ANSWERS : Play

Kind of a stupid question, but seriously!

Where is my flying car?
Why can I not teleport?
Why can I not buy an invisibility device?
How come I don't have a hoverboard
Why do we not live on Mars?
Where did the future go?

Comments

[kelseymh]

Where is my flying car? Pony up $200K, and it's yours.

Why can I not teleport? Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the quantum no-cloning theorem.

Why can I not buy an invisibility device? For yourself? Have some patience; the century still has 90+ years to go. For a small object? Contact the appropriate research groups.

How come I don't have a hoverboard? Because you didn't make yourself one? Or you're too smart to stand on something that will flip over automatically?

Why do we not live on Mars? Because we decided to spend our billions of dollars on health care, support for the poor and disabled, and killing the citizens of other countries.

Where did the future go? To the past, just like it always does. Wait a couple of days, and tomorrow will be yesterday.

[chemistrywiz]

i want a hoverboard anyone got any ideas

[gmoon]

Due to cost considerations, we're recycling the present.

[michaelb958]

Exactly. Money - it makes the world go round, but also applies the brakes HARD when it wants to.

[lemonie]

The future is happening tomorrow, be patient until then.

L

[thepelton]

Dear Lord, grant me patience, and I WANT IT NOW!

[michaelb958]

Heh heh.

[conrad2468]

Flying cars are out there theyre just expensive you can teleport but that would involve vaporizing your body and reassembling it at the other end....this may have some bad effects You cant buy one but they do have one but youll be cooked from the inside out by the microwaves required to use it We havent developed a lightweight/high powered enough motor/engine to do that It costs $450 million dollars PER PERSON to get someone into OUTER SPACE (NASA is a government run agency...meaning things dont get done very fast....independent agencies could accomplish this but they simply dont have the funding)

[dodo91]

if u want to fly soo bad, why doesnt anyone just get a gyrocopter. cheaper than a flying car, and pratical

[conrad2468]

The future is gonna get screwed over on December 21 2013......Rumor has it...the sun will be lined up with the black hole in the center of our universe...either flooding our planet or switching the magnetic poles....basically removing our only source of protection from the suns rays......have you seen the movie *underscore* Knowing *end underscore* ?

[yggdrazil]

no it will end in 2012 according to the Mayan calendar. No wait the computers will crash on 10/10/10. Or was it 01/01/01? Or was it Y2k? And what about those killer bees? Pick your favorite doomsday scenario; the world keeps on rollin' along. (so be happy!)

[dodo91]

exactly! people have always been setting "doomdays" and getting to scared. its like the calander on your wall. it ends. does that mean the end of the world? NO!
im holding a party for the day after the world is supposed to end

[alphaglider]

i forgot one the invisablility device if they made this you would be senn just harder to see

[dodo91]

they are actually getting the technology to make this happen. its a special machine that make all waves, including light and sound, go around the object. idk how, and i have still yet to see it.

[craftyv]

There is no such thing as the future because you can never get there from here.
Joke: As the Irishman said when asked "how do I get to Dublin?
The answer was "well if I was you I would't start from here'. Great question.

[dodo91]

exactly. being only 14, i easily understand lots of stuff. i dont know how. i just do. there is no future. there will never, ever, ever, be a machine to "rip the fabric of space and time" if they did, we would all be doomed. its just not reality. there really is only present and past. the technicall "future" could mean anything. a minute from now would be "the future" if it existed.

[afridave]

and give me 200k and ill give you an invisible device,no cheques please

[afridave]

Its all tied up in the past and present.

[alphaglider]

do you know physics cars would not have enough gas to fly a trip in the sky
teleporting would kill you and then clone you in another
hover boards would have the same problem as the car
it would take at least 3 years or more to get to mars
where did the future go all of those things are not possible in three demisions maby 6 or 9 but not three

[acidbass]

 people got lazy and instead of having cool devices peeps wanted to make video games 

[numenius]

It's early days yet - a famous astronomer here in England is old enough to have met one of the Wright brothers AND Neil Armstrong, which I think gives some perspective on how far we have come in a very, very short time. Providing we can avoid nuking each other, you might yet get some of those things!

