Re: [PLUG] OT: 7 minutes of terror, Curiosity landing on Mars 01:30 EDT Monday

[Rich Freeman <r-plug@thefreemanclan.net>]

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 10:54 AM, Jack Hill <jackhill@jackhill.us> wrote:
> This discussion reminds me of Heinlein’s _Time for the Stars_. The
> premise is that the speed of telepathy is not a function of distance.

This sort of thing has been fodder for numerous science fiction works,
with the implications of various types of communications being
explored.  Stross has covered it differently in several of his works,
from teleportation gates (potentially just small enough to pass a
wireless signal through, or big enough to walk through), to quantum
devices (which are not compatible with FTL travel - though in that
book using FTL travel to actually travel FTL would get you in trouble
with the omnipotent human-made AI now running the galaxy).  The latter
book was Singularity Sky which I found interesting because it really
did a good job of showing how in a future society the speed of light
would become a limitation that had substantial impact on ordinary life
(including space combat, where propagation of information on target
locations at the speed of light became the determining factor for
tactics).

Expect asynchronous protocols to rule the universe one day...

Rich
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug