06-20-2022, 06:35 AM | #11 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: 1822 superscience
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The supposition that particles of chromatin, indistinguishable from each other and indeed almost homogeneous under any known test, can by their material nature confer all the properties of life surpasses the range of even the most convinced maerialism. From his perspective, at least, molecular genetics and the technologies based on it would be superscience.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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06-20-2022, 08:47 AM | #12 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: 1822 superscience
A quick look reinforced my idea that before Maxwell you didn't have such a thing. At 1822 you have wave theory of light pulling ahead of particle theory of light (which was championed by Newton) but it's not until well into the 1900s that you get the necessity of wave-particle duality and you're into quantum mechncis then.
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Fred Brackin |
06-20-2022, 10:03 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: 1822 superscience
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I think a lot of modern science in 1822 would fall into the "unobtainium" category rather than the "impossible" category -- i.e. "X would be possible if Y existed, but as far as we know Y doesn't exist". |
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06-20-2022, 10:52 AM | #14 |
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: Brazil
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Re: 1822 superscience
Nuclear energy was considered to be "science fiction" all the way up to the beggining of the 20th century.
Anything Relativity or Quantum Mechanics is basically superscience for the 19th century. So, our GPS "it's like magic!" Genetic Engineering in all forms. For the 19th century, our modern gene manipulation would be as "scientific" as the monster "Adam" of Dr. Frankeinstein. Airplanes! Flight was considered impossible. Airplanes for the 19th century would be as "scientific" as Star Trek FTL Warp Drives to us. How does that work? Magic! Sending rockets out of our own atmosphere would be as ridiculous as flying carpets. |
06-20-2022, 11:23 AM | #15 | |||
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
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Re: 1822 superscience
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Heavier than air powered flight was considered impossible. The first balloon went aloft November 21, 1783 and a glider was well within TL 5 technology. There was even an attempt by a monk (Eilmer of Malmesbury) in the 11th-century. Man-lifting kites go back to the 9th century and appeared in Europe in the 1820s (George Pocock used his own kids to test the things). Actually the story of a Chinese official who supposed tried to launch himself into space by having forty-seven rockets strapped to a chair and lit simultaneously could have been known in 1822 Europe. So the idea wouldn't have been seen as that off the wall bonkers.
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06-20-2022, 11:29 AM | #16 | ||
Join Date: Jan 2014
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Re: 1822 superscience
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They had hot air balloons and gliders. They understood Newtonian motion (action/reaction). The missing piece is energy density, and is that not one of the key features of futuristic tech levels? |
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06-20-2022, 11:41 AM | #17 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: 1822 superscience
The idea of transparency, and selective transparency, was known, though they didn't understand how to determine it. As such, the idea of a wavelength that walls are transparent to would be unobtainium (not forbidden, but doesn't exist as far as we know).
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06-20-2022, 11:53 AM | #18 | ||||
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: 1822 superscience
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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06-20-2022, 11:54 AM | #19 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: 1822 superscience
You need to more than admit to it when it is discovered. You need a coherent theory that predicts its' existence before it is discovered. You don't get that before Maxwell.
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Fred Brackin |
06-20-2022, 11:59 AM | #20 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: 1822 superscience
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Consider, for example, undiscovered elements. Mendeleev made a big impression by pointing out gaps in his "periodic table," predicting that elements would be found to fill them, and estimating their properties, and having his predictions borne out. In popular fiction, this led to talk of "new elements" without any attempt to fit them into the periodic table, which of course is pure pseudoscience (kryptonite being the most famous example). But there were also stories about transuranic elements that postulated that they were more or less stable and had various useful properties. I don't think it was initially known that such elements had no stable forms. So were the postulated high-atomic-number elements pseudoscience (because we know now that they're impossible) or superscience (because finding stable forms would contradict now known science) or superscience in a broader sense (because at the time they simply hadn't been discovered)?
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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