>There is no basic physics of (interstellar)
>communication which has not been known for at least 50 years.
Can I quote you on that? History books are full of quotes just like it -
'there is nothing left for physics to discover' a few years before
Rutherford split the atom, 'it's physically impossible for a rocket to
reach space' just as Goddard invented the multi-stage, Kelvin's
announcement that the sun had only a few thousand years' worth of fuel...
I humbly submit that about the only time you can be sure a scientist is
wrong is when that scientist is certain that he or she is right. Science
does not deal in final complete answers, it deals in temporary knowledge
which it *expects* to superceded.
>I am always surprised by the naivity of the 'gee--look how much we learned in
>100 years; guess we'll learn so much more in 100'. Of course that's true in
>selected fields. Not in mature ones like telecommuncations propagation.
Materials technology was a mature field until the quantum revolution -
meaning that electronics, long-chain synthetic polymers, lasers,
superconductors, piezoelectrics, nanotubes, bioengineering... are all
never going to happen?!
Chip, you are suggesting an S-shaped learning curve for any field - or at
least one with an S-shaped top end, so that the amount learned as a
function of time decreases as the filed reaches maturity. I agree, that
is exactly what happens. Telecommunications may have levelled off.
And *then* what happens is that a new observation or a new theory opens
up all sorts of new possibilities, and you get a second S-curve built on
top of the first. The curve steepens again, all sorts of new things
start being developed - such as those int he list above. The new curve
will level off too, of course - and later another will follow.
Paradigm shifts are not a new idea - but they do happen to match the
actual process of science rather well.
>Forget the time issue. Think BODIES. Think how many SCIENTISTS have
>considered
>the issue,not how many YEARS. The time-exponential-extraploation is really a
>'how many scientists have there been around thinking about this' problem, not
>a years one.
...And all those scientists are working from the same knowledge base,
with he same preconceptions. Change the knowledge base, and the same
number of scientist-hours would produce a different result. I still say
that this is about time apssing as well as about brain power. There are
countless examples of ideas which were rejected not because they were
wrong but because all the idea didn't fit into the prevalent world view
*of the time* - which all those scientists' brains were convinced was the
final truth. Mendel's work on plant genetics waited 20 years to be
accepted, Poincare's ideas on chaos died in the wilderness... Science is
full of ideas and observations which are quietly left to one side until
the climate changes enough for them to be accepted and re-examined. I
see no evidence to suggest telecommunications is exempt from the same
pattern which every single other endeavour follows.
>
>Savor what we know; don't pretend we are as ignorant as this bogus time-line
>argument wants us to BELIEVE.
I do indeed savour what we know. I don't claim we're ignorant, I just
claim that all human knowledge is cumulative. I suggest that there is
nothing particularly special about this point in history - that the
process of science will continue in much the same way that it has
historically. You seem to me to be suggesting that there *is* something
special about this point in history - in much the same way that a century
ago people used to think they were the pinnacle of evolution, as though
evolution had somehow stopped, or was directed towards them. I claim the
future cannot be imagined, and that change is the only thing we can
predict. You seem to me to be claiming that change has been the one
constant during all human history - but for telecommunications, it has
now stopped. I just see no reason to exempt it.
I therefore still believe that other modes of communication might be
equally liekly - and that we may or may not yet have happened upon them.
Richard