1822 superscience

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

What 2022 RL technology would be superscience from the viewpoint of an 1822 GURPS, if GURPS existed two hundred years ago?

As in completely revolutionary and inexplicable in terms of early 19th c. science, such that even a trained scientist wouldn't be able to work out how a high-tech artifact works?

Certainly, anything to do with high energy radiation or cosmology.

Electricity was beginning to be understood, but electronics using vacuum tubes are about 80 years away and transistors are about 130 years away. The mechanisms of highly miniaturized electronics, like a modern smart phone, might not be observable using period microscopy, thus making such devices seem like superscience.

Computers would only be imperfectly understood as "thinking machines" or "automatons". The conceptual algebra that led to computer programs was still 20-40 years away in 1822, and the concept of applying such logic to electronic devices was about 110 years away.

Many of the elements on the upper end of the periodic table weren't discovered until the mid- to late-19th century, so anything made with rare earth elements would be the classic "metal unknown to science."

Materials such as aluminum, plastic, or composites would also be inexplicable. Aluminum was a precious metal until widespread electricity make it economical to refine. A scientist could quickly determine the material, but not how so much precious metal came to be. The nearest thing to plastic would be soft natural rubber or horn. Vulcanized rubber was still a decade away and widespread use of hydrocarbon-based chemicals, except as fuels, was about 40-50 years away. Composites might be described as some sort of ceramic or metal. The material chemistry involved is sufficiently complex that scientists might not be able to figure out how they were made or even what they were made of.

Taken out of context, just about any device used to control a high tech gadget would be inexplicable, e.g., a TV remote without a TV. Scientists could probably figure out what it was made of, but would have no clue what it is supposed to do. ("Possibly, a ritual object.")

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

As in completely revolutionary and inexplicable in terms of early 19th c. science, such that even a trained scientist wouldn't be able to work out how a high-tech artifact works?

Certainly, anything to do with high energy radiation or cosmology.

Electricity was beginning to be understood, but electronics using vacuum tubes are about 80 years away and transistors are about 130 years away. The mechanisms of highly miniaturized electronics, like a modern smart phone, might not be observable using period microscopy, thus making such devices seem like superscience.

Computers would only be imperfectly understood as "thinking machines" or "automatons". The conceptual algebra that led to computer programs was still 20-40 years away in 1822, and the concept of applying such logic to electronic devices was about 110 years away.

Many of the elements on the upper end of the periodic table weren't discovered until the mid- to late-19th century, so anything made with rare earth elements would be the classic "metal unknown to science."

Materials such as aluminum, plastic, or composites would also be inexplicable. Aluminum was a precious metal until widespread electricity make it economical to refine. A scientist could quickly determine the material, but not how so much precious metal came to be. The nearest thing to plastic would be soft natural rubber or horn. Vulcanized rubber was still a decade away and widespread use of hydrocarbon-based chemicals, except as fuels, was about 40-50 years away. Composites might be described as some sort of ceramic or metal. The material chemistry involved is sufficiently complex that scientists might not be able to figure out how they were made or even what they were made of.

Taken out of context, just about any device used to control a high tech gadget would be inexplicable, e.g., a TV remote without a TV. Scientists could probably figure out what it was made of, but would have no clue what it is supposed to do. ("Possibly, a ritual object.")

Oh, plastic is a good one. It would be the "Vibranium" or the "Orichalcum" of the "Royal Gurps". A magic material of completely mysterious origin, composition and fabrication.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Computers would only be imperfectly understood as "thinking machines" or "automatons". The conceptual algebra that led to computer programs was still 20-40 years away in 1822, and the concept of applying such logic to electronic devices was about 110 years away.

Charles Babbage built his first difference engine in 1822. Of course the difference engine (unlike the later analytical engine) wasn't a general purpose automaton. But his plan for an analytical engine dates to 1837, slightly less than 20 years away.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

I didnt mean ballons. I meant airplanes. "To flight like the birds". That was considered superscience, at least by all engineers of the 19th century. They did thought at the time that, while not against the laws of science, it were against any possible engineering.

But that isn't what GURPS calls "superscience". As GURPS defines it "“Superscience” technologies violate physical laws – relativity, conservation of energy, etc. – as we currently understand them." B.513, emphasis added.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

But that isn't what GURPS calls "superscience". As GURPS defines it "“Superscience” technologies violate physical laws – relativity, conservation of energy, etc. – as we currently understand them." B.513, emphasis added.

The thing is that definition makes "superscience" impossible before the 19th century, and pretty difficult early in it, and it ends up excluding a lot of stuff we definitely *would* label superscience. For example most Star Trek technobabble particles - our understanding of the universe certainly admits unknown subatomic particles are possible (and indeed seems to increasingly [demand] them with dark matter) and that we don't know a lot about how they would behave on a macro scale. That doesn't mean we don't classify phased nadion beams or tetrion radiation as something other than ordinary science.

I think a better distinction might be how much detail does the writer have to make up out of unsupported nothing. If you wanted to write a story about super high or low frequency light in 1820, that would be virtually everything, from how it was produced to what its effects were. With the "impossible" definition, well, the odds of your being right would be quite small, but if you did get amazingly lucky the story isn't "superscience", while if you guessed wrong it is, even if nobody knows which is which yet? That seems odd.

