People most likely said the same thing about the submarine when Jules Vern published 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

All I'm saying......

Agreeing with COMPLEXEDONE, the writer here has little understanding of what he says. I will give him 1,2,7,8.

But for 3 come, come the only limitation with the use of cellphones as distributed echolocation (very bat like) is the processing power needed to convert the incoming signals to something useful. See ultra-sonic ringtones as used by teenagers to show the devices audio output is capable, an update of the firmware with a generated IF mixer would allow reception of the echo and since all US cellphones are required to be location aware by law the only matter left is to network them and feed the resulting data into something powerful.

Amd as for 4, what is the objection. It was proved back in the 1950's that it was possible to build a nuclear grenade of less than 2kg. The only reasons not to deploy were the radiation does you would get from carrying it and that you could not throw it far enough to avoid the blast.

With todays technology, densified alloys for shielding and blast conversion, much smaller neutron initiators and the insanity to build it (see green goblin's psychosis). A hand held miniature neutron bomb should be possible, even a hand held EMP device if your interests are Luddite in nature.

There is hover technology in the u.s. military. They use air power to lift themselves.

hover boards may be easy enough. they fly low enough to the ground to be able to ionize the air underneath the board and create lift (credit to the mythbusters ep68?) The only question is how much electricity do you need to be able to ionize the air fast enough to create enough lift to a person. Second is creating a foot control to push some of the air to the rear and push you forward as well. Actually this seems like the most likely of the bunch by far!!!!!!

Spiderman's webs are NOT unrealistic, in fact Spiderman is the only (major) superhero with superpowers that is possible.

Charlie, you're overlooking the INCREDIBLE psychological effect of these huge, thundering mechanized beasts bearing down on you! Sure something zippier like the snowspeeders are faster and more effective weapons, but what could be more intimidating than a Walker? I'm sure they could frighten some into surrendering without firing a shot!

Good One IORI... Very thoughtful indeed...

I'm afraid I have to disagree with Ramriot about the cellphones. It is certainly not impossible to have cellphones emit non-audible sound pulses or to time the echos, but as far as I know there is no way to determine the direction of the returning echos using a single microphone. So at best you would have a bunch of distances to people's faces and the inside of pockets.

Even if you could the GPS receiver in a phone has no idea what orientation the phone is in and doesn't have enough accuracy to make the kind of 3D images Batman uses.

If they left it as a system that hacked cell phone calls and then used the GPS to find the phone it would have been much more plausible.

Actually now that I think about it, you could, obviously, use the fact that you have multiple phones to work out direction, but I still don't think you could obtain 3D images because of the GPS limitations

Using cellphone signals would require a system of insanely sensitive detectors ranged citywide. And the detectors would need to be able to distinguish individual signals and record their echoes and attenuation from several points at very precise levels at very high resolution. Then you only need a massively huge system of parallel processing at incredible speeds to produce an image in 3D and with X-Ray view capabilities. It would require an active signal from many phones, which you would have, if they were GPS enabled and constantly transmitting their location. Possible someday, but not right now, as far as you know.

I think Batman's phone thing was using the signals of people's phones to produce (sound) waves like a bat and thus giving off the 3D image much like a sonar when they bounce off the buildings and such. Also maybe he was at the same time looking for Joker's voice frequency. [Batman Beyond]

Oh well.. Brass Orchid had not posted his comment by the time I started mines, his is better explained. and I also should have said Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker he does this.

Crazy as those Sixth Day syncorders were, the film had a sense of humour about the whole crazy business of cloning people, but also had a serious message, as you see at the end with the doctor (Robert Duvall). Plus more cool tech, such as those variable configuration helicopters, even though they were trying to fly with one wing facing backwards...

@freakwars;
Yeah, we've got hover technology all right. They're called helicopters.

forget the hoverboard wheres the self tying nikes that he wore why cant we create this tech we have shoes we have elastic we havesprings tiny computer chips wheres that at?

Well, at least you didn't pick on Iron Man for its Arc Reactor.

The Imperial walkers don't strike me as half as senseless as the snow speeders, whose rear gunner's sole armament is a tow cable. WTF?

If you read the book, or if the movie were more than kind of related to the book... The Meteors in Starship troopers are launched using unknown methods to achieve faster than light speeds. Its part of the whole "their just bugs! Oh wait they just did something smart, thats weird" thing.

But yeah the movie totally ignored that...

You're an idiot....they are movies. Why do they have to have ANY grounding in reality?

You guys forgot to mention Spock's marshmallow synthesizer from Star Trek V. Can you think of a less versatile piece of technology?

Amusing list, but it all boils down to one thing. When you go to the movies, you have to exercise a "willing suspension of disbelief". If I failed to utilize that for every movie, well...there wouldn't be a single entertaining piece of celluloid in existence.

I'm with TLC and Ken on this, too. Hell, I nitpick things all the time, but I usually try to keep it narrowed to things that are already awful. All of these movies are Sci-Fi. Science Fiction. Emphasis on Fiction.

So who do you think would win in a fight between Superman and Mighty Mouse? Pretty stupid question ,huh? So is this article considering that it's all make believe.

Boring examples. Weak commentary.

Who would win in a fight between Superman and Might Mouse, isn't it obvious, The Green Goblin

There are two items missing from this list that should be numbers one and two (maybe this is why you only did eight items?).

2. The High Tension Wire Cutting Device mounted under the BWM hood logo in Tomorrow Never Dies. How exactly did Q anticipate the bad guys would place their high tension wire at exactly that height?

1. Star Trek Teleporter. Completely and utterly unrealistic. Even more unrealistic -- if you can believe it -- than orange painted grenades (how did that one make the list?).

And if they're going to have such a device why didn't they use it as a weapon? Thugs are threatening Kirk on the Planet Wampatu! I say we teleport their lungs into outer space! Yay, Kirk is saved.

That's how I would done it.

3. Cellphone Tracker in The Dark Knight - ummmm..you dou know that your phone already is a spy and tracking device for government, dont you?

Anything to do with time travel is stupid, IMO.

So many examples, so little time. How about taking something real (space shuttle) in the movie Armageddon, and having it fly around like a super nimble jet fighter (in outer specae where there is not air to act on the wings and enable such maneuvers). Also, in real like a small hole in the tiles and the shuttle disintegrates, in this movie it bounces off of rock formations like they weren't there. Totally absurd.

