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Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-11 12:43pm
by Star Wars 888
If so, how long would it take (assuming that we survive long enough and that there isn't some disaster that sends us back to the stone age or something)?

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-11 12:59pm
by Srelex
In what way? Most SW tech would require unthinkable amounts of energy or outright violates the laws of physics.

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-11 01:37pm
by SapphireFox
Star Wars 888 wrote:If so, how long would it take (assuming that we survive long enough and that there isn't some disaster that sends us back to the stone age or something)?
Some are outright impossible without making physics your bitch. Others would require more power than would be realistically feasible without also making physics your bitch. Some of it may not be impossible just difficult or improbable.

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-11 02:43pm
by The Vortex Empire
Absolutely not. The majority of Star Wars tech violates physics. And even if it didn't, I'm pretty sure we'll wipe each other out before then.

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-11 03:28pm
by Mobius IO
Like most science fiction there is not really a tech level in star wars to achieve. Instead its more like a WW2 military scaled up and put into space; which works great for telling a story but is not useful at all for projecting what we can achieve given enough time.

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-12 01:18am
by hongi
FTL travel is a physical impossibility, so yeah...

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-12 03:08am
by Guardsman Bass
Beyond the obvious stuff (like the FTL travel), there's the stuff that you don't really think about unless you're seriously trying to quantify capabilities. Like the ludicrously tough and strong building materials that are all over the place in Star Wars.

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-12 03:24am
by Uncluttered
If we could create a basement universe with a custom physics, maybe in 10000 years.
By then, we probably wouldn't care to.

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-12 08:26am
by adam_grif
Nine tenths of everything in Starwars is totally impossible for one reason or another. Unfathomably strong materials, ludicrous energy sources, casual interstellar travel via preposterously fast FTL drives, magical, intelligent energy fields that talk to your cells...

If the stuff WAS possible, we would reach that level in <500 years, because of AI systems doing the heavy intellectual lifting for us.

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-12 09:38pm
by Imperial528
It would depend what one means by "tech level". Obviously, Death Stars, the Force, Galaxy guns, etc. wouldn't be remotely possible. But I can see things like almost-real artificial limbs, ray-shielding, powerful lasers, human-level AI, or even light sabers (although light sabers being a bit of a stretch) in the next five hundred or one thousand years. I could even imagine FTL in the next two thousand, since some methods are very possible, albeit not nearly as wondrous as hyperdrive. (The one that comes to mind I can't remember the exact name of, but something about remaining in one's own light cone somehow made it O.K. to physics)

I could imagine vastly strong (although not the kind of strength durasteel has) materials, most likely in the form of composites or layered materials.

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-13 09:52am
by LionElJonson
If AB-Matter is possible, maybe; how long it'll take to develop the stuff is anyone's guess. It might happen the six hours after the Singularity; it might be a hundred or a thousand years from now. It might never happen, if it's not possible to make the stuff, which is entirely possible.

I hope it is, though, because the ridiculous material strength the stuff has will enable us to build megastructures like Banks Orbitals. Of course, even if it is, the resulting technological base would look rather different; warships would be armed with relativistic cannon and built from super-tough armor, rather than firing turbolasers and surviving damage with energy shields.

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-13 07:48pm
by lordofchange13
before we reach any were near that level we'll destroyer our selves in some stupidly ironic way that every one will slap them selves after words

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-14 01:00am
by The Vortex Empire
Jesus Christ, how difficult is it to spell correctly?
Before we reach anywhere near that level, we'll destroy ourselves in some stupidly ironic way that every one will slap themselves afterward
That last part still isn't right, but I don't know what youre trying to say. Seriously dude, run your posts through microsoft word spellcheck first.
Of course, even if it is, the resulting technological base would look rather different; warships would be armed with relativistic cannon and built from super-tough armor, rather than firing turbolasers and surviving damage with energy shields.
If they're firing relativistic projectiles, then any armor beyond that required for blocking space dust and debris won't make a difference. If you get hit with an empty soda can traveling at .5c, you're dead even with super armor.

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-14 04:56am
by LionElJonson
The Vortex Empire wrote:
Of course, even if it is, the resulting technological base would look rather different; warships would be armed with relativistic cannon and built from super-tough armor, rather than firing turbolasers and surviving damage with energy shields.
If they're firing relativistic projectiles, then any armor beyond that required for blocking space dust and debris won't make a difference. If you get hit with an empty soda can traveling at .5c, you're dead even with super armor.
Actually, with AB-Matter, you need relativistic weapons fire to even scratch the stuff; here is the paper that initially described the theoretical properties of the stuff, and they have absolutely ridiculous properties; a Young's Modulus on the order of 10^32 N/m2, no thermal conductivity and a failure temperature on the order of 10^10K, perfect reflectivity of certain wavelengths of radiation...

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-14 08:22pm
by Junghalli
I don't think we will because a lot of Star Wars tech is based on made-up magic that violates physics.

On the other hand in many important ways I expect us to exceed it in a couple of centuries or perhaps sooner, because as with most soft SF universes their powerful magitech seems grafted to a society that is fundamentally like our own present or past only with a few extra gizmos and in space, with giant lasers. Real life technological development is under no obligation to avoid technologies that transform society into something that would be much more alien.

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-23 09:37pm
by lordofchange13
The Vortex Empire wrote:Jesus Christ, how difficult is it to spell correctly?
Before we reach anywhere near that level, we'll destroy ourselves in some stupidly ironic way that every one will slap themselves afterward
That last part still isn't right, but I don't know what youre trying to say. Seriously dude, run your posts through microsoft word spellcheck first.
For me it is actully realy hard. my spell check sucks ass. And how is the last part roung: right before the bombs or whatever fall 2 scientist will say "damn i could of sow this coming" then a random blond girl will walk up and slap him.

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-25 08:36am
by Ugolino
For me it is actully realy hard. my spell check sucks ass. And how is the last part roung: right before the bombs or whatever fall 2 scientist will say "damn i could of sow this coming" then a random blond girl will walk up and slap him.
Congratulations, you wrote something even less coherent. Does your browser have spell check? If not, I recommend this site: http://www.spellchecker.net/spellcheck/

It won't take long, and people will take you much more seriously if you use it.

On topic: Probably not.

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-25 03:46pm
by Bottlestein
LionElJonson wrote:
Actually, with AB-Matter, you need relativistic weapons fire to even scratch the stuff; here is the paper that initially described the theoretical properties of the stuff, and they have absolutely ridiculous properties; a Young's Modulus on the order of 10^32 N/m2, no thermal conductivity and a failure temperature on the order of 10^10K, perfect reflectivity of certain wavelengths of radiation...
You do realize this article is a joke - don't you? Zero heat capacity :lol:

Re: Will we ever reach Star Wars level technology wise?

Posted: 2010-08-31 04:10pm
by starslayer
Yes, that paper is a joke; one need only look at the sources, spelling, and grammar of the article. The last source given is Wikipedia. WIKIPEDIA. Yeah... Anyway, we will never achieve Star Wars like technology in most areas because it's based on fucking magic, like most everyone has said already.

Also, like The Vortex Empire said, getting hit by so much as an empty soda can at relativistic velocities will do anything in, merely by conservation of momentum as much as anything else. It will transfer a lot of momentum to your ship, it will slow down and release all that energy as heat, and then it will kill you via blowing up/melting your ship. Have fun being free floating carbon atoms!