Speaking of regurgitating the conditional future... but not a heaping
serving of "in vitro meat" (from an earlier posting).... That one could
have been caught, for the obvious reason, in my "Spam" filter ;-)
... and say, speaking of clear-as-glass - whatever happened to 'in vitro
babies'? Many still consider Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" to be one
the most influential novels of all time; but is actually working on
wombless-technology in the lab taboo or just premature? We may be
missing an opportunity to take procreation to the next higher efficiency
level.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World
Anyway, there are 'multiple sarcasms' aplenty today, without
procreating, as materials scientists in the USA seem to be missing other
opportunities. Less than a month ago, a potentially important Japanese
paper passed under the radar of many Futurists and other pundits.
"Surface Modification of Bacterial Cellulose Nanofibers for Property
Enhancement of Optically Transparent Composites" by Ifuku, et al. Kyoto
University (along with the ubiquitous Mitsubishi)
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/bomaf6/asap/abs/bm070113b.html
Previously, but only a decade ago, vat-grown bacterial cellulose, also
pioneered in Japan but not yet commercial, was promising a 10-1
weight-to-strength advantage over structural steel. It has advantages
over carbon fiber. Now the stuff can be made clear.
Abstract:
Bacterial cellulose (BC) nanofibers were acetylated to enhance the
properties of optically transparent composites of acrylic resin
reinforced with the nanofibers....
Wow. Truth is stranger than fiction once again. Stories like this let
the SciFi readers imagination run riot - putting even the great prophet
(profit?) William Gibson to shame.
Below, I am rewording a recent posting on the nanofiber-future to "clear
things up" a bit.
This is not exactly a book review of "Virtual Light" - which was the
first novel in what has become known as the 'bridge trilogy' by SciFi
visionary (and one of the more infamous yet successful 'Nam-era
draft-dodgers) William Gibson.
This post is really more about bio-mimicry and making the "future of the
future" more transparent.
'Virtual Light' was a provocative read and like all of Gibson's books,
had prescient technological underpinnings. His timing was a bit off -
as is generally the case with prophets. Prophets often receive accurate
glimpses of the future in surprising detail, but almost never get the
timing down.
An explanation for this temporal shortcoming in visionaries, from the
biblical to the blasphemous, is that "the future" may already exist in
potential - but in an ongoing contingency balance. IOW without getting
too deep into the idea of parallel universes, it may be that LENR is
already a reality 'in potential' (elsewhere) and whether our society
will take advantage of that particular "branch" will be decided on our
mutual political willpower in the coming years, which of course has been
lacking thus far.
Like the French language, all humanoids may exist in timeless state of
past imperfect, present subjunctive and future conditional. HG Wells was
probably thinking along these lines when he wrote the classic "Men Like
Gods" and the theme has been expanded by many since (including Huxley).
Often the 'alternate universe' theme is framed by postulating that every
historical crisis, like 9/11 for instance, can branch and spawn a new
universe for significant variations, resulting in a large number of
alternate histories. For instance, Bush could easily have been
assassinated that day, according to reports. Would this have led to a
nuclear response? Or with an absence of chad, and AlGore in office,
Keanu Reeves tricks Morgan Freeman, LENR gets massive funding, and the
Prius never needs a fillup. Never.
The literary interpretation on this theme is sometimes rooted in the
many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics but it can operate "in
reverse" by assuming that each "potential" outcome has already happened
somewhere previously in 4-space, and we presently have the group
free-will to choose one branch over another. This makes the advocacy
function of Vortex more important than you may realize.
Despite Gibson's success as a writer (~15 million copies in print) in
which almost work features AI or something similar in the way of
advanced computing, the writer himself never had a special relationship
with the PC. Reportedly "Neuromancer" was written on a Selectric. Go figure.
Anyway, one of the small details in 'Virtual Light' was a new kind of
(old) structural material: to wit *paper* - that's right PAPER. The
novel featured future bike couriers (no gasoline available in this
dystopia - but amazing computers) whose 'ride' was constructed mostly
from an advanced paper instead of steel or carbon fiber. Many readers
must have thought this was just too far-out for the time - 1993 - but
very soon thereafter the technical article below was published re: the
very same paper material - but made by bugs - "bacterial cellulose".
In many ways, especially cost, this material is superior to graphite
fiber and has a 10-1 performance advantage over the best steel. It is a
nanomaterial, but not necessarily man-made as the "manufacturer" itself
is nano (Acetobacter xylinum). It is not surprising that the Japanese
are way ahead on this as that culture has always prized paper as both an
artistic medium and a structural material.
One of the characters in Virtual Light, a gal of flexible morals named
Chevette Wahington, who was pretty much the predecessor for Jessica
Alba's character in the cult TV favorite - 'Dark Angel' - gets around on
one of these paper-frame bicycles which is almost theft-proof, having
its own AI computer link. She probably wouldn't even need that if Gibson
had foreseen the transparency angle.
You would have thought it would be a self-powered bike too, using LENR
but nope - this is no utopia, definitely dystopia, and apparently Gibson
(in a strange twist for a SciFi-guy) did see a future generally obeying
one set of Laws.
As to timing - Gibson takes us to a near-future of ... OOPS... a couple
of years ago - 2005. Like I said, he got the timing way off. Welcome to
NoCal and SoCal, the uneasy sister-states of what used to be the Golden
State: California. The millennium has come and gone leaving in its wake
stunned cash-poor survivors, but somehow with great computers, nearly
weightless bikes, and not much else.
Anyway the structural paper article is here:
http://www.iupac.org/publications/pac/1997/pdf/6911x2453.pdf
"Production of bacterial cellulose by agitation culture systems" by
Takayasu Tsuchida and Fumihiro Yoshinaga
Abstract: An economical mass production system of bacterial cellulose
(BC) on agitated culture was constructed. They conducted screening of BC
producers in agitated culture. A total of 2096 strains were isolated
from natural sources and the best BC producing strain, BPR2001, was
selected....
All we need now - to accomplish an improved, and crystal clear
subjunctive-conditional-future, and to convert the pending Gibsonian
dystopia into a near utopia, is the advanced power supply to go with the
light and transparent material. Duh.
The younger generation of geeks & gamers is into morphing, music
remixing, and all sorts of recombinations of art. Perhaps one of them
will morph Jed Rothwell's book on LENR into virtual lightness and come
up with something a bit more optimistic to go with the two kilogram
bike. Like the Prius that never needs refueling.
Otherwise, we risk another real dystopia, the post-human nightmarish
vision of the "Matrix" ... where we ARE the power supply <g>
Jones
