Technological Development Between 22nd and 24th Centuries

[EmperorTiberius]

Everything that's been said stands, but I think the real improvement is non tech improvement. Humans in 24th c. are vastly different and better than those in 22nd.

As for the tech stagnation, there isn't a stagnation but a slowdown. After so many breathtaking breakthroughs, what do you expect? To me, computers were the last major breakthrough of our time, that was what? 60 years ago?

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Well, no matter what instruments and technology one has, the electromagnetic waves, for example, will have the same properties and will be described by the same equations.

Unless a deeper truth about the nature of electromagnetic waves is found, in which case equations describing them from that vantage point will come to use. And soon thereafter, technologies exploiting the deeper truth would also emerge.

We had already figured out the world by the end of the 18th century to our satisfaction, pretty much - but then we invented technologies that were capable of producing unusual, extreme conditions where our previous understanding proved inadequate. That's why we have EM waves rather than Newton's particle/line optics model today - even though we still use line optics whenever we don't need the accuracy of the EM wave model. But Maxwell's theories on the latter had countless practical applications, as did other "extremist" theories that followed. I'd trust the more esoteric fields of study to keep on producing such useful information.

The proble with this is - deeper truths cannot be discovered ad infinitum. At one point or another, the true nature of any physical phenomenon will be discovered - and beyond this point, all subsequent experiments will only confirm what's already known.

But perhaps I'm wrong and this is why the post-2300s Federation appears stagnated (and the older and wiser species also fall into the pattern)?

Timo Saloniemi

It would, indeed, explain much in the trekverse.
In a few thousand years, the Federation will reach the peak of technological evolution posible for corporeal beings. Beyond that, it can only move forward by mastering the thought-matter-energy level of the trekverse, at which point, its component species will ascend - as have many others in the past.

 

[JoeZhang]

From a real world perceptive - Star Trek is a fairly boring show in terms of how it applies sci-fi concepts (both technological and social) - the technology hasn't changed or really taken much advantage of real world changes since the first series. it's still a guy with a gun and a radio on a warship sitting in an armchair watching a widescreen TV.

 

[Mistral]

My grandmother had a washing machine in 1930. It was even electric powered. That doesn't make it anything like the Whirlpool in my apt. The basic concept remained but the device evolved quite a bit. Phase pistols vs phasers might be a similar situation. An argument could be made that our current PDAs and smart phones look more advanced than TOS tech-but are they really? The tricorder monitors darn near anything and can hold the breadth of human history in its memory. Tricorders in the 24th century are probably even more sophisticated than their TOS counterparts. Or look at it this way-when my grandparents got in a car they had to crank-start it, there wasn't any AC or heat, no defroster and no streamlining. The engine was fairly primitive and pretty bulky for what little power it generated. It certainly didn't notify the user of any problems that cropped up. Now, my modern vehicle has a highly efficient motor, full amenities and even tells me the best route to go to get to my destination. The NX was primitive compared to the 1701 or 1701D in much the same way, IMO.

 

[Timo]

...Also, to stretch that analogy a bit, take a hundred-year-old car and place it in a modern European city, and you get in practice the same sort of performance: four people are being moved across some dozens of kilometers at roughly 50 km/h. Never mind reliability or comfort or economy, you still get the same sort of performance, for "external" reasons. Traffic dictates the speed, urban planning dictates the range, and consumer preferences (as dictated by marketing) define the payload.

It might not be that unexpected, then, to get roughly the same size of starship, capable of maintaining about the same speed, in the 22nd and 24th centuries. Archer's ship was a rough match for the ships of his era, even though most of those competing ships were the pinnacle of centuries or millennia of development. That suggests that "external" reasons define starship speed and range, and that technological development aimed at increased speed and range is largely wasted because the results are not in demand. Armaments seem to have developed somewhat between the centuries in question, though, as "In a Mirror, Darkly" would have us believe - but perhaps the Evil Archer was easily impressed, and the difference there is minimal as well?

Timo Saloniemi