sherbetbizarre
Special Branch
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2004
- Messages
- 5,242
Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World
- Thread starter sherbetbizarre
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2005
- Messages
- 53
OOHHH! 
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2003
- Messages
- 1,634
Arthur C Clarke.... Does he really exist?
Despite the over imaginative hype of the promos, Basically each episode involved him saying at the end, "Nah..there's no mystery really, there's nothing in it"
But "Arthur C Clarke's Mundane World" doesn't quite have the same ring to it?
-
-
Despite the over imaginative hype of the promos, Basically each episode involved him saying at the end, "Nah..there's no mystery really, there's nothing in it"
But "Arthur C Clarke's Mundane World" doesn't quite have the same ring to it?
-
-
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2001
- Messages
- 7,225
Started watching it last night - it's juts as good as I remember. Brilliant stuff. And unlike some he does leave some things saying they are a mystery.
Gordon
Gordon
escargot
Disciple of Marduk
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2001
- Messages
- 43,338
- Location
- HM The Tower of London
My kids loved the programme and when we found out where the Crystal Skull was kept, we went to see it.
I lifted them up one by one to eye level with it and the curator told me off for letting them get too close to the glass case. Tosser.
I lifted them up one by one to eye level with it and the curator told me off for letting them get too close to the glass case. Tosser.
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2001
- Messages
- 7,225
escargot1 said:My kids loved the programme and when we found out where the Crystal Skull was kept, we went to see it.
I lifted them up one by one to eye level with it and the curator told me off for letting them get too close to the glass case. Tosser.
At least when you went to see it it was actually on display! At various times they become embarrassed and take it off display!
Gordon
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
Arthur has gone to investigate the mysteries of the next world...
Writer Arthur C Clarke dies at 90
Legendary British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.
He came to fame when his story, 2001: A Space Odyssey, was made into a film by film director Stanley Kubrick in 1968.
Once called "the first dweller in the electronic cottage", his vision captured the popular imagination.
Sir Arthur, who was born in Minehead, Somerset, and was a radar specialist for the RAF in World War II, had his 90th birthday in December.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7304004.stm
No doubt fuller obits will follow.
Writer Arthur C Clarke dies at 90
Legendary British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.
He came to fame when his story, 2001: A Space Odyssey, was made into a film by film director Stanley Kubrick in 1968.
Once called "the first dweller in the electronic cottage", his vision captured the popular imagination.
Sir Arthur, who was born in Minehead, Somerset, and was a radar specialist for the RAF in World War II, had his 90th birthday in December.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7304004.stm
No doubt fuller obits will follow.
sherbetbizarre
Special Branch
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2004
- Messages
- 5,242
Yep, sad news
I watched the epsiode with the skull the other night... so where do they keep it?
escargot1 said:
I watched the epsiode with the skull the other night... so where do they keep it?
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2001
- Messages
- 7,225
sherbetbizarre said:Yep, sad news
escargot1 said:
I watched the epsiode with the skull the other night... so where do they keep it?
It lives in a bank vault in Chicago - if you're asking about the Mitchell-Hedges skull (but watch this space for some news) whereas the British Museum one is sometimes on and sometimes off display - I believe it is currently on display at the BM.
Gordon
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2005
- Messages
- 530
I used to live near the lady that had the skull - I've handled it - it's obviously just an art piece - the underside was left unpolished - here's what I wrote at the time:
"Skeptics scoff at the Mitchell-Hedges claims. "It's clear that her father bought it off a collector" says Joe Nickell, a senior research fellow with the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, near Buffalo, New York, who in his book Secrets of the Supernatural shows that the skull was in the possession of Sydney Burney, an English art dealer, ( it was even featured in a magazine article with Burney listed as the owner ) until it was sold to Mitchell-Hedges for 400 pounds sometime in 1944, according to a note in the British Museum. There is no written mention that can be found of either of the Mitchell-Hedges discovering or possessing the skull until F.A. Mitchell-Hedges published his autobiography in 1954, and Nickell says that no other member of the expedition to Lubaantun mention the skull, or even say Anna was there."
