaker 1: you had had drink collector. Uh. You know, it uses
Speaker 1: metal and it uses magnets to work. So the way
Speaker 1: that a boucaster works is it you cock, you cock
Speaker 1: the spring, and you push the trigger and it lets
Speaker 1: out of metal what is called a quarrels like a
Speaker 1: bolt or arrow. It covers it in plasma and then
Speaker 1: it gets pushed super fast through two magnets that are
Speaker 1: at the end of the bocaster. So I'm guessing that
Speaker 1: that is a little closer to reality, even though I'm
Speaker 1: also guessing that you can't exactly coat uh metal bolts
Speaker 1: in plasma the type of plasma that we're talking about
Speaker 1: in real life. Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. So, yes,
Speaker 1: you can use magnets to propel projectiles. I mean there
Speaker 1: are there are rail guns, railgun designs that use exactly that, right,
Speaker 1: the idea of using using magnetism to uh to pull
Speaker 1: and then perhaps push a projectile at great speed. So
Speaker 1: there's nothing necessarily wrong about that. But as you allude to,
Speaker 1: the plasmas are a different matter. So again, unless you
Speaker 1: have something to contain the plasma or to hold it
Speaker 1: to the bolt, it would bloom and disperse immediately upon
Speaker 1: being fired, so you would have it just become this
Speaker 1: puff of very hot gas. And of course heat dissipates
Speaker 1: very quickly too, so it's why like you can use
Speaker 1: a plasma torch without melting your face off, right, like
Speaker 1: people use plasma torches to to cut through stuff and heat.
Speaker 1: That's because heat doesn't transfer through air that effectively. Air
Speaker 1: is not the best conductor for heat, So you would
Speaker 1: have this dissipate pretty fast, and it wouldn't stay around
Speaker 1: the bolts, so you wouldn't have that nice bolt that
Speaker 1: would go from the bocaster to the target unless you
Speaker 1: had some way of whole holding the plasma there, which
Speaker 1: would mean either it would have to be contained within
Speaker 1: the coral, which presumably would burst upon hitting its target,
Speaker 1: so that the plasma would cause extra damage because plasmas
Speaker 1: do tend to burn very, very hot, or you would
Speaker 1: have to have some sort of electro magnets in the
Speaker 1: coral themselves to hold the plasma there. Because since the
Speaker 1: plasma is an ionized gas, and since it has free
Speaker 1: flowing electrons, it has an electric charge. So an electric
Speaker 1: charge means it also has a magnetic field, which means
Speaker 1: that with magnets you can actually contain a plasma. But
Speaker 1: I can't think of any way where you would do
Speaker 1: that in a projectile. So while while there are certain
Speaker 1: basics that work, the actual implementation would not well, at
Speaker 1: least they got it closer. Even if they did then
Speaker 1: fudget to have Han so be able to carry and
Speaker 1: fire a boaucaster, I don't want to know what he
Speaker 1: did to get the grip strength to be able to
Speaker 1: do that. I think he must have just had a
Speaker 1: crazy mom energy, you know, like when the mom sees
Speaker 1: like the cars on top of her kid and she
Speaker 1: lifts the car up. So Han just had crazy dog
Speaker 1: owner energy for Chewbacca, and nobody puts Chewy in a corner,
Speaker 1: all right, So that means that I'm guessing that Star
Speaker 1: Trek phasers also are not that realistic because they're also
Speaker 1: particle directed energy weapons, although they do have a steady
Speaker 1: stream as opposed to blasters which shoot the bolts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so does that make them more possible? I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't think it makes it more possible. I think it
Speaker 1: at least makes it less of a uh, less of
Speaker 1: a pupiu laser type thing than we typically see because
Speaker 1: it it does tend to be a steady beam, you
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't see the beams. Uh they You know, Star
Speaker 1: Trek is is infamous for attempting to justify its technologies
Speaker 1: with lengthy explanations, part partably because I mean there's a
Speaker 1: whole end street around writing technical books for the Star
Speaker 1: Trek universe. Same thing is true for Star Wars too,
Speaker 1: But um, I'm I'm a treky. I'm not that much
Speaker 1: of a treky. Yeah. Well, and and it's it's also
Speaker 1: one that talks about things like um, like like actual phase,
Speaker 1: I mean phaser, depending on whom you ask. Phasers are
Speaker 1: called that because they're either a mixture of the words
Speaker 1: photon and maser, so which is the same as light
Speaker 1: and maser, which became laser. But now instead of saying light,
Speaker 1: it was photon, I guess because it sounded more science fiction.
Speaker 1: E e e um. Photons are being the particles of light,
Speaker 1: and so you've got phaser or some people talk about
Speaker 1: the phasing the beam of the frequency of the laser.
Speaker 1: Now that would just mean that a phaser would be
Speaker 1: able to go from lower energy phases like on that
Speaker 1: red side of the spectrum, to higher energy phases on
Speaker 1: the violet side of the spectrum um but still not
Speaker 1: really possible. Again, we get back to that energy component.
Speaker 1: That's a big part of it. But also that Star
Speaker 1: Trek just relies very heavily on techno babble they do,
Speaker 1: but I will say they do have it's a phaser.
Speaker 1: Their phasers do go from low to two stunned to disintegrate.
Speaker 1: Uh and and they also do account for in star
Speaker 1: in Star Trek um that energy pull. So for instance,
Speaker 1: the cannons that they would put on their ship, because
Speaker 1: they got all kinds of phaser phaser um weapons and devices.
