Inventions that will never be
Although our ideas about the world are constantly turned upside down, and breakthroughs occur in science that strongly correct existing theories, some ideas will definitely not be realized. They either contradict the known laws of the Universe, or their probability is so microscopic that it is not even worth considering. Look At Me has collected examples of 8 technologies that many dream about, but people will never bring them to life.
Teleportation
Despite the fact that under laboratory conditions a quantum teleportation has already taken place (a couple of bound photons were teleported 100 kilometers), it will never be possible to transport a whole person like that. First, a well-known ethical dilemma will arise: since teleportation is not about moving an object, but copying it (all the particles of your original body will be scanned and then reproduced exactly at the destination), then the original will probably have to be destroyed every time … Second, the energy requirements of teleportation are extremely close to impossible. The teleportator must instantly scan and record 10 to 45 degrees of particles that make up the human body, transmit this information to the required distance, and then reassemble the person - and not miss a single molecule.
Universal translator
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ANOTHER FANTASTIC FANTASTIC GADGET is a universal translator, a device that can instantly translate from any language, even those that are not programmed in it. It's impossible. Without grammar, syntax rules and other components of the language, it is unrealistic to deduce an entire language from one or more sentences. Moreover, since a person does not have a linguistic instinct, in theory, language may not be like any other. The problems, however, lie not only in the field of linguistics. Douglas Hofstadter, in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach: This Endless Garland, explains why it is mathematically impossible to compose precise instructions for a computer that would allow it to understand the nuances of human culture, including language. The program will never learn to grasp, for example, intonations unknown to it, which means it will not understand unfamiliar languages.
Time Machine
It seems that thanks to Albert Einstein we know that time travel is possible. His theories suggest the existence of wormholes connecting two zones of space-time; it is enough to fly through such a hole to move to the past and back to the present. Unfortunately, this is impossible - at least for the next several thousand, or even a million years. According to physicist Michio Kaku, we will need the energy of an entire star or a black hole for such a journey, which is, of course, very difficult to obtain. In addition, it is necessary to stabilize the wormhole and make sure that the entrance to it does not close during the entire journey - otherwise the traveler will go to the past and will not be able to return. Finally, we must not forget about the paradox of the murdered grandfather: the technology that allows you to go to the past and kill your ancestor cannot exist,because it will destroy the universe.
Perpetual motion machine
A classic example of impossible technology, often chased by charlatans and pseudo-scientists. If we can say about some of the things from this list that they can appear in millions of years, then a perpetual motion machine is completely impossible. It simply contradicts the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Both deal with energy: the first says that energy cannot appear out of the blue and disappear into nowhere; the second is that the entropy in the Universe inevitably increases. Therefore, the energy in an imaginary device that can work indefinitely must come from somewhere - and it will definitely go somewhere (or rather, be converted from one type of energy to another, for example, from mechanical to thermal).
Traveling faster than the speed of light
Traveling faster than the speed of light is another violation of Einstein's physics. The speed of light is the speed limit in the Universe, against which all linear processes are measured, including the propagation of matter and even information. When it comes to particles, the question of overcoming the speed of light becomes a little more difficult, but one thing is for sure: any large objects (that is, more microscopic) can never move so fast. At some point, scientists proposed tachyons, special particles faster than light (Einstein's theory of relativity seems to resolve them), but now they have been abandoned. We simply have no evidence of their existence. Even if they are ever discovered, we will not be able to use tachyons - this will require energy several times the mass of the visible Universe. Furthermore,since it will be extremely difficult to transmit information inside a ship traveling above the speed of light, its crew will not be able to control the ship. Finally, even if stopped, people at the destination will be destroyed - a huge amount of gamma rays and particles will scatter in all directions when the ship stops.
Ark ship
If a person cannot move at the speed of light, and it takes a very, very long time to fly to the nearest inhabited planet, then the most logical decision is to send an ark ship there, as Robert Heinlein wrote about. The ship-ark is a spaceship that flies to its goal for hundreds and thousands of years, and several generations of people manage to be born and die on it. To do this, you need to create ideal living conditions, the Earth's biosphere in miniature. The main problem lies in the colossal scale of construction and planning that would be required for such an expedition. Any such ship will require an incredible amount of resources, its device must be ideally thought out so that it can fly for a long time without problems, besides, there is no escape from the human factor. Purely theoretically, its construction may be possible,but it is much more logical to freeze or put the astronauts to sleep during the flight.
Antigravity field
HG Wells first proposed the anti-gravity field as a way to simplify space travel in The First Men on the Moon. It is an object or space free from the force of gravity. This idea violates the laws of physics: gravity is a fundamental property of matter. Nevertheless, there were scientists and experimenters who tried to create something similar: Thomas Townshend Brown in the 1920s created something called a "gravitator", and the Russian scientist Evgeny Podkletnov in the 90s stated that in the process of experiments with a superconductor he discovered "An effect that does not fit into the framework of classical physics" - both are, of course, not true.
Mind reading
Despite the fact that news constantly appears in the media that scientists have created an "apparatus for reading minds", this is impossible: they are doing their utmost to recognize images or emotions - which, of course, is impressive, but we will never get to specific thoughts. The human brain is incredibly complex, with an average of 82 billion neurons in it, each with 40,000 connections to other neurons. It's a dizzying task just to simulate them, but thoughts are also distributed throughout the brain. To read minds, one would have to compose an apparatus capable of distinguishing between billions of different things that a person can think about. This would take a huge number of test subjects and countless amounts of time. After all, such a device would be based on the idea that thoughts and memories are stored in all people in the same way. This is contrary to what neuroscience knows about the anatomy and structure of the brain.
Grisha Prophets