"Skeptics scoff at the Mitchell-Hedges claims. "It's clear that her father bought it off a collector" says Joe Nickell, a senior research fellow with the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, near Buffalo, New York, who in his book Secrets of the Supernatural shows that the skull was in the possession of Sydney Burney, an English art dealer, ( it was even featured in a magazine article with Burney listed as the owner ) until it was sold to Mitchell-Hedges for 400 pounds sometime in 1944, according to a note in the British Museum. There is no written mention that can be found of either of the Mitchell-Hedges discovering or possessing the skull until F.A. Mitchell-Hedges published his autobiography in 1954, and Nickell says that no other member of the expedition to Lubaantun mention the skull, or even say Anna was there."
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
Arthur C Clarke: predictions
The imagination of the science fiction author Sir Arthur C Clarke bubbled over with ideas about the future of science, technology and human society. Here, BBC science and technology staff look at some that came true, and some that did not.
1. SPACE ELEVATOR
A space elevator consists of a ribbon of material strung between a spacecraft and an anchor on Earth. The tether would be used to transport material from Earth into space.
Sir Arthur first talked about the concept in his 1979 novel The Fountains of Paradise, in which engineers construct a space elevator on top of a mountain peak on a fictional island.
He embellished these concepts in his 1981 technical paper The Space Elevator: Thought Experiment, or Key to the Universe?
Although he brought the concept of a space elevator to a wider audience, the idea was first conceived by Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1895.
The idea may sound like it should remain in the realm of science fiction, but many take it seriously.
Nasa has a had long-running space elevator research project, and recent developments with carbon nanotubes have raised the possibility of developing a tether strong enough to connect a ship to Earth - previously one of the key challenges.
For the last three years there has even been a competition, run by the Elevator:2010 project, which awards prizes of $500,000 to help develop the technology.
2. MILLENNIUM BUG
The millennium bug gripped governments and businesses as the countdown to the year 2000 began.
The Y2K bug, as it was also known, referred to potential problems arising from older computer systems that could not recognise 2000 as the year coming after 1999.
People were warned not to fly over the New Year, and were told that there could be potential problems with banking and even gas and electricity supplies.
In interviews, Sir Arthur said he outlined what may have been "the first account, outside the technical literature, of the now-dreaded millennium bug, its cause and its cure."
The prediction was made in a chapter of his 1990 novel The Ghost from the Grand Banks.
In the end, the Y2K bug had little effect on businesses as the clocks struck midnight.
3. SPACE GUARD
This Clarke prediction not only came true, it did so with the name that he bestowed in his 1972 novel Rendezvous with Rama.
The eponymous rendezvous occurs in 2131, when astronomers working with Project Spaceguard, Earth's defence system against asteroid strikes, detect an alien probe hurtling towards the Solar System.
Alien probes may not be frequent visitors in reality, but asteroids and meteorites are; hence a 1992 Nasa investigation into how to monitor these visiting bodies and assess the threat they may pose.
It was named the Spaceguard Survey. The primary aim of US policy now is to map 90% of Near Earth Objects (NEOs).
Britain also has a national information service for NEOs, although lobby groups such as - you guessed it - Spaceguard UK would like the government to commit more resources to the issue.
In The Hammer of God, Sir Arthur envisaged that a rogue asteroid could be deflected from its Earth-bound course by landing on it and fitting thrusters.
In 2005 the Japanese Hayabusa probe did land on asteroid Itokawa, though deploying thrusters and attempting a deflection is still science fiction.
4. COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITES
Arthur C Clarke was not the first to suggest using geostationary orbits - his ideas built on earlier work by Herman Potocnik and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
His conceptual leap, outlined in a 1945 article in Wireless World magazine, was to propose using a set of satellites in geostationary orbit to form a global communications network.
The first satellite was placed into geostationary orbit in 1964, just 19 years after Sir Arthur's paper.
Syncom 3 orbited above the Pacific Ocean and beamed pictures from the Tokyo Olympics to the US later that year - the first trans-Pacific TV transmission.
Networks of satellites in this orbit now provide services including phone calls, data transmission, and TV signals for most of the world's inhabited regions.
