ecns [expanded by feedex.net]: Time travel and teleporting 'a reality for today's children'

ecns [expanded by feedex.net]

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Time travel and teleporting 'a reality for today's children'
http://www.ecns.cn/learning-Chinese/2014/11-02/141101.shtml
Nov 2nd 2014, 08:53

2014-11-02 16:53





Time travel and teleporting 'a reality for today's children'


Move over Marty McFly - time travel, invisibility cloaks and teleporting could all happen within today's schoolchildren's lifetimes, experts agree.


Children could be travelling between centuries as soon as the year 2100, while teleportation could become a regular occurence by around 2080, professors from Imperial College London and the University of Glasgow have said.


"The good thing about teleportation is that there is no fundamental law telling us that it cannot be done and with technical advances I would estimate teleportation that we see in the films will be with us by 2080," said Dr. Mary Jacquiline Romero from the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow.


"Teleporting a person, atom by atom, will be very difficult and is of course a physicist's way, but perhaps developments in chemistry or molecular biology will allow us to do it more quickly.," she said.


Time travel into the future has already been achieved, but only in miniscule amounts, Colin Stuart, science communicator and author of The Big Questions in Sciencesaid. Related Articles.


"Time travel to the future has already been achieved, but only in tiny amounts. The record is 0.02 seconds set by cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev. Whilst that doesn't sound too impressive, it does show that time travel to the future is possible and that the amount of time travel couldn't be far greater," he argued.


"If you travelled through space on a big loop at 10 per cent the speed of light for what seemed to you like six months, approximately six months and one day would have passed on Earth. You'd have time travelled a day into the future. Travel at the same speed for 10 years and you'll time travel nearly three weeks into the future. I would say we are looking at 2100 as a very optimistic timescale for travelling weeks into the future."


Invisibility cloaks, as featured in Harry Potter, could be "entirely feasible" within the next 10 to 20 years, Professor Chris Phillips, Professor of Experimental Solid State Physics at Imperial College London said.


Harry tests his invisibility cloack for the first time.


"One way to create an 'invisibility cloak' is to use adaptive camouflage, which involves taking a film of the background of an object or person and projecting it onto the front to give the illusion of vanishing," he added.


"We're actually not that far away from this becoming a reality � rudimentary technology versions of this have already been created � but the main problem is that the fibre-like structures in the adaptive camouflage need to be so tightly woven that it's incredibly labour intensive. With developments such as 3D printing allowing us to create previously impossible materials, it's entirely feasible that we could see a 'Harry Potter'-like invisibility cloak within the next 10 to 20 years."


The research was conducted by the Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair, which compared the predictions of scientists to that of a panel of 11-16 year-olds.


While their speculation was largely in line with the experts' expectations, the children thought time travel could be feasible by 2078. They also dramatically overestimated when they might be able to become space tourists - anticipating it might take another 30 years, when commercial space flights are due to launch in 2015.


In 2011 Nike created Marty McFly's famous self-tying trainers as featured in the second instalment of the Back to the Future franchise, to the delight of fans worldwide. Scientists and engineers also teamed up earlier this month to create a real hoverboard, as funded by Kickstarter.


Paul Jackson, of EngineeringUK, said the research demonstrated how although adults may be constrained by what we believe to be possible, the imagination and creativity of schoolchildren knows no bounds.


"This is so encouraging to hear, because ultimately it will be the younger generation who make these sci-fi dreams a reality � and it's crucially important to spark their interest now to supply the next cohort of scientists and engineers that Britain desperately needs to continue this research," he said.




穿越与瞬移本世纪可实现


有人认为，马蒂·麦克弗莱（Marty McFly，电影《回到未来》中人物 ）的动作——穿越，隐身斗篷和瞬移都是有可能在目前还是学龄儿童的有生之年实现的。专家们对这一观点表示认同。


帝国理工学院（Imperial College London）和格拉斯哥大学（the University of Glasgow）的教授们称，到2080年左右，瞬移就可能成为司空见惯的现实，但孩子们穿越世纪的梦最早得到2100年得以实现。格拉斯哥大学物理与天文学院的玛丽·杰奎琳·罗密欧（Mary Jacquiline Romero）博士表示："瞬移的优势在于并没有基本法明文禁止这一行为，随着科技的进步，我预计这种之前只有在电影荧幕上才得以见到的技艺在2080年之前就可以成为现实。"


她说道，"要以原子为单位实现人的瞬移将是一件非常困难的事，而且要通过物理方法才能得以实现，但化学和分子生物科技的发展可能会加快这一进程。"


科学传播者，《科学大问题》（The Big Questions in Science）的作者科林·斯图亚特（Colin Stuart）表示，穿越到未来的愿景已经实现，只是覆盖范围还不够广。他说，"穿越到未来不再是一个梦，但其覆盖面不够广泛。这一记录的保持者是俄罗斯宇航员克利卡列夫（Sergei Krikalev），穿越时间为0.02秒。尽管这一数字听上去并不是那么惊艳，但它表明了穿越到未来是可能实现的，穿越时间也会不止0.02秒。"


"如果以光速的10%的速度呈大环状在空间穿梭六个月，地球上则已经过了六个月零一天。那么你就穿梭了一天的时空。相同速度下，十年累计下来你就向未来穿梭了将近两周的时间。因此我认为要在2100年实现穿越到几周后的未来是完全有可能实现的，我们对这个时标抱以非常乐观的态度。"


帝国理工大学实验和固态物理学教授克里斯·菲利普（Chris Phillips）称，哈里·波特系列电影中出现的隐形斗篷在未来的十到二十年时间里完全具有可行性。


哈里第一次测试了他的隐形衣。


他补充道，"发明隐形衣的一种方式就是使用具有自适应功能的伪装装置。这包括将人或物的背景投射到前方，造成一种消失的视觉假象。"


"事实上，我们很快就可以将这一愿景变成现实了——基本技术雏形已经完成----但是主要问题在于伪装装置中类似纤维的结构需要编织得紧密一点。随着3D打印等技术的发展，我们得以发明一些此前根本不可能存在的材料。因此在未来的10年到20年内我们完全有可能看到哈里·波特同款的隐形衣面世。"


该研究由大爆炸英国青年科学家与工程师集会（Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair）开展，他们将科学家的预测与一群11-16岁孩子的预测作了一个比较。


尽管孩子们的推测与专家们的预期在很大程度上相符，但孩子们认为穿越要到2078年实现。他们还大胆预测了有能力进行太空之旅的时间——他们的预计是鉴于商用太空船将于2015年发射，太空旅行应该再过三十年也可以实现。


2011年，耐克推出了马蒂·麦克弗雷在电影《回到未来2》（Back to the Future）中亮相的运动鞋款，令全世界的粉丝大为惊喜。科学家和工程师们本月早些时候也在Kickstarter上筹资，计划发明一种真正的时光滑板。


英国工业协会（EngineeringUK）的保罗·杰克逊（Paul Jackson）称，该研究表明尽管成人会受到可能性的制约，学龄儿童的想象力和创造力确实无边无际的。


他说："这是一个振奋人心的消息，因为最终将科幻小说里的情节转变成现实的就是年轻一代——目前致关重要的就是激发他们的兴趣，英国要继续发展这一研究所急需的就是新一代的科学家和工程师的补给。"






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