I'm not even so sure something needs to be "impossible" to merit the category. Medicine for example can get the superscience label for miracle cures, even if they are miracle cures for things that people do occasionally survive. It's not that recovery is impossible, the "super" part is you can obtain it reliably. I think surgery might be in this category in the early 19th century - sure if you could somehow keep the patient still for the procedure and prevent infection it might be *possible*, but nobody could do that, and look the author had to make up these imaginary chemical sedation agents and anti-infection drugs to make the story work....

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

While the definition of "superscience" in GURPS is sometimes a little wobbly, there's generally a sense that it isn't just "advanced", it's "using currently unknown scientific principles", which in turn tends to mean "breaks currently known scientific principles".

So I don't think electromagnetic wavelengths beyond IR and UV need to count as "1822 superscience"; once you have the idea of EM radiation as a wave, playing with the idea of very long and very short wavelengths is simply building on what's known. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, would look like pure woo. (Let's face it, it still does sometimes, even when we know it works.) Which in turn helps push microelectronics into the superscience category; electricity was known in 1822, and one can imagine a speculative writer building on ideas about motors and lighting, but once you start trying to explain how semiconductors work, people's heads will start spinning.

Thing is that's getting too far into the nitty gritty of how things work. I mean we haven't the faintest clue how the innards of TL 9+ power cells work, or TL 10+ computers. We just assume that we'll come up with something, that we won't run into a hard limit to those technologies in the near future. If GURPS 1822 says you can buy little boxes that can communicate through the already postulated aether and communicate with a repository of all knowledge the players are going to shrug and not quarrel with it. They don't know enough to say "That's not possible".

Similarly, genetics would be comprehensible in principle, though the ideas involved hadn't been pulled together at this date, but explaining genetic engineering would be tricky, because you'd have to explain atomic theory in some detail to explain DNA, and while that doesn't violate many fundamental principles, it's just way, way beyond what's understood. I think you'd just have to label it "superscience" or imagine your 1822 SF writer working through two centuries of development in multiple fields, none of it absolutely incomprehensible but all overwhelming by sheer volume.

Except that once again writers of the game aren't going to get that technical with how their future wonders are going to work. I mean let's face it real GURPS Biotech doesn't really explain how germline engineering works or the mechanics of cloning.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

But that isn't what GURPS calls "superscience". As GURPS defines it "“Superscience” technologies violate physical laws – relativity, conservation of energy, etc. – as we currently understand them." B.513, emphasis added.

Wouldnt it be superscience a technology whose engineering is considered impossible?

For example, the market of microchips is almost reaching the apex of technological improvement, because soon they will start to be manufactured at the atomic level, thus further miniaturization wont be possible. Wouldnt it be considered superscience to go beyond that barrier of design (not of science)?

Another example: lets say for example that Warp Drive is found out to be theoretically possible... But current engineering claims you'd need the energy of a star to do it.

Wouldnt a new engineering model capable to overcome such a barrier be considered superscience today?

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Thing is that's getting too far into the nitty gritty of how things work. I mean we haven't the faintest clue how the innards of TL 9+ power cells work, or TL 10+ computers. We just assume that we'll come up with something, that we won't run into a hard limit to those technologies in the near future. If GURPS 1822 says you can buy little boxes that can communicate through the already postulated aether and communicate with a repository of all knowledge the players are going to shrug and not quarrel with it. They don't know enough to say "That's not possible".

Excuse me my noble sir. What is it that our intrepidous Gurps 1822 postulates about theorical TL8?

What? Communication boxes? Working on some futuristic fuel beyond steam? PREPOSTEROUS. Gentleman - and ladies, obviously. I believe that we all can agree that we are enlightned people from our enlightned era. Gurps 1822 is undoubtly the most refined and sofisticated game of our time, but clearly this is too extravagant of a proposition. Technological boxes using the aether to communicate sounds like magic. I think we can all agree that this should be moved to the select field of "superscience", for those thought inspiring ideas that are nonetheless too fantastic to ever be true.

More tea anyone?

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The thing is that definition makes "superscience" impossible before the 19th century, and pretty difficult early in it, and it ends up excluding a lot of stuff we definitely *would* label superscience.

Yes, that's right. The more you know, the more things would surprise you. The fewer scientific laws and principles have been accepted, the fewer suggested possibilities would break them.

This reminds me of something that Isaac Asimov wrote about the origins of science fiction, arguing that science fiction was impossible before the readers (and writer types) became aware that science was making new discoveries and enabling really new technology.

You can't have superscience before you have science.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Wouldnt it be superscience a technology whose engineering is considered impossible?

In the Spaceships series David Pulver used the term "limited superscience", which I jokingly define thus: "physicists don't know it's impossible, but engineers do".

An example would be reaction engines such as the Nuclear-saltwater rocket and the TL10 fusion torch, which obey all conservation laws, but the performance characteristics of which imply a temperature in the reaction chamber at which no possible material would remain solid. The reason it's a joke is that the relevant scientists (materials scientists and condensed-matter physicists) do understand why the walls of the reaction chamber can't be that hot, and thermodynamicists do understand how reaction temperature limits exhaust speed in a thermal rocket.