@ramriot, rampantgnome, brass orchid:

The only real flaw in the cellphones-as-sonar plan is the accuracy of the location awareness.

If triangulating on cell towers, accuracy is about 1km (two thirds of a mile) or so.

Even if using GPS, the consumer-grade system is only accurate to within 3-15 metres (10-50 feet).

Any kind of signal-based ranging is dependent upon knowing the location of your transmitter(s) - it would be... I won't say impossible because I'm sure someone could prove me wrong, but certainly very difficult to compensate for these margins of error.

For the moment, let's assume bruce wayne paid to have additional coverage of gotham to create signal relays to increase the signal strength of all cell phones. Batman couldn't have used the service provider's network because he need an extraordinary amount of bandwidth. Now then, we'll assume use of GPS and Ultrasonic frequencies, both of which are allowable at this time. The phone is only transmitting data, it is not doing any of the computation, and sending an audio signal alongside GPS location isn't beyond a cellphone's capabilities. With a high population density for cell phones, multiple phones would be able to pick up multiple voices, and if two three or four cellphones report back the same voice, a triangulation of the surroundings could be acheived based upon GPS location... the greater number of cellphones within range the greater the accuracy. Batman's "Stereoscopic vision" created through this method was constantly changing, wavering, distorted, but clear enough for the audience to grasp the visual... it would have broken down though in the tower scene where there was only one cell phone present. X ray vision has nothing to do with it, that's just how echolocation works...ultimately it would come down to rendering time and power... Batman's rendering engine would had to have been a little beyond the current level of supercomputers to provide instantaneous calculations of several hundreds of thousands of cellphones

Iori: See the Onion's "Boy Bitten by Radioactive Spider Dies of Leukemia" article.

No love for the EM guns in "Eraser"? So many glorious implausibles that I took it as the writers intended on sending an big "f-you" to their high school physics teachers.

You guys take that much to seriously. EVERY science fiction movie is absurd in technical terms. Which is true for our current understanding of technology.

That doesn't mean however, that there won't be technology in hundreds of years, which can realise things always thought impossible.

I mean we have airplanes... big ones... and if you look at them you KNOW they can't fly, because it's just friggin impossible how such a big A380 should ever take off. Every person from 100 years ago will confirm you that.

I'm dating myself, and this item isn't "technology" per se. The film "Robinson Crusoe on Mars" was originally marketed as being scientifically accurate in all its details. In the opening (I think it was pre-credits) scene a spaceship orbiting Mars is in radio communication with the Earth -- with no time lag. The scientific accuracy goes downhill from there.

Submarines were used in the American Civil War in 1863. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea wasn't published until 1870. Just sayin'.

Terrible article. I was hoping for a little entertainment. Instead, for the most part it's all "Such-and-such tech is absurd!! Why? Because!!!".

Reads as if written by a 9 year old.

Where is the Star Trek "Universal Translator". I would have expected to see this one for sure. That think could translate languages of unknown origin!

In the movie Starship troopers, they do mention that the bugs sent it through hyperspace or whatever they use. I think the Roger Young was actually in hyperspace when it was hit by the asteroid on its way to earth.

8 absurd devices? You're commenting on bad devices in movies??? First they're entertainment, and if you know these devices, you probably saw these movies which they succeeded to entertain you in the first place and they made money off you, even with being "sooo bad". My simple philosophy... "If you do not notice pain in your behind, after sitting on it for 2 hours, the movie succeeded in entertaining you." Second, so if they are so bad... get your ideas into movies, or give a better alternative. Third, you can't put complete realism into films or else where would that leave your imagination. If you don't like it watch documentaries.

It's called Science FICTION for a reason.....And just because the technology does not exist today does not mean that it will not in the future, you never know. Just enjoy the movies and try to be less of a geek.

I agree with most comments. this article was silly. Now I agree with the ATATs, very cool but very impracticle. What got me was you point out the device in sixth day and i am with you but then you knock it because you think it does it too fast???? How about they wouldnt use the eyes, we have machines now that measure brain waves, it should resemble such. The rest are actually borderline possible given a few advances so bad pick.

NEEEEEEEEEEEEERDS!

This article is full of FAIL....

First of all, I expected this list to be full of gadgets and technology whose very premise was stupid, silly, or useless...not simply very unlikely. Things more along the line of the AT-AT....it's perfectly plausible and is cool and everything, but sort of pointless....I mean when you have star-ships and planes that can FLY over any terrain, why WALK?

Secondly, in many cases the author *REALLY* overstates how unlikely the technologies in the article are. Most of the tech in this article could be conceivably created, although most of it is pretty implausible without some sort of major breakthrough in the related scientific fields.

EXTRA FAIL - when I originally submitted this comment I was told I entered the CAPTCHA wrong, despite it being entered correctly...damn fault CAPTCHA's....

Syncords not so far fetched based on current research.

Recording the visual processing of images by the brain.

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2008/12/scientists-extract-images-directly-from-brain/

Initiating playback in neural circuits with visual images.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/07/scientists-sugg.html

Floating Hoverboards also not that far fetched.

Diamagnetism can levitate droplets of water and animals in a laboratory.

http://www.hfml.ru.nl/phystod.html

The inflection point required for levitation is not always intuitive and is not strength based.

It would almost seem logical the first anti-diamagnetic superconductor outside the lab would be used as a toy.. and would be inverted to "push" against ordinary ground... or water.

In fact it should be easier and smoother to cruise over water.

Cell phone tracker not that hard either.

Since its a "phased array" or sythentic apeture sonar array.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_aperture_sonar

But I believe the idea was to call all the phones silently and send out a subsonic pilot beam.. such that the coordinates of all the transceivers could be instantly determined and translated into relative coordinates.

Then its simply a matter of "recieving sound" how many times have you inadvertently sat on your phone and dialed a number? The phone doesn't exactly light up like a christmas tree..

Eaves drop on the sound an put voice recognizers for content or person on the input and find the source.. then look up the coordinated of those cells phones and triangulate.

A third grader could do it.. its not exactly rocket science.