[bassclarinet23]

It's not the future yet! We can never be in the future, only the present. All of those things are nearly impossible (scientifically, as of now), and scientists are working on these things constantly. Who said by 2009, those things would be here? In "Back to the Future: Part II", 2015 is the year when they finally have those things. 


Just think how far we've come from many years ago? In music for example, the industry has evolved from only live music to ipods that you can play games, watch TV, and make calls on as well as listen to your favorite songs at any given time at your preferred volume and other settings.

[MajorRockstar7]

my answer is less complicated than tech101 guy
1. Your flying car is in the garage but you need a lil LSD to get to it

2. teleporting is being worked on in area 51 (its true rosie o'donnel said so)

3. invisibility devices are a mixture of 1 and 2's answers

4. hoverboards are just in practical. its like a skateboard on air

5. we do live on mars just watch conspiracy movies and the transformers live there to according to the first movie

The future is here and its name is MAC not pc
BOO YA

-majorrockstar7

[Dr.Bill]

The future has always been there. Unfortunately, as soon as it gets here its the past already. Also I saw an article somewhere where the guy invented a Turbo-Fan Pack that lasts a couple of hours. I gotta get me one of them !

[Don,t try this at home]

Star-track ate it

[seandogue]

It was sold to the Chinese so "someone" could have their 1957 Chevy souped up and sold at auction for $350K and they could get hair transplants so they look young forever. Seriously...forget the teleportation...it's a literary device. Flying cars are possible, but not all that practical. You may be a good river, but can you imagine dealing with the present set of Sports Bar Yahoos after a night of braying fun and a dozen drinks? the roads are bad enough... You can't afford an invisibility device. hoverboard? power We don't live on Mars because we don't have the foresight to take smaller steps to get us there. Moon first, Mars later. Unfortunately, present management likes the sound bite value of "mars" and the impossibility that leads to pocketed cash while making it not happen. Yeah, I'm a cynic.

[seandogue]

*driver, not river

[mikedu]

Flying car? Maybe it wont be what you expect. More likely we will have segments of the city designated as takeoff points, where ordinary but computer controlled aircraft shuttle you around. that seems feasible.

[matchett808]

tbh,it was supposed to come on a virgin train....it got delayed!

lol, but these things will come...

the future has been and gone but is still to come!

Trippy thinking about it that way eh?

[Module 1]

1. if a car can fly, it isn't a car any more, it is a private jet. 2. teleportation requires the deconstruction, transportation, then reconstruction of human atoms. It's just not possible yet. 3. I'm working on this. 4.Search hoverboard on YouTube. 5. first, we will terraform mars (look it up on wikipedia), second, we will send astronauts to build temporary houses while they build permanant ones, once mars is terraformed enough to live in, they will send us by the dozens in shuttles to mars.

[sooyman]

heres some Teleportation and possible time travel!
oh and invisibility
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_project#Synopsis

[robotguy4]

Why buy a flying car? BUY A JET PACK!
Oh, and they have hover boards... Just not awesome float two feet off the ground hoverboards...
As for the rest of the stuff... Well... You can keep on waiting OR you can do something about it!

[robotguy4]

Also, invisibility isn't all that it is cracked up to be...

[Dr.Bill]

they don't last long enough. 45 to 60 seconds.

[robotguy4]

Hmmmmm... I would have to disagree. Lets look at the specs, shall we?

Technical Specs:
Range 31.5 miles (at max speed of 63 mph as required by FAA part 103).
Fuel Capacity: 5 US gallons (as required by FAA Part 103,Ultralight Regulations)
Fuel burn: 10.0 gph

5g/10gph=.5 hours=30 minutes=1800 seconds...

1800 sec > 60 sec > 45 sec

[Dr.Bill]

It was a Lie. I was promised a flying car by the year 2000 by Walter Cronkite in 1964 on a show about the year 2000. It is a lie there is no future.

[RoosterSocks]

It will be here tomorrow, unless you ordered it from ACME !