Speaker 1: They can put a wrap in a race which shoot
Speaker 1: multiple phasers. So a phaser cannon which could be rapper
Speaker 1: fire regular would be bolted to the ship and would
Speaker 1: pull from the warp core to channel power. We aren't
Speaker 1: going to get into warp cores yet, but at least
Speaker 1: they accounted for that need of a large power draw,
Speaker 1: right right. Yeah, It's not like you put into D
Speaker 1: cell batteries and the back of the Enterprise and somebody
Speaker 1: can start blasting the klingon burder prey. That's a good point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that that at least is something that is that
Speaker 1: is realistic in the sense that you would need to
Speaker 1: have a sufficiently powerful power source to tap into in
Speaker 1: order to generate and then um, you know, fire multiple times,
Speaker 1: this this powerful beam weapon. They also do use their
Speaker 1: phasers for things like drilling and heating, which we do
Speaker 1: know that lasers can do for those purposes. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so a little bit closer to reality. They also have
Speaker 1: that you can track the nadium particles back to the phaser. Um,
Speaker 1: is it possible to track particles of a plasma burst
Speaker 1: or a laser back to what fired it? I mean no, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you would be tracking, because again,
Speaker 1: plasma being an ionized gas. Uh, you know you would.
Speaker 1: I guess you could try and see if you could
Speaker 1: detect whether or not a specific gas was present in
Speaker 1: an area. But you're typically talking about a pretty small
Speaker 1: amount of gas in comparison to the gas that's in
Speaker 1: whatever environment you're in, if you're in a room or heck,
Speaker 1: if you're outside, forget it. So also like Star Trek,
Speaker 1: you know, they're using these these fictional particles, which helps,
Speaker 1: I mean, it really helps for you to explain your science,
Speaker 1: how your science fiction technology works. If you make up
Speaker 1: the stuff and stuff that's making it work, so that
Speaker 1: that also it plays a big part in it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there's not any way that I can think of about
Speaker 1: how you would trace that back so that you would say,
Speaker 1: ah ha, I have found the phaser that killed Colonel
Speaker 1: Mustard in the study. H I could be wrong about that,
Speaker 1: and I can't think of how it would work. Well,
Speaker 1: then I'm gonna I'm gonna give up up on this
Speaker 1: train of thought. But I do have one more handheld
Speaker 1: projectile kind of handled, one more projectile weapon. But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hit you with I would I would suspect. First
Speaker 1: of all, I beg you not to hit me with
Speaker 1: that projectile weapon because okay, I'm a delicate man. And
Speaker 1: also I can't wait to hear it. But first, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break. Okay, so I've been waiting. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to hit you with it. I throw it
Speaker 1: at you. Is that better. So there's this device called
Speaker 1: a weirding module. And this is a real corner case one,
Speaker 1: but I know it's one that you liked because you
Speaker 1: like done. It is in the movie version of Dune,
Speaker 1: not the book version of Dune, mainly because the director
Speaker 1: of the movie version did not want to have Kung
Speaker 1: Fu on sand for his movie, so he replaced the
Speaker 1: Betty Jesser at Martial Art the weird Ing Way with
Speaker 1: the Weirding Module, which is a sonic sound based weapon
Speaker 1: uh that uses specific sound turns specific sounds into attacks.
Speaker 1: For instance, the name of the hero in the story
Speaker 1: what dbs as as in a you know, we get
Speaker 1: the tradees uh freeman name yes, yes uh. And so
Speaker 1: in the books they do use some some sonic technology
Speaker 1: in the later books for detecting people underground and crowd
Speaker 1: control and things like that. But what about this this
Speaker 1: sonic weapon that can that can break rocks that can
Speaker 1: break Because in the scene where they first show it
Speaker 1: off the the protagonist has one of these and the
Speaker 1: modules look really weird too. There are these things that
Speaker 1: mount on like the hand. It doesn't look like you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like a gun shape. Um. But he uses
Speaker 1: it to destroy a a an obelisk of rock after
Speaker 1: other people have uh kicked it, punched it and tried
Speaker 1: to cut it and then yelled at it. Um. And
Speaker 1: then he shows, I mean when I kick in punch rocks,
Speaker 1: it doesn't do much either, right, So he he uses
Speaker 1: it to show that that it can convert the sound
Speaker 1: of his voice into a something powerful enough to shatter
Speaker 1: the rock um And just as a little side note
Speaker 1: about the martial arts thing, you know the martial arts
Speaker 1: in the book, It allows people to essentially teleport very
Speaker 1: short distances, they can move faster than they would physically
Speaker 1: be able to, and appear on a different part of
Speaker 1: a person and punch them. And Lynch did not know
Speaker 1: how he could possibly pull that off and make it
Speaker 1: look good in the post matrix world. Uh, I think
Speaker 1: it's entirely possible. So I suspect we'll see that in
Speaker 1: the upcoming movie. I I suspect so as well. You
Speaker 1: haven't watched the trailer for it, but I haven't seen
Speaker 1: that in the trailer I have seen. I've seen teasers.