About the batman sonar phones... These have already been pretty well attacked, but I have to add my two cents. :P Firstly, it should be clear that a cell phone is incapable of this. For starters, the firmware in most phones uses echo suppression, which makes this impossible. A few, more sophisticated phones use echo cancellation (they are different technologies) which also render this impossible. Also, without hacking the phone beforehand, you could not use it in such a way without calling and being answered.

Moving on, some have argued that you can use a cell phone for sonar scanning. While this is true, you get a very inaccurate result and you don't know which direction you're scanning in. Neither sonar nor radar are capable of multi-direction scanning. Above and beyond that, even if you could tell which direction you are listening in, and somehow change that direction, a cell phone lacks the processing power or software to render a 3D image such as is found in the movie -- the raw data would have to be sent back to the computer for analysis, and such time-sensitive data as sonar pings would be completely corrupted by latencies in network traffic.

And since I'm heavily overanalyzing this (I'm having fun though, so it's OK. ;) I'll listen to the argument that using multiple phones could provide direction to the pings. This is true, but how do you know which phone is where? Most phones don't have GPS, or accelerometers (mine has both, but that's beside the point) so they can't know position or orientation. Also noteworthy is that GPS is inaccurate, especially in a cell phone, and doesn't give a precise enough location for this to matter. Not to mention, the first example of this in the movie had only one phone, so this is ruled out entirely.

Oh, and hoverboards aren't that implausible -- you could probably use them magnetically, if you had a massive field generator somewhere. Not sure. That aside, you could certainly use more conventional means of air displacement, but generating the power to sustain flight for any real time would be very difficult.

Pumpkin bomb.. well okay perhaps a bit of poetic license here.

Any intense beam or blast of light can penetrate flesh and be attentuated by bone.

Rather than instantly disintegrate flesh.. perhaps its more like expose people to an instantly fatal dose of ionizing radiation?

The most effective and yet portable method would be like a mega-X-Ray machine.. best way ro do that would be putting something like a Microwave Magnetron inside of a Copper ball.. and deploy it.

The power source would have to be high voltage for only a few seconds. A Hydrogen Flourine fuel cell or something like it would probably be sufficient... now why not just toss Flurine around?

Because in a battle situation you'd want the area not to be toxic to your troups after.

Funny how they kinda got the colors right.. Copper and Yellow Green content.

Anybody here care to tell me what Isaac Asimov considered to be "SCI-FI" in his books? Oh wait could it be, I think it just might be, no that can't be COMPUTERS. That's right folks. Oh how about the fact that people didn't believe we would be able to fly faster than the speed of sound. Just some food for thought.

I think that just because we cant do it now and that its beyond our current tech level dosent make it impossible. Maybe we will be able to achieve some amazing results some time in the future. My original comment didnt go through and this one isnt comming out as well, but 100 years ago people hadnt thought of alot of what we have now to even be possible... Where will we be in another 100 years... how about another 1000? Give it time...

I find it is far more interesting to try and come up with a way that allow the ridiculous/obviously impossible aspects of movies to make perfect sense.

Among the 8 mentioned in the article, I find the Star Wars walkers the easiest to explain: Old technology.

Yeah, there were spaceships and light sabers but the problem with new technology is that it unfortunately costs money. It doesn't take much research to find out that a lot of the U.S. military helicopters, planes, etc. are past their prime, but they are kept around because they are either still reliable or too expensive to replace all of them with their better more advanced counterparts.

So why do they have gigantic walkers? Probably because they were considered state of the art in a time before gigantic destroyer ships and clever podracers with grappling hooks to trip them (walking war machines isn't a bright idea for many reasons, but that's a discussion for another day), so they were mass produced for the army and are now obsolete, but still in use due to the prohibitive cost in replacing them with something better.

I will say this, it's possible to tap into the T-carrier lines of the cell phone towers by breaking in. Perhaps this is what Batman did. Then it's just a simple matter of locating which cell phone was closest to the Joker.

Isn't sci-fi short for science FICTION ? Since when does it have to be completely believable?

All of these examples are beat by the 3 seashells in Demolition Man...

1. Its like taking a photo, but of the brain. Right now its not possible, but eventually it will be completely. Just look at MRI machines they give you instant views of the brain. That most likely is the first step towards that type of machine.
2. completely possible with todays technology. You setup something like a magrail system under streets, with magnetic walls that would keep you from falling of the system. And someone could easily control that with a remote in their hand. Sure it would be expensive but possible non the less.
3. Well the cellphone tracker, as long as your cell phone is on it works as a gps devise. And what they did in BM was it sent out a signal such as bats do(clearly you didn't watch the movie). which caught the signal back sent it back to the BM supercomputer which converted it into a 3d live feed. So technically this is possible, except that few phones would have the capability to send and receive such signals.
4 well this can be done, but with extreme heat to burn everything of off the bone. (look at pompay and what happened to the people, though it needs to be faster) or some kind of extreme acid which would be able to burn through people quickly. Again if you have the money completely plossible.
5 well somebody did make a 2 legged walker, and it did work. But it slides more then it walks. Though they have made other robots that can walk(look at Honda). This means that eventually someone who has the money will again make the walker.
6 I have never watched the original ST so my answer might be off. well if it terraformes, then it would need some time as teraforming would take a boat load of time. Hell if a meteor hit earth on one side people on the opposite wouldn't feel it for up to a half hour. but to shoot of a rocket that can do such a thing, if you build it big enough you could carry everything you need to create a livable planet. To create a solar system you would need something that can mimic multiple points of gravity. So as to create a sun by colapsing hydrogen into the rocket, and planet(s) by getting meteors to crash into it. So right now its not possible but in the future i can see it happen.
7 meteor gun, well maybe. if you strap on a engine big enough to carry the load it will be possible. Once someone creates a hyperspace engine.
8 well for surviving the heat, there has been a material made that could survive on the surface of the sun, (look at the guy who made the grizzly suit, so a resercher could be attacked by a grizzly bear and survive, he invented it) heat to energy has also been done, I don't know what it is called though, search that yourself. But a material that can survive that type of pressure, I have not seen yet. SO that is the only thing that would have to still be invented.

