pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M Koloc) (08/15/85)
> > HOWEVER, [the laser] was ENVISIONED long before it was invented. > >Take Flash Gordon movies and their use of the laser-like "death ray!". > In article <591@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams); Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT replies > It's easy to imagine a death ray.. i.e. laser, particle beam, flamethrower Easy to imagine? ??; flamethrowers as a "death ray?? come on, Frank, give me a break talk about Monday morning quarterbacks. We had the technology and the physics to build a laser in the 20's or thirty's, then why the 30 year delay? > All you need to know to predict the two-way wrist television is that > eventually, electronic components will get small enough to build one. > This was not obvious at the time, but it was certainly plausible. plausible??? That concept was entertaining but it certainly was not plausible at that time -1930's. Incidently, if an idea is "obvious" it's not patentable. And, is it plausible to have a "death ray" beams of a few milliradians beam divergence? That was considered to be "physically impossible". In fact, when Ted Maiman (1960 Nature) fired his ruby laser at a cinder block wall to demonstrate the laser and its small "spot size", one of the visiting physicists, convinced it was a fraud, took out his pocket knife and proceeded to dig a hole in the cinder block to find an embedded "hidden red light bulb", that was triggered when the flashlamp fired. About five journals refused to publish Ted's first paper on his "laser" for the same reason. Thank God for "Nature", opps! I mean thank the British for Nature. > As I remember it, Dick Tracy also had vehicles shaped like flying saucers, > which were used to visit the moon, where the dwellers were humanoids > with antennae. hmmmm?? That means there is almost certainly a way to commercially develop such a thing. Come on Frank, I'll supply the fusion driven rocket engine or fusion MHD electric power source if you'll come up with the ship design and perhaps an alternate gizmo (i.e. gravity thruster) that my power generator will drive. Unfortunately, I think we'll have to skip the "androids" with antennae for now unless there's a hot shot robotist out there in net land. :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) You envision 'em Frank and I will invent 'em. (We're not that great at precognition, you see) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) - - NOTE: MAIL PATH MAY DIFFER FROM HEADER - - +-------------------------------------------------------+--------+ | Paul M. Koloc, President: (301) 445-1075 | FUSION | | Prometheus II Ltd., College Park, MD 20740-0222 | this | | pmk@prometheus.UUCP; ..seismo!prometheus!pmk.UUCP | decade | +-------------------------------------------------------+--------+