[Packers Widow]

The future is NOW! You can talk, text, watch, write, calculate, play, photograph, research, buy things, sell things, find love, watch videos, listen to music, and so much more. . . all on a little device that fits in the palm of your hand.

[thetech101]

Where is my flying car? Under development. The current cars on the road have engines powerful enough to make a small object fly. However there are several problems. First, even a light economy car is too heavy. Most really small airplanes weigh around 2,000 pounds. Most newer model economy cars weigh around 2,500 or 3,000 (compared with the economy cars of 20 or 30 years ago, which weighed <2,000 pounds). Second is the gas mileage would be pretty horrible. The engine would have to run at a constant speed of around 3,000 rpm. Even running at it's most efficient speed, an ICE would get horrible gas mileage (probably <10 mpg while flying). Third, adding foldable wings and propellers (or giant fans with ducts in place of wings) would add weight and complexity, lowering gas mileage on the street and increasing maintanence costs. Why can I not teleport? Again several problems. Scientists have teleported single atoms. They can teleport molecules. One problem is, there is no way to arrange the atoms the same way as they were before teleporting. The molecule would be a completely different molecule under most cases (this even happens sometimes to atoms). Second, the original is just copied and then destroyed. The information is sent to the reconstruction machine and the atoms are re-assembled at the new location from what's available. This presents several problems. First of all, what if the necessary atoms are not available? The copy cannot be re-assembled correctly. Second, how are atoms going to be assembled? We do not currently have the necessary machinery to do work at the molecular level at the speeds needed to re-assemble the atoms in any reasonable time. Third, where are we going to store all that information? I did a quick calculation a few years ago and found that it would take several terabytes of storage space to store a human as information. This doesn't include brain activity, which requires several times more. Third, what if the information is corrupted during sending? How will the computer know? If it's corrupted, then all sorts of weird things could happen. Have you ever seen a movie called "The Fly (1986)"? I suggest yo watch it if you haven't. Why can I not buy an invisibility device? Scientists have already made several invisibility devices. Metamaterials are some that I've been researching. They have the ability to bend light. The only problem is, they only work on a very specific frequency range. When I say very specific, I'm saying along the lines of 5 or so nanometers. Believe it or not, scientists have made a car invisible. It did produce a shadow in direct sunlight, but it was miniscule and you had to actually look to find it. However, there is not currently any way to get light to the interior from the outside. A camera could be used, but because of the nature of metamaterials, it would have to be visibly mounted on the outside, instead of behind a lens looking out of a small hole in the front/side/rear/wherever. How come I don't have a hoverboard? The main problem is power. There is currently no power source that can provide enough power in a lightweight package. Even the most power dense lithium packs available today weigh several times more than what could be used on a hoverboard. Another problem is the only reliable way to hover is using moving air. You can't use the earth's magnetic field because it is too weak. A fridge magnet is about 10x more powerful than the earth's magnetic field. We do have the ability to levitate an object using magnetic fields (google "maglev trains") but they require magnets to generate a field for the train to float on (it also has magnets generating a field). And maglev trains are currently in use. They actually have a very high speed limit (well above the speed of sound). Why do we not live on Mars? It would cost hundreds of trillions of dollars. Maybe more. We would have to find a way to put oxygen on the planet. Then we would have to find a way to get there fast. It takes several years to get from Earth to Mars. We would have to put the occupants of the space shuttle in some kind of stasis (medically induced coma of sorts). Then we would have to get the materials to build colonies. That would cost several trillion dollars on it's own. And there is currently no fuel that has enough energy density to get people and equipment to Mars at a steady speed. The engines would have to be shut off shortly after leaving the atmosphere and pointing towards Mars. The gravity of our Sun and the rest of the solar system would slow the craft down. The reason we have rovers on Mars is because they are so light that they require very little fuel (compared to a space shuttle) to get to Mars. They just aim themselves at a set of predetermined coordinates and fire the engines for only about 5 minutes and hibernate the rest of the trip. Where did the future go? In short, Hollywood overplayed the future. They still do. Flying cars have been only 10 years down the road for nearly 50 years now. Teleportation has been just around the corner for 30 or 40 years now. Hollywood doesn't care if the physics in movies match real life physics (watch "Wanted" if you don't believe me). They just want the movies to be exciting. Teens want exciting, so Hollywood gives it too them. They don't care if the physics works or not. If it'll sell, they'll produce it.