Well, for #7... As a fan of all things Starship Troopers I felt the nerdy need to remind you that the meteors sent from Klendathu's asteroid belt were sent via "Bug plasma", which is apparently their super-luminal transportation method. So it's not quite like they propelled a city-size chunk of granite 70,000ly's, it's more like they warped it there.

A heat powered ship is very possible, google sterling engine....

Awwww... I liked the hoverboard XD

>By Sparkus at 11:59 AM ON 01/06/09
>Boring examples. Weak commentary.

You are not wrong. Cracked will probably do a version and it will be funny as hell.

Who ever wrote this clearly knows nothing. Not only do hover boards exist now, but they existed during the making of back to the future 2. toy companies don't make them because of complaints about how dangerous they are. its even mentioned in the "making of" featurette on the dvd.

i like the list but its,
but its hard to believe all that,
some of those are really interesting and can be made i think so,
i even like the foldable keyboard which was used in Die Hard 4,i think that out now

Awesome topic but weak delivery. I mean, come on, you could have found better examples than these in all of sci-fi?

Yes AT-ATs are a bit clunky but so are alot of modern day warfare vehicles. Even tanks can be awkward but it doesn't stop just about every military from using hem. We could easily imagine more elegant machinery for our armies but that doesn't mean some contractor is going to pump them out and replace every single vehicle in military existence. Even in the Empire I'm sure they have a military budget and upgrading or getting rid of every single piece of old machinery just like that is not cost effective. They'd be much better off putting those old machines to use even if they are blown up easily at least they may take a couple resistance fighters down with them.

OK. instead of trying to match such brilliant comments such as all of yours....Ive decided to save my time for important things...Like kissing a girl.

Does the author of the article have any scientific background at all? I doubt it, based on the fact that quite a few of the devices he says "crosses the line between plausible coolness and sheer fantasy" seem imminently plausible.

Hoverboards: why is it sheer fantasy for someone someday to design boards that hover? (Note, however, that the story about Mattel already having designed them is a hoax--http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/hoverboard.asp.) I don't even consider it 'sheer fantasy' that they'll exist by 2015, the setting of the movie. The Transrapid 05 was transporting passengers via magnetic levitation back in 1987: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transrapid.

Cellphone tracker: Using a single cellphone to accomplish 3-D echolocation seems waay more farfetched to me than the one the author criticizes. With enough cellphones sending sonar data to a supercomputer, it's at least somewhat plausible that the information could be converted to a (really inaccurate) graphical representation. It's at least not so completely fantastical as to prevent me from suspending disbelief during the movie.

AT-AT Walkers: Lalithor's Star Wars Kung Fu is greater than mine--impressive, most impressive. Although they make little sense within the context of the Empire, Walkers definitely aren't "sheer fantasy" since one could probably be built *right now* based on existing technology (except for the armaments)--at the very least, it's not impossible to make a really big metal walking vehicle. Senseless? Probably. Impossible? Heck no.

Unobtainium: A material that stands up to heat extremely well, yet still conducts it to the point where it can be converted into energy. The most implausible thing about it to me is that someone could obtain *enough* of it to build an entire ship. But "sheer fantasy?" I don't think so.

This was a great idea for an article, but very poorly executed. Sorry, Charlie.

P.S. the CAPCHA system on this website really suxors. I entered the digits exactly as they appeared and it wouldn't let me post. Here's hoping the third time's the charm.

This is just some dude who doesnt know what the hell to write about so he picked topics he knew nothing about and bashed em...eat a horse dick

I don't really have any trouble with any of these examples. ANY time machine from any movie would be a much fatter target for derision.

But one device that effectively ruined the movie for me was the tiny "sun" created by Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2. It was described as a "sun," yet didn't seem to generate any heat, nor gravity. It instead exhibited a strong magnetic field (that nonetheless failed to rip earrings out of Ock's wife's ears), and was easily quenched by river water. If you had a solar system-sized swimming pool, I don't think you could quench the real sun with that water.

To each his own, though.

"Unobtainium" is an engineer's joke for any material that's either immeasurably expensive, or has properties not currently known to exist in any material. I saw the movie, and thougth they used the term properly, giving a gentle poke to the impossibility of the material while allowing "suspension of disbelief".

I just want to point out that for the first use of Batman's phone thing, it was a specific "special" phone. As for the finale bit, Arguably the system did not make fully capable 3d renderings using only the phones. He had a full system going looking for the Joker and once he found them we get the renders while he is attacking the building. It is entirely possible that the system he built extrapolated known data on the building with returned data from the phones. Once you have that, direction and position is irrelevant, you merely use the "sonar" data to fill in the dynamic portions on top of the static data. And it is entirely plausible that a ridiculously wealthy man who is involved in a variety of corporations, could obtain schematics of pretty much any and all structures in a single city.

Well... where to start?
well since its the most popular i shall start with cellphones.
Cellphones constantly emit radio frequencies in order to determine the strength of the local reception. By doing this they create an outward ripple effect that can be considered radio frequency echolocation. or RADAR. Now in order to get a GPS position, you require no more than 2 receiver sources, though the more you have the more accurate it becomes. Now there have been experiments with massive amounts of radio frequencies in one area that were successfully used to reproduce a radar system accurate down to a couple feet. Now as to the 3D aspect. He could easily have a 3d model of the city and cities substructures that was used to create a perspective from the phone and used to phones motion to calculate the direction the camera in the 3d environ should be placed. This makes it computationally possible for batman to have views around the city, and by coordinating the other signals he could recreate a crowd and make a generalized simulation of what was happening. Also, you think you cant get enough resolution from a single reception source? tell that to hospitals that use 3D ultrasound with only one reception node. And what about home made 3d scanners (David-Scanner).
The computing power required for this would be huge compared to most home PC's but if you have the money that Bruce dose, then thats no problem cause you can purchase a render farm or computational servers for less than 2% of Bruce's fortune... I work with 3D a bit and i know that for a decent model of a city, my computer that i made with less than 1500 can render it with no problem, and think of this, cellphones have enough power to calculate their GPS location, and computers right now are over 100X more powerfull. Basic computers. So if you have the money Bruce dose then you can afford a computer farm that would handle possibly millions with ease.
And not to mention you can but over the counter equipment for hijacking cellphone signals. Thus dose he bypass the providers.