Speaker 1: Maybe I haven't seen the specific trailer that that. So
Speaker 1: there's a trailer that shows the weirding way. There's a
Speaker 1: trailer that shows somebody's head or hand or some part
Speaker 1: of their body vibrating at like a ridiculous speed. I'm
Speaker 1: gesturing like you can all see it on audio, but
Speaker 1: I can tell you that she was, in fact making
Speaker 1: her hand vibrate faster than the I can see, uh,
Speaker 1: largely because her web. So the weirding module using sonic
Speaker 1: signals as a weapon. This is not that far off
Speaker 1: from things that we actually have. We do not have
Speaker 1: anything that could shatter a rock obelisk like instantaneously through sound. However, Uh,
Speaker 1: sound is a physical phenomenon. So when we hear sounds,
Speaker 1: what we're hearing are there's fluctuations in air pressure, and
Speaker 1: those fluctuations affect our ear drums, and then we we
Speaker 1: interpret that we experienced that as sound. Right, so we're
Speaker 1: all we're talking about vibrations. So you are talking about
Speaker 1: stuff moving and while that stuff is just air, and
Speaker 1: air has very low mass, you get enough air moving
Speaker 1: that low that you know, enough of it is enough
Speaker 1: to do massive things. Otherwise tornadoes wouldn't be a problem, right,
Speaker 1: I mean air can air can do some serious damage
Speaker 1: if it's moving powerfully enough and there's enough of it. Uh.
Speaker 1: That being said, the something that's directed as that would
Speaker 1: be very difficult to do. But you can create directed
Speaker 1: beams of acoustic energy, and in fact, we do have
Speaker 1: materials that do this UM and they have been used
Speaker 1: in weapons. The long range Acoustic device or l RAD
Speaker 1: is an example of that that was developed by the military.
Speaker 1: The original purpose was to outfit naval ships with these
Speaker 1: what what amounts to a very powerful, very directed speaker,
Speaker 1: and you can point the speaker at a target, and
Speaker 1: because of the way the sound waves emerge from the
Speaker 1: speaker uses the special approach where the center of the
Speaker 1: speaker is very much directed at a target and the
Speaker 1: outside of the speaker puts a an out of phase
Speaker 1: sound signal to keep the central part focused. So it's
Speaker 1: almost like a laser, you can. You know, usually sound
Speaker 1: waves spread out from their point of origin and they diffuse,
Speaker 1: so it's broadcast. This is more directed, and it was
Speaker 1: originally meant as a way to communicate to another boat
Speaker 1: that is far away that you don't have radio communication with,
Speaker 1: so you can say turn away or whatever. Or you
Speaker 1: can use an alarm and use it as a deterrent,
Speaker 1: because you could use an alarm in the range of
Speaker 1: human hearing, make it really loud, really uncomfortable, pointed at
Speaker 1: say a boat of pirates, and deter them from coming
Speaker 1: towards a ship. And we have since seen various police
Speaker 1: forces outfitted with these as well and have used them,
Speaker 1: uh to um notorious effect on things like protests for
Speaker 1: a method of crowd dispersal. But the problem is that
Speaker 1: these l red devices can can put out sound at
Speaker 1: a decibel level high enough to ruptu your ear drumps,
Speaker 1: and if you are in the direct path, it can
Speaker 1: be enough not just to burst your ear drumps, which
Speaker 1: means you're deaf, it can also cause disorientation and nausea
Speaker 1: and and I mean some severe health effects. So while
Speaker 1: we don't have a sonic weapon capable of breaking you know,
Speaker 1: a statue just by blasting some sound at it in
Speaker 1: a second, we do have things that can do some
Speaker 1: pretty serious damage. And if you tune a sound wave
Speaker 1: to the resonant frequency of a substance, meaning that when
Speaker 1: the sound hits it, it's hitting it at a frequency
Speaker 1: that the substance naturally already vibrates that then it'll start
Speaker 1: to amplify that vibration. You can make a sub since
Speaker 1: break apart that way. That's how we see like opera
Speaker 1: singers breaking crystal glasses. It's the same sort of idea,
Speaker 1: but again, uh, it's a little more complicated than wearing
Speaker 1: a glove and humming in it and having it blasts
Speaker 1: apart of rock. Yeah, it makes sense that l rads
Speaker 1: can can cause some damage to people because when I
Speaker 1: punch and kick people, not that I do, that causes
Speaker 1: damage more than me punching and kicking rocks. Um, So
Speaker 1: it seems like doing is the closest to reality as
Speaker 1: far as projectile weapons. But I'm going to go back
Speaker 1: to Star Wars because they're losing so far in the
Speaker 1: reality Wars. This will really help them catch up. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna veer off from projectile weapons because
Speaker 1: obviously they're losing there. What about handheld weapons, specifically a lightsaber?
Speaker 1: It's a plus. It's a plasma blade, listen, I know,
Speaker 1: powered by a Khaiber crystal which is actually both organic
Speaker 1: and inorganic for anybody who doesn't know, which is probably
Speaker 1: like two people to the force as well and and
Speaker 1: attuned to the force. Yeah, so if you're the dark Side,
Speaker 1: you can force it to do your will, but it
Speaker 1: might make like it might make the crystal bleed, or
Speaker 1: it might make you go insane like Darth Vader had
Speaker 1: crazy visions from it um. And it works in conjunction
Speaker 1: with the power cell and modulation stircuits and an energy
Speaker 1: greate and a blade emitter shroud and in a mitter
Speaker 1: matrix and a hilt activator. So you need the force
Speaker 1: to use it, but you still need a little button
Speaker 1: to activate what the goodness of well, I mean, so
Speaker 1: they're pretty customizable. But is that possible? Uh No? But
Speaker 1: um no, with some No, with some qualifiers. No, with
Speaker 1: some qualifiers, because you can make something that can do
Speaker 1: stuff that a lightsaber can do, but it is not
Speaker 1: a lightsaber in the sense of Star Wars. Now, to
Speaker 1: be fair, Star Wars I think falls into kind of
Speaker 1: a fantasy science fiction. It's it's it's more of a
Speaker 1: fantasy than than hard size fi. Uh. We've already talked
Speaker 1: about plasma and how that's an ionized gas and it
Speaker 1: diffuses after a while. But what you can do, um is, well,
Speaker 1: you got a couple of options. There's actually these guys
Speaker 1: that do incredible videos, Hacksmith Industries. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've ever seen their stuff Aerial Yeah, I have. I
Speaker 1: think I think I know where you're going with this.