[codongolev]

best answer.

[necropolian]

you know, i actually said 80 % of this below in my answer.

[wupme]

Not really, and he put a lot effort into explaining it.

[jj37]

1.http://www.moller.com/

2. Too painful

3. http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/01/15/invisibility-cloak.html

4.http://gizmodo.com/288484/hoverboards-make-us-fart-a-little-with-excitement

5.We are still making sure it is safe

6.you blinked

[crickettcm]

"Whatever Happened to the Future" The future is there, nothing ever happened to it. You just probably think that something happened to it because we never get to it. When ever we do get to it, it is then considered the present. So even if you say your in the future of something that happened some time ago, your saying that in present. Right now as your reading this your in the future of what happened in the past, but your still in the present. So I you guess could say that what happened to the future, is that it vanishes before you can ever get to it.

[rachaelwrites]

It hasn't happened yet. It should happen, but you will be very old by the time it does. Don't worry though; there might be anti-aging tech.

[fwjs28]

everything happened to nothing (^duh)

[Focker]

Invisibility device is already here. Fiber Optic camouflage, google it.

[thetech101]

Also try "metamaterials".

[acidbass]

cuz people got dumber as time went on if you look at some of the old people they are extremely smart but today it is just horribly sad to see that society has changed our future so much by screwing up our future generations. watch the movie idiocracy and you see what i mean

[Rock Soldier]

Because NASA spends billions of dollars looking for planets that may not exist. About to Mars one, it's not possible yet, if ever.

[Rock Soldier]

If your not from America, that NASA thing won't apply to you of course.

[thepelton]

Also, why don't we have a permanent human colony on the Moon and Mars? If we put a colony on the Moon, we could create an observatory there that wouldn't be subject to the problems that the Hubble has. Imagine, two solid weeks a month, day and night, for astronomy! And in a sixth the gravity, a massive telescope could be made that would collapse under it's own weight if built on earth! We need some real visionaries in the Government.

[plumber_bob]

Well the future is on the way, but it isn't arriving on time, that's all.
Here's an update to the schedule:

Where is my flying car? Still a way's, off, more problems have to been conquered still. 10 - 20 years.

Why can I not teleport? Much technology is still needed. Don't hold your breath on this one!

Why can I not buy an invisibility device? Actually this is in development in one or two different places. 10 years or so and this may be on the Walmart shelves.

How come I don't have a hoverboard? You're not trying hard enough to build one. This is where you can make a difference. I'm waiting for your Instructable on this.

Why do we not live on Mars? Why would you want to live there? Try a year or two in the Antarctic first, there won't be any gardening. :=)

Where did the future go? It's always just a split second ahead of you.

Sounds like the schedules we got are either out dated,(mine was from the sixties), or from poor schedulers.

Onward into the future!

[necropolian]

hmm.... this is because: 1. the scientists of the past century were unable to correctly predict when, and IF, something would happen. 2. hollywood of the past century was too lazy to find out everything about the subject. who do you think spread the mistake of a giant slavery in egypt, to construct the piramids? only good craftsmen couldcut that sandstone in a perfect shape and make those paintings. 3. the bloody Phyics prevent you from doing that. 4. you're not a small as a foton, which can already be teleported. 5. actually, flying cars are (although not like in the movies) already in development. it's basically a plane with foldable wings, which can reach more than 88 miles/hour on ground (without timetravelling). 6. a skateboard with 4 bottles of compressed air isn't practical. and living on mars can be reality, however, keeping a 'house' at constant room temperature (with outside temperatures of 100°C and i don't know what below zero) consumes a lot of energy, and you can't come out. so, not practical, either. by the way, this should be the best answer.

[Bardouv]

It is up to you to do all those things.