@Fish
Well first off we do that currently with human translators. They can do this because commonly repeated words are easy to figure out and while we do not have Vocal to Vocal live translation, we do have programs that can take dialects and from audio only can translate them into your language. Like a cross language dictation tool for your computer.

For the meteor cannon.
They are actually an idea that was spawned during the space race. What if we could use the debris around earth as ammo? Well now with current tech we can theoretically accelerate any given mass to close to the speed of light. This is a slow process and takes a nuclear reactor and a ion accelerator. It works by pulling the ions from space and local debris and accelerating them behind it. Thought the acceleration is marginal at best for now, it is being looked at for one of the next out of system or edge of system research sats. Since it is a nuclear reactor it can run for years and build up accel, and with the ions being shot out near the speed of light, eventually given enough time and power, it can match speed with the ions.

As to the Virgil.
Solar cells... They gain part of the power they produce from the infrared heat of the sun, and if you know anything about infrared, it is basically heat as a we know it. and with magma producing extremely high temps and even light, then it can produce power using traditional solar cells. As to the pressure aspect with you completely missed, there are piezoelectric materials right now. These materials are special metals that when electricity is passed through they vibrate, but they also have a 2nd property that is interesting. They work backwards. When they have vibration or pressure applied they create a electrical current. So all he had to do was combine the piezoelectric materials with photovoltaic cells in a high heat and pressure capable material that when compressed is able to restructure like a shear thickening fluid(for a simple an fun one, cornstarch and water) and create a stronger structure.

I always thought that's why they call it science fiction. It is a fantasy and it's not based on scientific principles. It is based on what the author's most outlandish and creative imagination can perceive. When we start to analyze the elements that comprise the story, then we lose the continuity, as well as the joy of escaping into the movie. That is the greatest part of it all. To get so involved with the plot of the movie that you're right there in the thick of it all. Isn't that one of the main reasons for watching science fiction, or for that matter any movie at all? It's good to have opinions, but that shouldn't take away the joy.

Personally, this is another one the the writers they got that never studied science or even watched the inside of the movies. It is science fiction, you idiot, but if writers never wrote these movies, where we would we have conceived of the things we have now. Far as some of the devices, you should have looked into some really good Science fiction movies and picked those apart. Your list sucks, big time. And as far as the meteor gun, if we could generate a large enough magnetic field on the space station, you don't think it would have happen yet. You need a course in science. So agreeing with Holbrojo, don't write again, please? You could only prove we are stupid.

I don't believe I have seen any mention of a railgun. They currently exist for different purposes and are used to propel objects at a very great rate of speed.

You mean those movies arent real? Bummer.

My biggest problem with the Starship Trooper films was always this: with the technology to travel between planetary systems, why would you fight giant bugs with infantry on the ground? Why not blast them from the air where thay can't get to you?

If you close your eyes to new concepts, the first satalite would never have been launched.

I'm thinking the author must have picked this list off the top of his head. I can think of so many better examples of absurd movie technology. (Hell, I watched Eagle Eye on DVD last week, and there are enough examples in that one movie to fill a whole list.)

There's a big difference between implausible and impossible, and I would never underestimate mankind's ability to innovate and engineer.

I thought the idea of "transparent aluminum" was absurd in the Star Trek: The Voyage Home - and yet it exists today!

There's actually a book that covers this very topic called "Dude, Where's My Jetpack?" Check out an excerpt here, which discusses where you can buy your own hoverboard: http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4215680.html

You know...lightsabers are completely absurd with what they can supposedly do and the power that would be needed to do it, but they ROCK. I had a dream in college engineering about the interaction of 3rd and 4th order differential equations to create containment fields to form a blade like that...maybe I should be hypnotized and try to recall them? Hmmmmmm...

I agree with the ATAT's...since even landspeeders could hover, why not have the ship hover so there is no weak point (legs) to attack?

It's fiction. Don't take it too seriously. Then again there is that transparent aluminum scientists decided to try to make and that invisibility cloak they are working on. Never doubt the creativity of geeks and nerds!

@Arlo & @Fred,
Mighty Mouse would kick Superman's ass... from the inside out!!! :D
@Drunko,
Time travel is not absurd! Ask anyone who started drinking at midnight then, suddenly, it's 4:00am, bars closing and it's time to go to work!
@Fresh, ROFL!!!

Any true Science Fiction fan will tell you, the best SF is based on true science, not fantasy. Asimov, Clarke and others created great works on these principles... but as believable as they are, they're NOT fantastical enough to make a movie with!
Another missing piece in this article, the brain plugs in the Matrix series!
This was another article in the "Waste my time" series! :p

Wow, another bad article on the "new" Sci-fi Wire. Fire your whole staff and start over with actual reporters, please.

I've noticed that many DVICE articles are really sneering at the possibility of new technology - not promoting the "incomprehensible" as it should.

Scifi is science FICTION. Often, this becomes the precursor to science fact, or at least science possibility. To blunt this philosophical approach, to limit it from the viewpoint of whatever technological capability we have now is extremely arrogant!

It is the VISION of a culture that leads it forward, the "what if?" that fuels or curiosity and our accomplishments. Why come down so hard on such a valuable asset to our society? Why try so hard to crush the creativity of others - especially the impact this type of insanely myopic commentary could have on young people - the real "free thinkers" (in that they HAVE no limitations) yet this article is clearly an attempt to cause people NOT to think, to imagine, to consider not what is, but what could be.

Just today, an article on USAToday.com was released claiming scientists have found evidence that black holes may have come before galaxies. At the same time they still admit they don't know how the universe was created, all the while still clinging to Einstein’s big Bang (creationist) theory. It's just a theory - making it no more science fiction than hovercraft skateboards!

I will have lunch with some Quantum Physicists at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) later this month (again); if you want to really wrap your head around some X-Files type stuff they'll bake your noodle with what they are DOING in lab settings, with careful notes taken and other highly trained people all around the world cross-checking each others findings. The scorecard is what we consider science fiction today is already reality in labs, and in many cases already is having military and commercial applications. WE just don't hear about it (trickle down effect).

Actually, many of these scientists can't keep up with each other, as "breakthroughs" are happening so fast - and it seems (again) the more they come to know, the more they find they don't know.

