Sci-Fi dreams come true

Col: Maintaining Equilibrium

Why in the name of Spock is every man, woman, and child not zipping through the Tim Horton’s drive-thru strapped to a personal jet pack? Of course, children of a certain age would require a booster pack and newly licensed teens a “novice driver” sign clearly posted on their back rockets, but come on scientists and engineers, we’ve waited long enough! And why has technology not yet matched that of Marty McFly’s day?

Kids should be raising hell on hoverboards, not cruising through adolescence on four plastic wheels, archaically grinding over asphalt day in and day out. For those of us who need a luxurious alternative to the jet pack and hoverboard, for more comfortable rides I’d suggest the hover Beemer, Caddie – or more likely – the somewhat reliable Hover Cavalier. Wait, it doesn’t end there.

Forget webcams, where are the 3D holographic representations of our fellow chatters that make it all too real when Mom appears in the middle of our cramped Paton College pad? Or how about the robots: Not just the glorified vacuum cleaner, Roomba, or the programmable Robie Sr. from Radio Shack circa 1980-something, but real robot slaves to do laundry, cook, and help us cram for exams. Maybe I could have been playing in Yankee Stadium if I would have had a whole robot baseball team to practice with daily – man, does that Robo-Ryan have a mean changeup.

Although some of these ideas sound like science fiction, these technologies are surprisingly advanced in this newest decade of ours. Jet packs do exist, and are used most commonly by astronauts as security devices in the extremely frightening case that they be separated from the shuttle or space station during extra-vehicular activity. Floating alone in the loneliest of places, over 300 km above Earth’s surface, a few puffs from your rocket belt may be just the push you need to save your exceptionally well-trained ass.

NASA expertise is one thing, but as it turns out, the lore of the jet pack has proven hard to dismiss for many a backyard engineer since the transportation devices were suggested in 1920s science fiction. Many rocket packs have been built over the years propelled by kerosene, hydrogen peroxide decomposition, and even water. Earth’s strong gravitational pull, air resistance, and our heavy, non-bird-like bodies don’t seem to jive with jet pack travel. Unfortunately, we’ll probably have to wait for a more suitable technology to help us master the skies; jet packs just don’t seem to be a practical means of giving humans wings.

Holography, on the other hand, has found far more applications since its discovery in 1945 by physicist, Dennis Gabor than the alluring jet pack. A hologram is a 3D-image produced from the interference between laser light scattered by an object and a reference laser aimed at a recording material. Holograms are used to store large amounts of data, help ensure our currency is protected from counterfeiters, and are increasingly being used in medical imaging techniques. I don’t know about you, but when I think of holograms I’m thinking more along the lines of a 3D-visual projection akin to R2-D2’s message playback in Star Wars. For the betterment of mankind, researchers at the University of Southern California have succeeded in re-creating this type of hologram by using a special spinning mirror and a high-speed projector. The results are straight out of Star Wars complete with a hovering blue face that’s even clearer than Princess Leia’s.

Robots have been building cars and other products for humans for quite some time now, obeying Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics every step of the way, but not fetching the mail or keeping us company. However, with Honda’s recently developed humanoid robot, Asimo, we’re well on our way to personal robot helpers.

Unfortunately, the coolest technology of all – the hoverboard – remains an elusive dream. I guess we’ll have to wait until we go back to the future to see a time when the tire industry is pushed to the brink. In fact, maybe it’s Michelin, Bridgestone, and the rest of them that are secretly squashing our hopes of hovering to school one day.

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