[ckilmer]

There is a related to another assertion that I will make from time to time. It goes like this.

In +-1808—not long after the return of Lewis and Clark from their explorations out west — Thomas Jefferson was asked how long it would take to colonize America. He said about 6000 years and 200 generations.

Instead it took 100 years and 5 generations.

Why was Jefferson so wrong?

Jefferson figured it took 200 years and 10 generations to get from the Atlantic coast to Charlottsville where his home was at Monticello. That’s a distance of roughly 100 miles. He knew that the distance from the east coast to the west coast of America was 3000 miles so he did the math.

Jefferson’s mistake was that the thought that the technology would stay the same. Instead there were two great technological revolutions in the 1830’s and a second technological revolution that started in roughly the 1880’s.

These technological revolutions brought steam powered trains and boats, telegraphs, and later planes cars telephones and what not. The effect of these traveling and communications revolutions was to collapse the traveling and communications distances between things.

I assert that computers are doing the same thing. That by increasing the speed of their calculations they are effectively collapsing time—and therefor space.

That the faster the computers go—the nearer the nearest planet becomes. The faster the computers go —the nearer the nearest star becomes.

Now I recognize that I’ve expressed this inexactly. If a computer goes faster—mars does not become closer. Rather what happens is that the means to solve all the problems related to getting to mars or the nearest stars and back —become easier to handle and solve more quickly as computers go faster.

Is this a correct assertion?

[Bobalu]

Yes, it’s correct.

There is the possibility in the near future of quantum computing and also some type of machine intelligence. I don’t take such possible developments into consideration though and even without them the future of computing is amazing.

[taxcontrol]

I would agree that generally with your assertion and provide an example that may be some what relative. Computers or more specifically rapid electronic calculations, have enabled the solving of a number of issues related to communications. Electricity and light have always traveled near the speed of light, but until the advent of computers, there has not been a way to “shorten the distance” of communications. The telegraph, telephone, simple radios, did enable a compression of time and distance. What took air mail a couple of days to deliver was shorten to minutes. Now the Internet allows for near instant communications across the glob.

To my mind, this is an example of compressing time and space.

[null and void]

Is this a correct assertion?

Yes.

It violates Known Laws of Physics, and is therefore in all probably correct.

[Oratam]

Yes. It’s the correct assertion . . . and it terrifies me.

[P.O.E.]

We also need to adjust for socialism. Much of that entrepreneurship and invention was done under capitalism.

I still recall “Whitey on the Moon” and its Ludditism.

[PieterCasparzen]

These technological revolutions brought steam powered trains and boats, telegraphs, and later planes cars telephones and what not. The effect of these traveling and communications revolutions was to collapse the traveling and communications distances between things.

I assert that computers are doing the same thing. That by increasing the speed of their calculations they are effectively collapsing time—and therefor space.

The amount of work we can do per unit of time increases; the units of time are still the same. Space is certainly not affected.

Various things that were not practical then become practical.

That the faster the computers go—the nearer the nearest planet becomes. The faster the computers go —the nearer the nearest star becomes.

We had the computing capability required for space travel in the 1960s; it doesn't take much computing, relatively speaking.

Computing is not the major barrier to space travel.

Space travel is a romantic idea and has been heavily promoted to young men and boys as such for decades. Thus we have a scientific community today that assumes that space travel makes sense for society at this point in time, both economically and scientifically.