So there is a LOT to be learned.

The first thing this author should learn is that POSSIBILITY is a major building block of the composition of virtually all components of the universe. But when we observe any vector of energy potential it changes from waves of potential to a PARTICLE of potential. They don't KNOW why, but it happens. What we see in the "real world" is just ONE particle at a given time in a given place? Are there OTHERS. Sure. To say otherwise is foolish.

We use stuff everyday and consider it "solid," knowing it is made up of atoms none of which touch each other and in fact all atoms are made up of only one half of one percent of physical matter! So the possibility for this matter to be configured in different patterns than what we currently hold to be "acceptable" is great...

Light sabers...should have been listed as the worst. Romantic as the idea was/is, it's still just a dumb, dumb, dumb idea. Is it a focused beam of hard light? Magnetically contained, polarized plasma?

It doesn't matter...it's a MOVIE! Sit back and let your mind be entertained...

Bottom line many scientific advancements started out as fiction, dreams, such as the helicopter in Leonardo Da Vinci sketches and thought absurd at the time.

Google "Timberjack" and you'll come across some pages with a six-legged logging rig that looks like a cross between an AT-TE and something from "Wheeled Warriors." And, knowing what we know of the Human species, how much longer d'you think it will be before someone starts sticking guns on them? The AT-AT is only a matter of time. You want a really silly machine for this article, try The Automatic Billion Bubble Machine from the film "Robot Monster."

I'm sorry I actually wasted time reading this article, and then bothering to reply to it -- TWICE, because the first attempt didn't go through. Time for a drink . . . .

I think it's hard to consider any of these technologies "absurd". When you're talking about things Star Trek, for example, these are futuristic technologies that are impossible based on CURRENT understandings of science. What's absurd is when people take CURRENT technology and make it ridiculous. And that brings me to:

The Most Absurd Michael Bay plot devices:

Weaponized Space Shuttles (Armageddon) - They have no ship-to-ship capability or space-to-ground capability, but they have a rover with a machine gun? C'mon.

Computer Data Core in the Middle East (Transfomers) - Right. Like the government's going to keep ALL it's deepest, darkest secrets on a server in a conflict zone.

Jet Powered Predator (Transformers) - Have you ever LOOKED at these things? They have a PROPELLOR on the back! It's not going to zip in at Mach ANYTHING.

Atropine injector to the heart (The Rock) - This isn't Pulp Fiction: he wasn't ODing...an anti-nerve agent straight to the heart would kill him quicker than the nerve agent itself!

(paraphrasing) "That's not one of our planes. F-22s would never fly between buildings like that" (Transformers) - Then a bunch of F-22s fly between the buildings. WTF over?

That said; let's address the possibilities of the absurdities that are proposed: obviously, the author has done NO research on anything he is trying to blast!

They put Galileo in prison for 25 years because was he said about the moon was "heresy" because it threatened to power of the church...

1. The eyes are the only external organ of the body. It's been proven that the brain only holds 6 months worth of data, and science has NO idea where the "mind" is. The best practical research that any layperson can prove is with Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard - but he gets blasted in the media bc the "medical authorities" can't control his findings (i.e., hide them from the public).

Go look at the movie "What the Bleep do we Know." Our neural net MAKES peptide proteins that FEED our cells with the programming components - in PHYSICAL form - that our brain produces. Is it hard to fathom that somehow this data stream between our mind, our brains, our central nervous and other systems throughout the body could not be accessed; the easiest access point would not BE via the eyes? Or do you consider that watching flashing light patterns for hours upon hours at a time every single day of your life has no effect upon you that the military industrial complex does not know about (and won't tell you the consequences of: I'm just saying...)

They already know that the brain really functions much like a FM radio receiver - why couldn't the frequencies that it operates on be tapped into?

Consider: what we "see" we don't really see! Our retinas take in visible light spectrum wave patterns upside down and backwards. That data is then sent back along nerve "wires" and processed by our visual cortex, in the BACK of our skulls - several inches from WHERE our EYES are. This data is processed in stereo: we have TWO eyes - each one allows for a tiny alteration of the image viewed, so a holographic rendition can be provided which we refer to as "depth." Over 50% of all the light wave patterns that the retinas take in is actually used in the result we call "sight." The rest of it gets ignored.

Science knows our brains process over 4 million bits of data per second, yet we only use about 20,000 bits of data to go about the normal functions in our daily lives. That's a LOT of left over, un-used data! Do the math...

2. As for the levitating hovercraft, just go to Youtube.com and look up "white powder gold," a substance used by the ancients that has many interesting properties, including levitation, time travel, creating dimension portals, and superconductive properties including aligning DNA strands into the optimal native state.

3. To get an idea of what can be done with any sort of communication device, think back to the old TV sets. They were essentially photon guns aimed within a few feet of our human minds, bodies, and souls. We viewed these things thinking they can only shoot electrons one way, but everything in the universe seems to be balanced: there is a vector going both ways, the reason why we perceive things in wave patterns (what is keeping anything from just flying off in a given direction unhindered?) that have given oscillation boundaries.

We know very little about the space inside of molecules and atoms. Most of the body of our science on energy comes from one man, Einstein, which is within most of the lifetimes of our parents (so it wasn't long ago).

In fact, most of the stuff on this here could probably been developed by Tesla's research and inventions, but he was too forward thinking for his time, yet many of the stuff we use today in military and science is based upon his work.

Radio, as one example; but radio is again one part of a larger spectrum of energy patterns that we are largely incapable of perceiving, and we are only now coming to the very beginnings of understanding.

To get to the point of these cell phones, think of all known energy - and the devices that measure, transmit and receive them - as patterns of resonance, made up of particles or waves. The wave portion can take on even greater possibilities, as patterns of potential, and not just "matter."

Could it not be that somehow these patterns could be tapped, in ways that are now not broadly known?

Or does anyone not see what is happening when Comcast and other cable outlet track every single click we make with our remotes, and sell that information to their advertisers for better "marketing." Did YOU know and agree to let them do that sort of "big brother" type of monitoring? God only knows what ELSE the military, governments and corporate powers structures of the world are doing, ala' "Enemy of the State" with Will Smith and Gene Hackman. Is that "absurd science" too.