Meteorological and ground observation satellites also follow the path Sir Arthur mapped out, and the term Clarke Orbit is sometimes used to describe their trajectory.
What he did not foresee was the development of the transistor and later the integrated circuit, which mean satellites are far smaller than the objects he sketched out, which would have used valve technology and needed regular maintenance.
5. ATOMIC TRAVEL
Prelude to Space was not only Arthur C Clarke's first published science fiction novel, it was the prelude to a career that produced a number of suggestions about how humankind might journey into space.
The 1951 book envisaged bringing nuclear energy into use, powering a craft named Prometheus.
Arguably the author was out-imagined by US planners in the early days of the Cold War, whose Project Orion concept involved craft propelled by detonating a series of nuclear bombs behind them.
Orion did not get off the ground; but life eventually imitated Sir Arthur's art in the Soviet Union, which launched a number of satellites powered by nuclear reactors. Cosmos 954 crashed in Canada in 1978, with contamination of the surrounding area.
Nasa revived the nuclear concept a few years ago with Project Prometheus, a research initiative that would have sent nuclear-powered probes out to explore the cosmos.
Its most heralded component was the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (Jimo), which would use its huge power source to zoom from one exciting Jovian satellite to the next looking for water and life.
But Nasa's Prometheus has died; and there is little sign of any space agency taking the nuclear option further.
6. EARTHQUAKE PREVENTION
In Richter 10, his 1990 collaboration with science fiction author Mike McQuay, Sir Arthur tells the story of an attempt to predict and prevent earthquakes.
The plan is to "spot weld" the earth’s tectonic plates at 50 strategic locations, stopping their movement and therefore stopping the catastrophic splits that cause earthquakes.
The welding was to be done by detonating powerful nuclear bombs deep inside the Earth.
The plan is initiated to prevent a huge quake splitting California from the North American mainland.
At the moment this scenario remains almost completely in science fiction.
Earthquake prediction is an inexact science with no standard, reproducible technique used by scientists.
In addition, tectonic forces are huge – able to build mountains, create deep ocean basins and tear continents apart.
"Spot welding" an earthquake fault would probably have very little long term effect when pitted against these monstrous movements.
In any case, the plan outlined in Richter 10 is foiled when a terrorist attack destroys the facility where the work is being carried out.
7. BRAIN BACKUP
Sir Arthur often explored the idea of backing up or transferring the human brain on to a computer.
In his book 3001: The Final Odyssey he wrote of future beings: "As soon as their machines were better than their bodies, it was time to move.
"First their brains, and then their thoughts alone, they transferred into shining new homes of metal and of gemstone."
"In these they roamed the galaxy. They no longer built spaceships - they were spaceships"
It was an idea he thought would be useful for people wanting to pass their memories and personalities on at the end of their lives.
"When their bodies begin to deteriorate you transfer their thoughts so their personalities would be immortal," he told the BBC in 2005. "Just save it on a CD-Rom and plug it in - simple!"
Although scientists have not quite reached this stage yet, projects are starting to lay the foundations.
For example Gordon Bell, a researcher at Microsoft, is working on a project called MyLifeBits which aims to digitally store "a lifetime's worth of articles, books, cards, CDs, letters, memos, papers, photos, pictures, presentations, home movies, videotaped lectures, and voice recordings"
The latest version of the project also allows him to capture phone calls, instant messenger transcripts, television, and radio to build up a virtual surrogate memory of his life.
8. PEOPLE FREEZING
Arthur C Clarke's pre-occupation with interplanetary space travel led him to consider how humans could survive for the long periods needed to cross vast tracts of space.
One of the answers he came up with, outlined in the story The Songs of Distant Earth, was cryogenic suspension.
The plot sees the human race having to leave Earth in a convoy of spaceships as the Sun is about to explode.
Currently, cryogenic preservation of living people is impossible, and in many countries it is illegal to attempt it.
More than 150 people, mainly in the US, have been frozen in liquid nitrogen after their death.
But even the companies running these projects admit that freezing cannot be reversed and there is no proof that it would preserves peoples' identities, even though there is evidence that brain structure can survive the process.