Speaker 1: They've got a couple of different versions of lightsabers that
Speaker 1: they have built over the years, and one of them
Speaker 1: involves having a metal rod that that comes out of
Speaker 1: a hilt and then they use a means of heating
Speaker 1: up that metal rod to the point where it's glowing,
Speaker 1: so it's hot enough to cut through stuff. And in
Speaker 1: that case, you're like, well, it glows like a lightsaber.
Speaker 1: It can make contact with another lightsaber like a lightsaber,
Speaker 1: and it can cut through stuff like a lightsaber. And
Speaker 1: it can cauterize like a lightsaber. It can cauterize like
Speaker 1: a lightsaber. That's true. However, it can't extend or retract.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a it's a solid piece of metal
Speaker 1: um and uh and and you when you turn it off,
Speaker 1: you gotta wait a while before that blade is you know,
Speaker 1: not so hot that it would make wood just burst
Speaker 1: into flame if you touched it to it. So then
Speaker 1: they made one that they called more of a plasma lightsaber.
Speaker 1: I take a little issue with that terminology, but only
Speaker 1: a little. And they used a nozzle so that they
Speaker 1: could inject oxygen and I think propane together to create
Speaker 1: a mixture and they and it lights and it creates
Speaker 1: a very controlled flame that is more or less lightsaber shaped. Um.
Speaker 1: They can even control the color of the lightsaber by
Speaker 1: adding in different stuff into the mixture, because when you
Speaker 1: burn different stuff, you get different colors of flame, right,
Speaker 1: So unlike a lightsaber, where it's the kyber crystal that
Speaker 1: makes the color. The word saber, which I guess could
Speaker 1: be also additives to the crystal. I mean the the
Speaker 1: Sith were known for having synthetic crystals, which were the
Speaker 1: red ones, at least in some versions of Star Wars Lawer. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of different versions of Star Wars Lawyers,
Speaker 1: So it's I don't even know what's cannon anymore. So, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, the the the blade that they made was
Speaker 1: I would call it more of a fire than a plasma.
Speaker 1: I mean, granted, it was hot enough where I'm sure
Speaker 1: it was it was a plasma in that sense, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't like electrified or ionized gas in the sense
Speaker 1: of what a plasma typically would be. But it was
Speaker 1: hot enough to cut through metal. It could uh you know,
Speaker 1: it could extend and retract. The only thing that it
Speaker 1: can't do that a lightsaber can do, as we've seen
Speaker 1: the movies, is if you had two of them and
Speaker 1: you swung about each other. Uh, they would not have
Speaker 1: like made contact, Like you wouldn't have a physical contact
Speaker 1: where you'd feel that feedback they might combine into one
Speaker 1: enormous flame, which would be terrifying, but they would not
Speaker 1: behave as a lightsaber in that sense. Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: that lightsabers can make contact the weapons that lightsabers can
Speaker 1: make contact with, or the items that lightsabers can make
Speaker 1: contact with other than like a certain kind of animal
Speaker 1: and a certain weave of fibers, which are actually used
Speaker 1: another weapons and tools to combat that is energy conducting weapons.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like the weapons that conduct energy are
Speaker 1: the ones that can kind of make contact with the
Speaker 1: lightsaber without just being cut in half. It doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like either of these would be affected at all by now.
Speaker 1: And also, one other thing I was going to mention
Speaker 1: is that I could have allowed, because you know, Star
Speaker 1: Wars has magic, and it's the force, the forces magic, Right,
Speaker 1: I could have allowed that a lightsaber only holds its
Speaker 1: form because of a Jedi using the forced to keep
Speaker 1: the lightsaber in that form, right, Because which is why
Speaker 1: you need the trade, because otherwise it would be the
Speaker 1: other issues that we've had with you. The whole idea
Speaker 1: of plasma is that it blooms so quickly after being
Speaker 1: released unless you have some sort of powerful nozzle to
Speaker 1: keep it in the right shape. However, we know that's
Speaker 1: not the case because Han Solo picks up a lightsaber
Speaker 1: to cut open the belly of a tonton and Han
Speaker 1: Solo does not have a command of the force. So
Speaker 1: we know that you can you can use a lightsaber
Speaker 1: even if you're not a Jedi. Uh, it's just not
Speaker 1: recommended because they're so dangerous. You know, you probably cut
Speaker 1: off your belt loop and your leg. Okay, so not lightsabers.
Speaker 1: But what about vibra weapons, So like vibro swords, vibro blades,
Speaker 1: things like that that use high speed sonic vibrations to
Speaker 1: make a weapon more deadly. Through a vibro generator in
Speaker 1: the hill to it's sense sonic pulses that makes it
Speaker 1: vibrate and kind of like and even though they have
Speaker 1: serrated vibra weapons, it kind of makes it to me
Speaker 1: like the ultimate serrated weapon because it hits you and
Speaker 1: it causes mass destruction because of that vibration. So we
Speaker 1: don't have weapons like this, but we do have tools
Speaker 1: that do this. It's absolutely a viable technology because when
Speaker 1: you think about it, the sonic vibrations, those vibrations, like
Speaker 1: if you think about a tool like a saw. The
Speaker 1: way a saw works is that you drag the saw
Speaker 1: back and forth across whatever it is you're cutting, right,
Speaker 1: band saw, handsaw, reciprocating saw, any of those things. Um,
Speaker 1: that that's that. That's that cutting action that can help
Speaker 1: you cut through various materials. A vibrating blade is essentially
Speaker 1: doing a saw motion. It's just doing it in very
Speaker 1: very fast succession, and it's doing very small you know, uh,
Speaker 1: full length motions. It's not going as far out as
Speaker 1: like a band saw, wood or something. Um. We do
Speaker 1: have these. There are ultrasonic knives. These ultrasonic knives are
Speaker 1: typically used for is like crafting. You don't use them
Speaker 1: for attacking enemy soldiers or something. Crafting sounds more fun.
