On 10/25/2015 9:48 PM, Craig Berry wrote:
> Yes, but 1850s science and engineering still work. We sent humans to
> the Moon using 17th-century physics; on the scales involved, Newton is
> close enough.
>
> I have no trouble at all with science and tech that go completely
> beyond anything we know, "Hardness", for me, is about consistency of
> extrapolation. Just for example, high-endurance, high-g reactionless
> drives are not consistent with physics as we understand them, but they
> help move stories along so I'm happy to have them. But once you let
> them in, you have to explain why 0.9c lifeboats aren't an existential
> threat to every populated world in the Imperium.
>
> Grav-focused lasers are another great example. If you do the math, you
> quickly realize that the coherent traveling gravitic anomaly you need
> to "herd" the light is itself vastly more dangerous than the light
> itself. So why isn't everyone using grav weapons (and calling them that)?

Perhaps going back to CT or MT and ditching all the "hard science"
attempts to quantify things using what we know today would be the best
route?

While what we know in 1850 still works, in 1850 we didn't know what we
know today nor did we even conceive of the concepts or developments
across the board that would make things practical.  You couldn't even
refine aluminum for a reasonable price and what you did refine was more
valuable than gold...and yet now it's ubiquitous throughout our daily lives.

I guess the crux of my argument is that just because we can't do it
today, there's no reason why given another couple thousand years and
trillions of minds throughout those years working on the problems that
an answer can't be found.  I mean, this isn't like trying to find the
right answer when the wife asks, "do these jeans make my ass look fat?"  ;-)

--
Kurt Feltenberger
xxxxxx@thepaw.org/xxxxxx@yahoo.com
“Before today, I was scared to live, after today, I'm scared I'm not
living enough." - Me