In medicine, very cold conditions are used to store organs before transplantation and to store eggs and sperm, and as a way of removing warts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7304852.stm
The imagination of the science fiction author Sir Arthur C Clarke bubbled over with ideas about the future of science, technology and human society. Here, BBC science and technology staff look at some that came true, and some that did not.
1. SPACE ELEVATOR
A space elevator consists of a ribbon of material strung between a spacecraft and an anchor on Earth. The tether would be used to transport material from Earth into space.
Sir Arthur first talked about the concept in his 1979 novel The Fountains of Paradise, in which engineers construct a space elevator on top of a mountain peak on a fictional island.
He embellished these concepts in his 1981 technical paper The Space Elevator: Thought Experiment, or Key to the Universe?
Although he brought the concept of a space elevator to a wider audience, the idea was first conceived by Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1895.
The idea may sound like it should remain in the realm of science fiction, but many take it seriously.
Nasa has a had long-running space elevator research project, and recent developments with carbon nanotubes have raised the possibility of developing a tether strong enough to connect a ship to Earth - previously one of the key challenges.
For the last three years there has even been a competition, run by the Elevator:2010 project, which awards prizes of $500,000 to help develop the technology.
2. MILLENNIUM BUG
The millennium bug gripped governments and businesses as the countdown to the year 2000 began.
The Y2K bug, as it was also known, referred to potential problems arising from older computer systems that could not recognise 2000 as the year coming after 1999.
People were warned not to fly over the New Year, and were told that there could be potential problems with banking and even gas and electricity supplies.
In interviews, Sir Arthur said he outlined what may have been "the first account, outside the technical literature, of the now-dreaded millennium bug, its cause and its cure."
The prediction was made in a chapter of his 1990 novel The Ghost from the Grand Banks.
In the end, the Y2K bug had little effect on businesses as the clocks struck midnight.
3. SPACE GUARD
This Clarke prediction not only came true, it did so with the name that he bestowed in his 1972 novel Rendezvous with Rama.
The eponymous rendezvous occurs in 2131, when astronomers working with Project Spaceguard, Earth's defence system against asteroid strikes, detect an alien probe hurtling towards the Solar System.
Alien probes may not be frequent visitors in reality, but asteroids and meteorites are; hence a 1992 Nasa investigation into how to monitor these visiting bodies and assess the threat they may pose.
It was named the Spaceguard Survey. The primary aim of US policy now is to map 90% of Near Earth Objects (NEOs).
Britain also has a national information service for NEOs, although lobby groups such as - you guessed it - Spaceguard UK would like the government to commit more resources to the issue.
In The Hammer of God, Sir Arthur envisaged that a rogue asteroid could be deflected from its Earth-bound course by landing on it and fitting thrusters.
In 2005 the Japanese Hayabusa probe did land on asteroid Itokawa, though deploying thrusters and attempting a deflection is still science fiction.
4. COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITES
Arthur C Clarke was not the first to suggest using geostationary orbits - his ideas built on earlier work by Herman Potocnik and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
His conceptual leap, outlined in a 1945 article in Wireless World magazine, was to propose using a set of satellites in geostationary orbit to form a global communications network.
The first satellite was placed into geostationary orbit in 1964, just 19 years after Sir Arthur's paper.
Syncom 3 orbited above the Pacific Ocean and beamed pictures from the Tokyo Olympics to the US later that year - the first trans-Pacific TV transmission.
Networks of satellites in this orbit now provide services including phone calls, data transmission, and TV signals for most of the world's inhabited regions.
Meteorological and ground observation satellites also follow the path Sir Arthur mapped out, and the term Clarke Orbit is sometimes used to describe their trajectory.
What he did not foresee was the development of the transistor and later the integrated circuit, which mean satellites are far smaller than the objects he sketched out, which would have used valve technology and needed regular maintenance.
5. ATOMIC TRAVEL
Prelude to Space was not only Arthur C Clarke's first published science fiction novel, it was the prelude to a career that produced a number of suggestions about how humankind might journey into space.
The 1951 book envisaged bringing nuclear energy into use, powering a craft named Prometheus.
Arguably the author was out-imagined by US planners in the early days of the Cold War, whose Project Orion concept involved craft propelled by detonating a series of nuclear bombs behind them.