Speaker 1: And also it can be a doggy dog world among crafters.
Speaker 1: I mean, those makers can can get mean. So in
Speaker 1: those cases, it's used for stuff like cutting through rubber
Speaker 1: or plastic, uh not typically the harder materials, but it's
Speaker 1: really good at cutting through softer materials without having to
Speaker 1: worry about the blade being super sharp. Like the blade
Speaker 1: needs to be sharp enough to to make a cut,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't have to be like razor sharp in
Speaker 1: order to be effective because the ultrasonic frequencies are providing
Speaker 1: the mechanical action that makes up for a lack of
Speaker 1: sharpness on the part of the weapon or in this case,
Speaker 1: the tool. Now, ultrasonic knives also typically how are connected
Speaker 1: to a base station of some sorts. So you've typically
Speaker 1: got like a a little control station, and then you
Speaker 1: have a wire that goes to the knife and that
Speaker 1: provides the the energy needed to vibrate it. You've got
Speaker 1: a transducer in there, that's what is actually converting electricity
Speaker 1: into the vibrating energy you need to uh to create
Speaker 1: those ultrasonic vibrations. But otherwise, I mean, like the principle
Speaker 1: is sound. Again, you run into the issue of needing
Speaker 1: to figure out where you put your power supply in
Speaker 1: order to run this for any appreciable length of time. Um.
Speaker 1: Even with the the lightsaber thing we mentioned earlier with
Speaker 1: the the Hexmath Industries, they had a backpack connected they
Speaker 1: called it a proto saber, which is in Star Wars
Speaker 1: law as well. But they had a backpack that would
Speaker 1: hold the fuel that would feed into the lightsaber. And
Speaker 1: even then it was only good for about five minutes
Speaker 1: of operation if you wanted to use it for more
Speaker 1: than that, you had to hook up you know, another
Speaker 1: like fuel tank of oxygen and a fuel tank of
Speaker 1: propane in order to do any appreciable work with it.
Speaker 1: Same sort of thing. When you're getting to the energy
Speaker 1: sources for something like this, you would still have that issue.
Speaker 1: It would it would drain a battery pretty quickly if
Speaker 1: you're talking about a uh an ultrasonic transducer that could
Speaker 1: vibrate a significant blade for a decent amount of time. So,
Speaker 1: but it's there's nothing, there's nothing wrong about the premise. Okay,
Speaker 1: Star Wars, good on you. You've got something almost kind
Speaker 1: of sorry, right all right, so, uh we haven't. There's
Speaker 1: another weapon that does have a power source, albeit it's
Speaker 1: an art reactor whip lash yeah yep from Iron Man.
Speaker 1: Wiplash from from Iron Man to or the comics uses
Speaker 1: uh an iron Man mark arm to make yeah to
Speaker 1: to make his his armor. And also these electric whips
Speaker 1: that are electromagnetic whips that are made from the copper
Speaker 1: wires of the electro magnetic motor that powers his suit.
Speaker 1: So could you make copper wire electromagnetic whips? I mean
Speaker 1: you could make up that you could du a wheel
Speaker 1: and make them spring loaded. And I wouldn't recommend it,
Speaker 1: um because I mean, essentially what he's using our live
Speaker 1: wire electric wires as whips, right, dangerous stuff. Uh. So
Speaker 1: it's you could have. You would have to have very
Speaker 1: high voltage going through them to do any significant damage
Speaker 1: the way you see in the movie, Like it's essentially
Speaker 1: gotta behind the voltage to again plasma, I fi the
Speaker 1: air that's immediately around the whips, because that's what it
Speaker 1: looks like. It looks like it's got a plasma sheath
Speaker 1: around it. So, Uh, these would have to have an
Speaker 1: incredible amount of juice coming from them, which is where
Speaker 1: you get that arc reactor. Uh. The arc reactor that
Speaker 1: Iron Man uses, at least in some sources, is said
Speaker 1: to be able to provide three giga jewels per second
Speaker 1: of electricity, which is essentially a maniature fusion reactor. The
Speaker 1: nuclear reactors that we have today that we use for
Speaker 1: electricity are fission reactors. They split atoms, fusion reactors fuse
Speaker 1: atoms together. They are incredible, entirely possible. We have some
Speaker 1: fusion reactors, uh that are research facilities right now. The
Speaker 1: problem with fusion reactors is it takes so much energy
Speaker 1: to get that reaction started that the energy you get
Speaker 1: out from running the reactor is less than what it
Speaker 1: took for you to start it. So imagine like it
Speaker 1: took you ten times as much energy for you to
Speaker 1: start an electric mower as it would for you to
Speaker 1: cut the grasp by hand. You would sit there and
Speaker 1: say like, well, yeah, I've got a device that cuts
Speaker 1: my grasp, but it actually is more work to start
Speaker 1: it than it is for me to cut my hand. Um.
