Harnessing the Stars
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.”
Arthur C. Clarke
James E. McGuire
April 24, 2013
The photon had started its life in the heart of a
star. In a nuclear furnace, two hydrogen
atoms had fused, making one helium atom and ejecting the photon. It spent a million years, struggling to the
surface of the star. Once on the
surface, the photon enjoyed just eight minutes of freedom until it was trapped
in a photon collector. Joining millions
and billions of other photons, it would be harnessed to do work.
In the pre-dawn dark, he reached for his Brain. With one touch of his finger, the photon
streamed from the Brain to his eye. “Let
there be light.” And there was light. He
gave thanks for the first fact: he was
alive and well in this century; he could remember many who had lived and died
in the previous century, and even some that had been born in the century before
that.
With another touch of his finger, the reports started
streaming in from the Brain. What had
happened since he went to sleep? From
everywhere in his world, thousands of people had toiled through the night,
collecting the information, summarizing it, making photos to show what had
happened anywhere in the world. All of
that information flowed at the speed of light to his Brain. There were no wires and the Brain was
attached to nothing. The photons moved
through the air, using an electromagnetic grid, part of a field that circled
the entire world.
With another touch of his finger, he read personal
messages from his family and friends, placed somewhere in the cloud, accessible
by him and others on the planet, even if hundreds or thousands of miles away.
More than one in five people on the planet are part of this network.
He had questions from his dreams and thoughts before
really waking: “what is the age of the
Universe? I would like to see a picture
of the entire Universe when it was smaller.
When did Europe conquer Attila the Hun? For any question, he had only to
speak and the Brain would respond.
Having access to nearly all of the accumulated knowledge of the brains
from all parts of the planet, living or dead, the Brain would process the
question and provide answers. Just like that.
And just that fast. “Age of the
universe?” The Brain replied, “13.798 billion years.” And provided 150,000,000 additional
answers-discussions of the topic. All of
this was delivered to his Brain in a fraction of a second—0.43 seconds. The answers are not random, but are ranked in
order of relevance by his Brain, knowing who he is and what he really wants to
know. Another person with different
interests could ask the same question on his Brain and might receive more than
one hundred million answers, but the order will be different because each Brain
understands each unique person. The
Brain knows all the languages of the world; any information that comes in a
foreign language can be translated to his language just by a touch of his
finger.
He paused to think, to reflect and to give thanks. He had
harnessed the stars. He had collected
photons through photon collectors on the roof of his own home, caused those
photons to stream into his home, to power his car, to light his home and to
operate his Brain connected to the world with a wireless world-wide network.
What planet? What
century? Here and now.
Just someone reaching for
an iPad in the morning.
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