Orion did not get off the ground; but life eventually imitated Sir Arthur's art in the Soviet Union, which launched a number of satellites powered by nuclear reactors. Cosmos 954 crashed in Canada in 1978, with contamination of the surrounding area.
Nasa revived the nuclear concept a few years ago with Project Prometheus, a research initiative that would have sent nuclear-powered probes out to explore the cosmos.
Its most heralded component was the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (Jimo), which would use its huge power source to zoom from one exciting Jovian satellite to the next looking for water and life.
But Nasa's Prometheus has died; and there is little sign of any space agency taking the nuclear option further.
6. EARTHQUAKE PREVENTION
In Richter 10, his 1990 collaboration with science fiction author Mike McQuay, Sir Arthur tells the story of an attempt to predict and prevent earthquakes.
The plan is to "spot weld" the earth’s tectonic plates at 50 strategic locations, stopping their movement and therefore stopping the catastrophic splits that cause earthquakes.
The welding was to be done by detonating powerful nuclear bombs deep inside the Earth.
The plan is initiated to prevent a huge quake splitting California from the North American mainland.
At the moment this scenario remains almost completely in science fiction.
Earthquake prediction is an inexact science with no standard, reproducible technique used by scientists.
In addition, tectonic forces are huge – able to build mountains, create deep ocean basins and tear continents apart.
"Spot welding" an earthquake fault would probably have very little long term effect when pitted against these monstrous movements.
In any case, the plan outlined in Richter 10 is foiled when a terrorist attack destroys the facility where the work is being carried out.
7. BRAIN BACKUP
Sir Arthur often explored the idea of backing up or transferring the human brain on to a computer.
In his book 3001: The Final Odyssey he wrote of future beings: "As soon as their machines were better than their bodies, it was time to move.
"First their brains, and then their thoughts alone, they transferred into shining new homes of metal and of gemstone."
"In these they roamed the galaxy. They no longer built spaceships - they were spaceships"
It was an idea he thought would be useful for people wanting to pass their memories and personalities on at the end of their lives.
"When their bodies begin to deteriorate you transfer their thoughts so their personalities would be immortal," he told the BBC in 2005. "Just save it on a CD-Rom and plug it in - simple!"
Although scientists have not quite reached this stage yet, projects are starting to lay the foundations.
For example Gordon Bell, a researcher at Microsoft, is working on a project called MyLifeBits which aims to digitally store "a lifetime's worth of articles, books, cards, CDs, letters, memos, papers, photos, pictures, presentations, home movies, videotaped lectures, and voice recordings"
The latest version of the project also allows him to capture phone calls, instant messenger transcripts, television, and radio to build up a virtual surrogate memory of his life.
8. PEOPLE FREEZING
Arthur C Clarke's pre-occupation with interplanetary space travel led him to consider how humans could survive for the long periods needed to cross vast tracts of space.
One of the answers he came up with, outlined in the story The Songs of Distant Earth, was cryogenic suspension.
The plot sees the human race having to leave Earth in a convoy of spaceships as the Sun is about to explode.
Currently, cryogenic preservation of living people is impossible, and in many countries it is illegal to attempt it.
More than 150 people, mainly in the US, have been frozen in liquid nitrogen after their death.
But even the companies running these projects admit that freezing cannot be reversed and there is no proof that it would preserves peoples' identities, even though there is evidence that brain structure can survive the process.
In medicine, very cold conditions are used to store organs before transplantation and to store eggs and sperm, and as a way of removing warts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7304852.stm
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2002
- Messages
- 36,432
- Location
- East of Suez
Tapeloop
Junior Acolyte
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2002
- Messages
- 97
Did Mysterious Universe ever get a DVD release in the UK like his first two series? I really enjoyed revisiting those ones but it all seems quiet about the third series (unless I've missed it of course).
Loved the books when I was a kid, part of the reason I'm here on this forum and reading FT.
Loved the books when I was a kid, part of the reason I'm here on this forum and reading FT.
Stillill
Abominable Snowman
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2014
- Messages
- 893
- Location
- London
ive never seen a U.K. release. I’m pretty sure it’s available as an Italian import.
