Damien Broderick wrote:
> Transhuman Mailing List > > http://cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/99/0820/cs2.html > > Arthur's timescale for nano is rather conservative, but it worries me more > (as I've said before) that he continues to places credence in `cold fusion' > (even giving Pons and Fleischman a Nobel in a few years). Or does he, after > all, know something we don't...?
Jonathan Post and I have discussed this very topic. Neithe of us thinks ACC has any special knowledge about 'cold fusion', nor about tapping the vacuum energy. Example: a claim that Siberians are already using cold fusion reactors as home heating does not have any supporting evidence.
Excerpts from:
"the 21st century
BEYOND 2001"
By Arthur C. Clarke
[[My commentary in these brackets:]]
"In spite of the temptation, I have omitted many
interesting and all-too-possible disasters,
because optimism about the future is always
desirable; it may help to create a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
[[Oth, talking about it now may help prevent it, by being forewarned.]]
2002 The first commercial device producing
clean, safe power by low-temperature nuclear
reactions goes on the market, heralding the end
of the Fossil-Fuel Age. Economic and
geopolitical earthquakes follow, and, for their
discovery of so-called "Cold Fusion" in 1989,
Pons and Fleischmann receive the Nobel Prize
for Physics.
[[I do not think this is a viable prospect- at all.]]
2006 The world's last coal mine closed in India.
[[Coal deposits comprise the largest segment of easily obtainable
petrochemical resourses on Earth. They will be mined until they
run out, or until space resourses are cheaper, maybe by 2040.]]
2009 A city in North Korea is devastated by the
accidental explosion of an A-bomb. After a brief
debate in the U.N., all nuclear weapons are
destroyed.
[[2001 A city in the US is devastated by a black
market nuclear device that rode in on a sailboat.*
Martial law is declared.
*Confession: I smuggled two cases of BC Grower's Apple Cider (Medium) into the US on a low-observable sailboat in the early 1980's. The payload mass was of the same order as a physics package.]]
2010 The first Quantums Generators (tapping
space energy) are developed. Available in
portable and household units from a few
kilowatts upward, they can produce electricity
indefinitely. Central power stations close down;
the age of pylons ends as grid systems are dismantled.
[[Barf.]]
[[2010 In spite of EFF, ACLU, Amnesty International, BB and Little Brother
monitor all
domestic and international communications using intelligent dictionaries, AI
correlators,
ubiquitous microtech surveillance.
Professional criminals run the government.]]
2014 Construction of Hilton Orbiter Hotel begins, by
assembling and converting
the giant Shuttle tanks which had previously been allowed to
fall back to Earth.
[[2004 The Shuttle has finally been killed for good, ushering in a new era of
economic spaceflight.]]
2016 All existing currencies are abolished. The megawatt-hour becomes the
unit of exchange.
[[2011 All existing currencies are inflated into oblivion. Gold resumes its
rightful place.]]
2017 December 16. On his 100th birthday, Sir Arthur
Clarke is
guests in the Hilton Orbiter.
[[I dearly hope this come about.]]
[[2017 The various states that used comprise China stop nuking each other.]]
2020 Artificial Intelligence (AI) reaches the human level.
>From now onward there
are two intelligent species on Planet Earth, one
evolving far
biology would ever permit. Interstellar probes carrying AIs
are launched toward
the nearer stars.
[[2020 AO (artificial organisms) merged with ex-humans, create a
mulitplicity of
"species". A
new, post-biological vocabulary is required.]]
2021 The first humans land on Mars, and have some unpleasant
surprises.
[[2015 The first cyborgs arrive to claim Mars, Earth has some unpleasant
surprises.]]
2057 October 4. Centennial of Sputnik 1.
[[2057 There are no more numerologists or Christians.]]
The dawn of the space age is
celebrated by humans not only on Earth, but on the Moon,
Mars,
Ganymede and Titan - and in orbit round Venus, Neptune and
Pluto.
2095 The development of a true "space drive" - a propulsion
system reacting
against the structure of space time - makes the rocket
obsolete and permits
velocities close to that of light. The first human explorers
set off to nearby star
systems that robot probes have already found promising.
[[2095 There are no more "humans".]]
Forrest
-- Forrest Bishop Manager, Interworld Productions, LLC Chairman, Institute of Atomic-Scale Engineering http://www.speakeasy.org/~forrestb