In keeping with the Freedom Friday theme I began last week, where I get to tell you more about what goes through this little head of mine. I want to talk about snow. You heard me the first time. Snow. Although, not the snow you’re thinking of. I’m referring to the snow we may have seen on analog TVs when the cable’s gone out. Some of us may remember blank VHS tapes also featuring this wonderful spectacle of black and white dots.
If you haven’t seen it, then I’m not sure what picture I’ve attached to this post.
Common atmospheric sources for this electromagnetic noise are radio waves from local electronic devices or cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB or CMBR for short). That last point I can only describe as a residual image from an early stage of the universe’s development.
Yeah, the definition freaked me out, too. Anyway, I wondered about this static the other day.
For instance, a couple of prominent movies come to mind featuring snow. The first one is Poltergeist. This is the movie where the little girl watches TV, and all that’s playing is snow. I had to look for it on YouTube to remember how the scene went. A few things happen in regards to her late night viewing of her interesting choice of programming. The girl then turns around and says, the now famous line, “They’re heeere.”
I’m not going to spoil who “they” are.
The other movie is The Ring. If you haven’t seen it, skip this paragraph. It’s about a group of teenagers who find a VHS tape in a cabin in the middle of the woods. They play the tape, which first begins with snow, then after watching it they find in seven days they’re going to die. If you have a soft stomach for this kind of horror flick, I wouldn’t recommend it. But if you love edge-of-your-seat suspense like The Sixth Sense, this movie’s for you.
So, back to what ran through my mind. What if scientists could scoop all this electromagnetic noise, put it back together and recreate a model of the instant the world came to being. Wouldn’t that be something? Of course, not a physical model. A virtual model.
A step further would entail scientists taking that methodology, piecing together the past, and move it to piece together simple molecular structures.
You guys are quick. You know where I’m going with this.
What would stop science from creating a transportation device akin to the transporter featured in Star Trek? It wouldn’t be too far off. I mean, we already have the Kindle/Nexus/Galaxy tablets and cell phones, ideas that originated from the show. Who’s to say the transporter is not next?
Huh, all because of snow.
What do you think? Are we close to Star Trek’s transporter making an appearance this century? Or will we have to wait? I’m interested in what you have to say.
Looking to God 
It amazes me how far humans have come in such a short time. i was reading Popular Mechanics the other day and it had an article on upcoming technologies. One of the interesting things i found was holographic television. it would sit in the middle of your room and you could watch a live game happen in your living room.
regarding the transporter idea. while it would make vacations so much simpler and faster, the production of a matter transporter involves that first person to go through it. who would be that guy/gal? there is something disconcerting about having ones DNA scrambled and reassembled somewhere else. movies like “The Fly” peaks ones terror, and stories like “The Jaunt” by Stephen King creep me out about transporter technology.
So when the day comes when we can do that, i have a list of names of people i would like to go ahead of me.
We’re not far from achieving a holographic TV as seen in Star Wars or Prometheus. The last time I visited The Science Centre in Toronto, they featured a whole wing based on holographic imaging. For the layman, the images may prove disconcerting, but for us sci-fi geeks, we relished the display.
As for the teleportation device, the constraint with all advances in science has always been time and money. I’m sure science will find the right person for the right price to fill in the shoes of being the first person to enter into that teleporter. No one would deny, everyone has a price.
that being said, throw in a 12 pack of Hienikens and steak and cheese hoagie, and i’m in!