Tapeloop
Junior Acolyte
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2002
- Messages
- 97
Thanks Stillill, I'll look out for that Italian one then. I know it's available in America but it is quite expensive on import, plus Network did such a nice job with the first two series that it would be good to have a full set. I seem to recall they were all shown on the short lived "Paranormal Channel" on Sky a few years ago too.
Stillill
Abominable Snowman
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2014
- Messages
- 893
- Location
- London
yes there is a US box set of all three series but, as you say it is expensive
escargot
Disciple of Marduk
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2001
- Messages
- 43,338
- Location
- HM The Tower of London
In the book, and probably in the TV series too, there are a couple of mysteries that were supposed to be revealed after the deaths of certain persons. One was to do with a horse race. As everyone's now dead maybe we could hear the answers?
escargot
Disciple of Marduk
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2001
- Messages
- 43,338
- Location
- HM The Tower of London
The Crystal Skull we saw was in the Museum of Mankind in London. I do believe I found its location by the esoteric method of reading about it in the book.
Peripart
Antediluvian
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2005
- Messages
- 6,733
That horse race story - it wasn't the old Wilfrid Hyde-White one, was it?
Peripart
Antediluvian
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2005
- Messages
- 6,733
You're dabbling in some dark stuff, there. Books, indeed. No good will come of it.
escargot
Disciple of Marduk
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2001
- Messages
- 43,338
- Location
- HM The Tower of London
Ogdred Weary
ᛟᛒᛊᛏᛁᚾᚨᛏᛖ ᚲᛁᛗᚱᛁᚲ
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2012
- Messages
- 7,123
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2004
- Messages
- 29,622
- Location
- Out of Bounds
Here's the thread largely focused on the horse race prediction story. It appeared in Clarke's World of Strange Powers.
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/wilfrid-hyde-white.405/
Tapeloop
Junior Acolyte
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2002
- Messages
- 97
Being a morbid old git I couldn't help but feel the shows are quite a valuable record of Fortean events as lets face it, some of the people interviewed were quite old and probably long gone by now. The last chance to tell their stories. That's a cheery thought for Christmas isn't it 
In the first series there's also a really funny ill fitting wig too.
In the first series there's also a really funny ill fitting wig too.
Stillill
Abominable Snowman
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2014
- Messages
- 893
- Location
- London
Being a morbid old git I couldn't help but feel the shows are quite a valuable record of Fortean events as lets face it, some of the people interviewed were quite old and probably long gone by now. The last chance to tell their stories. That's a cheery thought for Christmas isn't it
In the first series there's also a really funny ill fitting wig too.
There are two unbelievably bad wigs in the series. Then there is this man with the thickest hair I’ve ever seen.
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2001
- Messages
- 7,225
That’s where I saw theirs first, The Museum of Mankind was a branch of the BM which closed in 1997 so all their materials are now at the BM proper or in storage.
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2001
- Messages
- 7,225
Ah yes that would be on the search for Mkele M’bembe.Being a morbid old git I couldn't help but feel the shows are quite a valuable record of Fortean events as lets face it, some of the people interviewed were quite old and probably long gone by now. The last chance to tell their stories. That's a cheery thought for Christmas isn't it
In the first series there's also a really funny ill fitting wig too.
marhawkman
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2019
- Messages
- 1,441
1: the idea has a massive limitation, but that limitation only exist due to scale. Finding a cable that can support it's own weight when several miles long I hard enough. But you need tons of cargo capacity.
2: I remember working IT when this was a craze. It was a non-event because people fixed the problem before it became a real problem. Also some of the worst stuff was domino effect speculation.
3: it's kind an obvious name really.
4: Hehe, good idea made AWESOME by adding other ideas.
5: Well, uncontrolled explosions as a power source seems problematic. Last I heard they are considering space ship mounted nuclear reactors though.
6: dumb concept. earthquakes happen in part because the plates spot weld themselves....
7: human brain contain HUGE amounts of data....
8: from what I've heard the biggest issue is in microcrystals of ice causing tissue damage that can't be repaired. This is on the cellular level and takes the form of ruptured cell walls and such like things.