With the miniaturization (nano-nano, anyone) of technologies now, and the computing power - our digital wristwatches have as much computing power of the Apollo Moon Modules - then it is not hard to get an idea of the "unlicensed nuclear power packs" industry may be feeding us - that have far more capability (and control) than we are led to believe.

Oh, and maybe THAT's why we HAVE to give up our old TV's - so they are insured to have that new tech in our midst...

I can't imagine the grid that they would need to make such capability possible, but I know that Daredevil can resonate a collection of "pings" that give him a holographic "picture" that approximates sight. It's actually better than sight because he can plot out patterns of movement and get out ahead of the curve enabling him to move with superhuman capability far above the "norm" of the rest of us, giving HIM an advantage.

5. General Hannibal of Carthage nearly took down the greatest war power of its time - Rome - by hauling elephants across the Alps. He knew elephants were today's modern day tanks: very intimidating when one is coming at you! They too are slow, clunky and top heavy, but, unless you've got some Elfin warriors like in "Lord of the Rings" who are quick, agile and skilled to the point of being Ninjas (or Jedi Knights) no one is probably gonna take down those babies when they are marching enmass - so the Walkers are probably a good idea, given the relative technological rules they were operation with at the time. Any of the rolling, walking opponents could have been nullified simply by digging booby trap pits for them to fall into...failing that, their hulk, and their elevation over ground troops, and their resistance to small weapons fire give them an advantage. Also, running large numbers or these like cavalry ups the intimidation factor a great deal. Alexander the Great did the same thing with his Phalanx marching spearmen, and he never lost a war.

6. Science has no idea how the world was formed. They have THEORIES, but admit they don't know. View the Universe TV series on YouTube...

They DO know that all heavy elements were made and distributed by the formation of galaxies and stars. This is the stuff - from iron to oxygen - that we are made of. Interestingly, we do not give ourselves enough credit for the symbiotic relationship we have with our environment, our world, and our universe AS a physical reality in which we too are a part of.

7. We do know black holes, collapsing stars that go super nova and other galactic events that are part of the death and birth of stars emit very powerful and very violent emissions. We also know that most of what we can perceive of these emissions is controlled by other energies that we are only now (within the past decade) starting to "see" via mathematics: dark energy and dark matter.

We do know black holes can be very large and very small. We are trying to make one as I write this (which I am not sure is a very good idea...)!

How is it that we cannot produce at some point the ability to collect, project or eject matter of various types, or emanate energies that impact other energies and change its properties in predictable ways: the very definition of an atom bomb?

8. We do suspect that planets are formed out the spinning and cooling matter and energy that comes out of the galactic process. Stars are formed, condense, create orbits (collective patterns of matter, energy, space and time), create mass and gravity, and then create satellites (which in turn create satellites of their own). These satellites are made up of the stuff that gets spewed out of these solar furnaces - and the probability is they are comprised by many, many sources of composition (more than one star/galaxy) - certainly this HAS to be true if you buy into the Big Bang Theory.

So the chances are just as great that we don't know of all the possible compositions of chemical elements as it is we have yet to be able to track, monitor, perceive or harness all forms of energy in this universe.

One can get light headed thinking about such lofty highbrow concepts but they are worth taking a peek at - and fun to do. Sci fi does more than that. It ponders what is around the corner for us, and allows us to imagine what is just out of reach.

I think this is a very useful tool for society, and for humanity as a whole.

I also wonder why a writer in a science fiction media would take such dim views of such things.

Which brings me to a more interesting point: why is it that SciFi.com is ONLY based upon entertainment media-based products? Why don't we have forums here that comprise places where scientists and lay people alike can interact, learn, and share concepts and ideas? I think we are missing something of extreme value; no one is really talking about it, and no one is looking at the consequence.

I look at the Terminator: Sarah Conners Chronicles and see the Fox network may not continue the series, and it has such potential to allow us to reflect upon our society and man's responsibility in the great scheme of things. But if it ain't commercially viable big business has no interest; and if you can't make a living at it 'cause big business won't hire you then what REALLY happens to the creative process, our creative energies, and even to free thought, it is all has to be merely about what makes money? Is THAT what SciFi.com represents, and why more and more people read these blatantly slanted op-ed fluff pieces and bristle at them?

Should we demand more? You bet!

If we don't get it here where else can we get it? Do we trust the agenda of NASA and Space.com? Is any major corporation or industry gonna tell us what they are working on, what they have researched and found to work, or what their failures have been? Are we gonna get the straight poop?

Probably not, sad to say. So I think SciFi.com has a social responsibly to the public to provide the ways and means for us to get access to the various, possible "what-ifs" in a manner that doesn't talk down to us or blunt our imaginative ability at the same time.

I think the word I am looking for is "spark." Shouldn't SciFi.com be a "spark" for us? What do you think?

Geez, this guy writes for Sci-fi? He just ripped some of the most classic examples of what make Sci-fi rich.

He left out Captain Nemo's nuclear powered submarine: Absurd!!!

Oops, sorry about the rip, ComplexedOne. I usually write first and read later.

st a little AT AT info:

Dialog in National Public Radio's adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back states that AT-ATs "look like animals"; the character goes on to describe the vehicles as carrying "extremely heavy armor and armaments". The AT-AT, designed to favor "fear over function", can carry five speeder bikes and 40 Imperial stormtroopers.

You know, I was trying to figure out if Coach K was being ironic or if he was a certified whacko...then I discovered the web address listed under his name is some sort of marketing website. He's a spammer, my friends.

No, I am not. The websites I was running were all hosted by a person who passed away after a long battle with cancer. Having used any of them in well over a year.

As for any of the premises I conveyed, maybe you ought to do a bit of looking around to find some of the data that is being presented in Quantum Mechanics, which is bringing "fringe" science - and science fiction - into the realm of what normal folk would say is much more than "plausible."

The fact is, at places like SRI International, their own researchers and scientists within their own facility say they can't keep up with revolutionary "breakthroughs" in any field you care to mention, because they happen so fast! By the time they write a paper on their findings something new has been discovered...

When you take that on a wourld-wide basis the math is there is a LOT that we DON'T know, and are finding out about ALL the time!