Speaker 1: Same or a thing with fusion reactors right now. But
Speaker 1: if we can ever solve that, it would be a
Speaker 1: massive help to uh to our energy needs. That being said,
Speaker 1: it's also something that runs super hot, despite the claims
Speaker 1: of cold fusion, So having it as something that operates
Speaker 1: your heart not recommended you die. Um So you probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't even want to really wear it. You wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to be near it. You would want a lot of
Speaker 1: shielding with like active cooling systems between you and it.
Speaker 1: But moreover, it wouldn't be strong enough. You can't make
Speaker 1: something that small. You can't make it at all right now.
Speaker 1: You can't make something that small, which means you don't
Speaker 1: have the energy source you would need to be able
Speaker 1: to create that incredible effect. So again, it's something that
Speaker 1: looks cool in movies but is not practical. Uh, and
Speaker 1: certainly not possible in the implementation we see in the film. So, um,
Speaker 1: I'm sad that whiplash gave me whiplash, not not at
Speaker 1: least without you said protection force fields, So, force fields
Speaker 1: and force shoots. I look forward to talking about this,
Speaker 1: but first I'm going to take another break. All right.
Speaker 1: Just before the break, Aerial, you said something about force shields.
Speaker 1: Are you Are you thinking about stuff like the bubble? Yes,
Speaker 1: force shields, force fields, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: barriers made of plasma, energy, other particles, usually without mass,
Speaker 1: to either contain mass or keep mass out, or to
Speaker 1: contain energy or to keep energy out. They work in
Speaker 1: so many ways, in ways that are are amazing and
Speaker 1: largely impossible. Sadly. Um, yeah, because for one thing, like
Speaker 1: like some of the force fields we see, they can
Speaker 1: protect against anything, right, energy or physical. It just bounces off.
Speaker 1: I can't think of anything that would be able to
Speaker 1: do both. Uh. That being said, there are certain things
Speaker 1: that that are akin to a force field. Like you
Speaker 1: could argue that the Earth's magnetic field is kind of
Speaker 1: like a force field, because the magnetic field is what
Speaker 1: helps protect us against certain charged particles that get ejected
Speaker 1: by the Sun. And these charged particles have the potential
Speaker 1: to do some pretty serious damage to us if they
Speaker 1: were able to get to us. But through a combination
Speaker 1: of our atmosphere, which also serves as sort of a
Speaker 1: force field, and the magnetic field of the Earth, that
Speaker 1: doesn't happen. Now, what can happen is that we can
Speaker 1: get bombarded with uh energized particles that we will then
Speaker 1: actually see as a result here on Earth. Because you've
Speaker 1: heard of the Aurora borealis, right, Yeah, when we get
Speaker 1: hit by those sort of energized particles, you can get
Speaker 1: some really spectacular aurora. In fact, in years past when
Speaker 1: we've had particularly eventful solar events, there have been aurora's
Speaker 1: reported as far south as like Texas being in which normally,
Speaker 1: you know, you can only see them if you're in
Speaker 1: the really the northern part of the globe, like you know,
Speaker 1: up in Canada. What that's doesn't feel that far north
Speaker 1: to me. It's pretty far north from where we are
Speaker 1: areal but that also makes me feel like raising Dion
Speaker 1: is almost could maybe hypothetically be accurate because everybody got
Speaker 1: their powers from an Aurora borealis. I mean if that
Speaker 1: were the case, though, then you might get your powers
Speaker 1: next time you pass really close to your fridge if
Speaker 1: you happen to have a lot of permanent magnets attached
Speaker 1: to it. Uh don't. I mean I get a lot
Speaker 1: of powers whenever I passed by my fridge. It's called
Speaker 1: the power of making yogurt disappear yogurt. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't have any more weapons. Well that's okay. I
Speaker 1: mean we can talk about a couple of of non
Speaker 1: weapons sci fi gadgets, and like we said, we have
Speaker 1: a lot of these. We know that this is a
Speaker 1: long episode, so well, let's just do a couple more
Speaker 1: aerial and then after that we'll regroup and see if
Speaker 1: we would like to do a part two to this
Speaker 1: sounds good. Well, then if we're only going to do
Speaker 1: a couple, I'm going to focus on one of my
Speaker 1: favorite properties, Doctor who uh exactly uh and doctor who
Speaker 1: is very very famous for a sonic screwdriver, which is
Speaker 1: kind of like a miracle multitool um. You know, each
Speaker 1: doctor creates their own or time Lord and some people
Speaker 1: who are not even doctors have created that them with
Speaker 1: certain technological help. You know, they're only really thwarted by
Speaker 1: wood or deadlock seals, which are also very very vague.
Speaker 1: And the occasional hair dryer can thwart a sonic screwdriver.
Speaker 1: That's dr ten um, and they can. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start there, because even though the sonic screwdriver has grown
Speaker 1: to be this massively powerful, tiny little tool, the original
Speaker 1: was a tool that just was a beam of ultrasonic
Speaker 1: sound that would uh cause something to vibrate, like let's
Speaker 1: say a screwdriver. It would vibrate to loosen the screw
Speaker 1: and then use directional waves to turn the screw sonic screwdriver.
Speaker 1: That was the original form of the sonic screwdriver. That
Speaker 1: seems it could also have an ultrasonic energy lance to
Speaker 1: use as a soldering iron, but that seems a lot
Speaker 1: more plausible than this thing that can self repair and
Speaker 1: send out homing signals to find missing parts. So yeah,
Speaker 1: very basic sonic screwdriver, the basic sonic scoogever you described
Speaker 1: it is interesting, Uh, creating the specific directions is a
Speaker 1: bit of a challenge, though not impossible, and we have
Speaker 1: seen people use sonic waves to do incredible things. There's
Speaker 1: a thing called acoustic levitation, and it's exactly what it
Speaker 1: sounds like. It's using sound waves to make an object
Speaker 1: float uh And it's it's entirely possible because again, when
Speaker 1: you think about what sound waves are, it's really the
Speaker 1: fluctuations of air pressure. It's vibrating air molecules, uh. And
Speaker 1: if you vibrate them in a specific way, you can
Speaker 1: achieve some pretty incredible results. Getting back to that resonant
Speaker 1: frequency idea, if you were to be able to detect
Speaker 1: what the resonant frequency of a specific surface was, and
Speaker 1: then you were able to replicate that at a uh
Speaker 1: an amplitude of volume high enough, you can make that
Speaker 1: thing start to share, make itself apart. So in some
Speaker 1: ways this kind of works like you could create a
Speaker 1: vibration powerful enough or at the really at the right
Speaker 1: frequency to cause something to shake itself to pieces. That's
Speaker 1: entirely possible. You would first have to figure out what
Speaker 1: that resonant frequency is, and a lot of stuff like
Speaker 1: is be kind of tricky to figure that out, whether
Speaker 1: or not you could amplify it enough to to do
Speaker 1: enough of damage to it as another question, but at
Speaker 1: least on that basis of the idea of using sound
Speaker 1: waves to move stuff that's legit using everything else I
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, well, and that also takes out the
Speaker 1: whole thing of sonic screw drivers don't work on wood,
Speaker 1: which occasionally they did, because yeah, no, that's that's entirely true,
Speaker 1: Like there's no reason it wouldn't work on would at
Speaker 1: least for that purpose, Like wood takes vibration really well
Speaker 1: actually so uh yeah, that that honestly makes no sense
Speaker 1: from the perspective of this is working on ultrasonic frequencies
Speaker 1: if it's truly a sonic tool. Um, it's funny because
Speaker 1: we really think of it in storytelling terms as a
Speaker 1: d O sex makina, that idea of the god in
Speaker 1: the machine. This is the the get out of jail
Speaker 1: free card that lets our hero get out of a
Speaker 1: seemingly impossible situation. The writers have written our hero into
Speaker 1: a scenario where they can't figure out any other way
Speaker 1: to get them out, so they have to use a
Speaker 1: tool that magically lets them out of that unless but
Speaker 1: you know, once you create that, you can't make the
Speaker 1: genie go back in the bottle, right, so now the
Speaker 1: genie is out of the bottle. That's why you have
Speaker 1: the deadlocks. So now you yeah, and and and the
Speaker 1: hair dryers just whenever you whenever you need it to
Speaker 1: not work, then you just throw something in there. So
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a two well that does whatever the
Speaker 1: plot needs it to do, and it doesn't work whenever
Speaker 1: the plot needs it to not work, just like superhero characters.
Speaker 1: You get the eternals. All right, So I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: do one more piece of technology from Doctor Who. And
Speaker 1: don't worry. I know this one doesn't exist, but I
Speaker 1: guess my curiosity is whether we have anything that works similarly.
Speaker 1: So Doctor Who uses psychic paper, explain what that does? Uh,
Speaker 1: psychic paper works with fractal lines and weak minds. Doesn't
Speaker 1: work on William Shakespeare though, No two, he's not a
Speaker 1: weak mind, apparently to project what the holder of the
Speaker 1: paper wants the viewer of the paper to see onto
Speaker 1: the paper, which means if you're not particularly strong minded,
Speaker 1: you're not used to using the psychic paper, you don't
Speaker 1: know you're using psychic paper? Could I mean that you're
Speaker 1: just putting out whatever random thoughts you're thinking that the
Speaker 1: other person can see, and that's a whole another can
Speaker 1: of worms. But for the purposes of this conversation, do
Speaker 1: we have anything other than the power of suggestion that
Speaker 1: works similar real? Get ready, because I think I'm going
Speaker 1: to surprise you with this one. Uh, I'm ready. You've
Speaker 1: heard of brain computer interfaces, but explain them to me,
Speaker 1: just just for funzies. So, a brain computer interface is
Speaker 1: exactly what it sounds like. It's a it's a way
Speaker 1: to connect a brain with a computer system, and typically
Speaker 1: it involves invasive surgery, like implanting electrodes into the brain
Speaker 1: of the person who's going to use it. So when
Speaker 1: we talk about implementations of this, it's usually with people
Speaker 1: who have lost mobility. They don't have control of their
Speaker 1: limbs um, and it's a way to try and extend
Speaker 1: their mobility and their intend indens by creating a way
Speaker 1: to interface with computers and robotics just using thought. So
Speaker 1: we started working with these technologies and have made some
Speaker 1: really interesting progress. And it all involves training the person
Speaker 1: to use the technology and train the technology to work
Speaker 1: with the person to get the output that you want. Um.
Speaker 1: And so we have started to see this relationship between
Speaker 1: thought and computer systems that uh, it's not quite the
Speaker 1: same thing. Obviously, it's not the using of suggestion to
Speaker 1: implant uh an idea and to the thoughts of people.