I'm not asking anyone to "believe" anything I said - just GO LOOK for yourself and arrive at your own conclusions. That's the best any of us can do. So what's WRONG with that?

And yes, I AM in marketing - but no one on this forum is someone whom I would consider a client prospect, so relax. I come to forums like these because they allow an interaction with people who also are free thinkers - the one substance that is key ingredient to healthy creativity for society and mankind. Most folk just zambie out like sheep, letting the military industrial complex (which DOES include media) do their thinking FOR them.

BTW, I got into media because my mom taught a course in college that I'd sit in on after grade school and do my homework in the back of the room. It was on Subliminal Advertising. Ever since then I've been keen on knowing how to protect myself (and others) from people plotting and planning on how to control our minds for THIER profit.

So your accusation cuts home for me, and offends me deeply, which is the reason for my response.

You have no idea of the good works I've done on behalf of my fellow man in the course of my career, all over the world, but that is beside the point (other than I'd like to know if you have done anything to contribute to the "greater good")...

What is the point is just like this article is designed to deflect positive, creative thought and trivialize it down to the mundane, you attack me by under-utilizing technological capability (world wide web communications) to do annonomous drive-by insults merely because this medium allows that to occur.

Have a thought in your head, perhaps, and a care in your heart. Not everyone is as blank, empty and superficial as the growing number of spammers/cyber-crim con-artist that are increasing in number expidentially. I am not one of them (I in fact, hate them!).

If you were such good Internet Police maybe you could invent something that would help protect people from getting hacked and have their identity's stolen? Do some good! Uncover some real bad guys!

No. You wouldn't dare, for fear of the consequences of what some organized mob operation would do to you. and you are probably right!

But what you fail to miss - no matter what you believe about what I said about the science "fiction" - is that science fiction IS about PROPOSITION. This is a website about science fiction.

Rather than see this article as front for trying to control free thought and possibility - which is most dangerous to young people as this is both the target audience AND an old geexer like me has a sound grounding in being able to make my own decisions - you take a potshot at one of the victims of this media tyranny.

Makes me wonder what YOUR motives are.

You do some further research on me, buddy. Get your facts straight before you make an accusation. Talk what you KNOW. And, no, I;m not hard to find. And yes, I the work I so does help people - especially business people keep an income going which helps feed the families of the folks that work for/with them, so that is nothing to be ashamed of.

I never solicit anyone in forums like this, as personal policy.

This one article alone has made me reconsider ever visiting this site again. It is dumb.

you people are the idiot nerds the world see's you as!`of course they are absurd, that is the FUN!!it is science FICTION, A-HOLES!!!!! I know cowboys can't shoot like that, too, but it is fun!!?? you guys really have now clue or real imagination. don't you enjoy the pure fantasy of an absurd device?? flying cars are still at the top of the list!!!!

Here's some REAL Fring science: I just wish the author of this article had did just a little bit of homework b4 going off like he did. Scientist rally are working long and hard to make fantasy a reality - and they are arriving not faster, but going waaaay beyond what we thought was possible. The REAL problem is not that we think such things absurd, but that we don't know what our own people ARE doing. Here's some key reference text on time travel: (even a lay person can follow this clip, taken from "The Universe series on The History Channel, I included tthe YouTube.com link)

“For inspiration, Mallett [Ronald L. Mallett, Ph.D , Physics Professor at the Univ. of Conn.] turned to Einstien’s most famous theory, E=Mc2, which showed that matter and energy are just different forms of the same thing. So following Einstien’s theory, Light – which is energy – should be able to worp space and time just like a massive object does.

“…We’re used to the notion that gravity is created by matter, but it turns out that in Einstien’s theory light can create gravity, and that is what my work is based on…in other words if gravity can effect time, and light can create gravity, then light can effect time.”
The Universe: Unexplained Mysteries, aired on The History Channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06aw81kS53I&feature=related

People remember this: just because its not possible today doesn't mean that it won't be possible in the future.

We didn't have bombs until someone jammed a cannon. And we have research on pure energy (or radioactive) bombs, if not actual constructs.

Computers and robots existed in writing way before reality (mechanical men were written about in Greek myths).

Scanning the human body just got portable (micro MRI devices, very expensive but portable). More interesting is running a human being's data (all systems) as a realtime active simulation of a person (book: Permutation City).

Teleportation is impossible?? no, look at quantum entanglement, they are up to data transmission using photons, matter is a future issue. Warped space -> magnetic particle accerators do this all the time (and includes a little time travel).

Miniature flight systems: look around any high school or college lab and they can show you maglev technology with simple magnets; ionics have been around, just not profitable, for years and may not be useable (safely) but for space travel.

Cell phone based 3d imager system: possible -> each modern cell phone has more computing power, memory, and functions, than a standard 1980's (and some 1990's models) pc and they are already networked together even when you are not using one (if its on, its online)- distributated computation - the networked system far exceeds the units. This doesn't even take in the number of pc-phones out there. Single computer to tie all the data together (all sources, radio, sonic, and don't forget optical:cameras) = quantum computer (being researched and built).

Walkers: you forget weight reasons. We know that walkers are more versatile than wheeled units but also they can carry more weight per cubic foot than a flier (where more weight = more fuel). Sure they maybe clunky in comparison but a well armored and weaponed walker can take down many fliers.

Unobtainium as protection and power source? We started out with simple metals and now are working with atomic scale properties of metals and non-metals (nano-anything anyone), not to mention forces, so unobtainium may one day be Obtainium.

Spiderman: see flight systems, Unobtainium (Spiderman's webs are bio-polymers), and bombs.

Imagination always leads to reality when coupled with time.

It's not just hardware.

Here is a list of software user interface usability bloopers in the movies:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/film-ui-bloopers.html

Re: Hoover boards.
My brother built one using magnet polarization.
Granted it can only hold ten pounds two inches of the ground, but it works.

I thought it was the "Genesis Device"? Torpedo implies that it was originally created as a weapon. In the movie it was never fired because it was still on the transporter pad of the Reliant. Khan and the Klignons sought to use it as a weapon.

Um... NO "technology" in Star Wars makes any sense, indeed it is pretty much 90% ridiculous magic. Light sabers??? Grow up.