Speaker 1: It's using thought to control technology. However, there have been
Speaker 1: some early experiments that are still in the very early
Speaker 1: phases of using brain to brain communication with a computer
Speaker 1: system as the intermediary. So in other words, you get
Speaker 1: to people who have these brain computer interface UH surgeries
Speaker 1: and they are attempting to send meaningful information to one
Speaker 1: another without ever speaking. They may not even be able
Speaker 1: to speak, and we still have a long way to
Speaker 1: go with that, but there's some interesting promising results to that,
Speaker 1: which could mean you could reach a point where one
Speaker 1: person could potentially implant a thought into another person. There's
Speaker 1: something else that I want to talk about if we
Speaker 1: do a part two to this that involves a different
Speaker 1: technology that it talks about mice and fiber optic lines
Speaker 1: and the implanting of false memories. Uh, these are all possibilities.
Speaker 1: That's that's a little frightening, but it does mean that
Speaker 1: like if I pick up some psychic paper or this
Speaker 1: technology paper, let's paper that can take down these brain
Speaker 1: wave thoughts that I'm sending to it, that it's not
Speaker 1: gonna if I'm unbeknown start spill like my dirty laundry
Speaker 1: and crazy thoughts to the world because I'm holding it.
Speaker 1: Unless I've also had this brain interface. It's not something
Speaker 1: like we're not gonna magically developed telekinetic or telepathic powers.
Speaker 1: There's nothing like that. The power suggestion is a real thing.
Speaker 1: Um you know, it's it's it is. It is possible
Speaker 1: to reshape people's memories so that to them it seems
Speaker 1: as though they're remembering something that really happened, when in
Speaker 1: fact the whole thing was fabricated. We've seen that happen
Speaker 1: where you know, if you just repeat something enough times
Speaker 1: to someone, it gets to a point where in their
Speaker 1: brains it's as if that actually has happened, right Like
Speaker 1: that is something we see that with uh, you know,
Speaker 1: brainwashing techniques too. But it's nothing as as sudden as
Speaker 1: glance at this piece of paper that otherwise will appear blank. However,
Speaker 1: to you, it's going to seem to be whatever it
Speaker 1: is I want you to see, right, We can't can't
Speaker 1: do that. But the again, the elements are there where
Speaker 1: we start to see potential corollaries in the real world.
Speaker 1: It's just not going to appear as the exact implementation
Speaker 1: that we see in Doctor Who, which is a shame
Speaker 1: because everything else in Doctor Who factual. You know, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, look, Doctor Who is two for two
Speaker 1: on possible, so vaguely possible, vaguely possible in the thinnest
Speaker 1: slice of possibility. Uh. In my mind, Doctor Who wins
Speaker 1: the Today's Conversation doing better than Star Wars. Right now,
Speaker 1: we've got We've got a lot more of these. Actually,
Speaker 1: in fact, I'm looking right now through our outline and
Speaker 1: we we haven't even touched on some of the stuff
Speaker 1: that we've got in our outline where we can come
Speaker 1: back and do another one. So Arial, if you're game,
Speaker 1: I'd love to have you back. I would love to
Speaker 1: do well. Something else we want to talk about before
Speaker 1: we sign off is that show that we're launching. It's
Speaker 1: launched today. You can find it on the I Heart Network.
Speaker 1: You can also find it wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and it's called The Large Nerd Drawn Collider. Uh Ariel
Speaker 1: want to give a quick background on what that show
Speaker 1: is all about. Sure, so this show started as my
Speaker 1: brain child, where it was actually a video series where
Speaker 1: we would take some of the geeky things that Jonathan
Speaker 1: and I love and mash them up and kind of
Speaker 1: figure out what that world would look like, not making
Speaker 1: any scientific technology, uh discoveries of our own, sci fi technology,
Speaker 1: discoveries of our own, but a lot of fun. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: video production is so much work. We eventually decided to
Speaker 1: make a podcast sister to it, and I heart picked
Speaker 1: it up, and so now we can share all that
Speaker 1: geekiness with you. We talk about current geek news. We
Speaker 1: talked about current geek topics, discussions like, uh, the Goonies effect,
Speaker 1: where do you love a movie because it's good or
Speaker 1: because you watched it when a kid? Why don't other
Speaker 1: people love that movie? Things like that, And then we
Speaker 1: do take those properties and we mash them up and
Speaker 1: we give you pictures on what those shows are properties.
Speaker 1: The first few episodes are live right now, so you
Speaker 1: can check those out. You can go and subscribe and
Speaker 1: listen to those shows. Um, I promise not all of
Speaker 1: them have me singing in them, but a couple do
Speaker 1: and it's amazing and you do not want to miss it.
Speaker 1: So that that is something really exciting. I hope you
Speaker 1: guys check that out and Ariel, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for agreeing to be on the show. I look forward
Speaker 1: to us continuing this conversation. Uh, thank you for having
Speaker 1: me going to talk about a lot more sci fi
Speaker 1: gadgets and technologies and what you know, how they work
Speaker 1: within their mythical universe versus how would it or if
Speaker 1: it would even work in our real world. We've got
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of stuff like space travel and various
Speaker 1: types of mythical materials, everything from adamantium to myth role.
Speaker 1: I think that might be a quick fire appe. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, like obviously, if you say, like does this
Speaker 1: really exist and I say no, that's that's pretty fast.
Speaker 1: But we can talk about we can talk about what
Speaker 1: does make these materials special and are there any real
Speaker 1: world materials that share those same kind of qualities but
Speaker 1: not not as exotic sounding. We don't have myth role,
Speaker 1: but do we have something that is like myth role
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, and we'll we'll cover all that
Speaker 1: in the next episode. If you guys have suggestions for
Speaker 1: future topics for text stuff, reach out to me on Twitter.
Speaker 1: That's the best place to get in touch with me.
Speaker 1: That would be text stuff hs W. That's the handle,
Speaker 1: and thank you guys so much for listening, and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Text is an I
Speaker 1: heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.