Science Fiction Novelist Peter Hamilton Discusses His Vision of the Future

cageymaru

cageymaru

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British science fiction novelist Peter F. Hamilton has a very unique vision of how the world would work and operate if teleportation portals were invented. He spent 6 months hashing out how the world would be changed while working on his newest novel Salvation.

Since we no longer need highways, they would be converted into parks and shopping centers. Hotels and motels would cease to exist as the trip from England to the USA could be completed in 2 minutes; thus a person would just sleep in their own bed. From irrigation to space travel, teleportation revolutionizes society's efficiency to the point where humans have to make a choice; spend a lifetime doing nothing or begin genetic engineering for higher intelligence.

Teleportation might also allow humanity to easily explore the galaxy. Hamilton's interstellar starships are propelled forward by exhaust channeled through a portal. "You have one part of the portal that you just drop into the sun, and the other half is the rocket engine on the starship," he says. "No need for any antimatter or fusion or anything."
 
"Hamilton's interstellar starships are propelled forward by exhaust channeled through a portal. "You have one part of the portal that you just drop into the sun, and the other half is the rocket engine on the starship," he says. "No need for any antimatter or fusion or anything."

Sure...but ask Kilgore about the 'unintended consequences'. ;-)
 
ahhhhhh teleportation. Never gonna get me near one of those things. Ill be that old guy watching from his rest home as all the idiots commit suicide thousands of times over. And don't tell me about cell decay or clipping a fingernail, you are dead, and a copy is made. You died. The end.
 
Reminds me of the fun I had reading his The Night's Dawn trilogy. If I only had time to read books like that now.
 
orange_monster said:
ahhhhhh teleportation. Never gonna get me near one of those things. Ill be that old guy watching from his rest home as all the idiots commit suicide thousands of times over. And don't tell me about cell decay or clipping a fingernail, you are dead, and a copy is made. You died. The end.
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Hmmm... Is ceasing to physically exist the same thing as actually dying/being dead?
 
Until you are going to the grocery store and are accidentally connected to the portal on the sun. Instantly being fried and creating some interesting gravity as well.
 
orange_monster said:
ahhhhhh teleportation. Never gonna get me near one of those things. Ill be that old guy watching from his rest home as all the idiots commit suicide thousands of times over. And don't tell me about cell decay or clipping a fingernail, you are dead, and a copy is made. You died. The end.
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My luck, I would go into the device and come out turning into a fly. :zombie:

(obvious movie reference....)
 
I love Hamilton, finished this book on release day. Took a long time to get into, but some very cool ideas. Seemed like more realistic sci fi vs the commomwealth novels.
 
cageymaru said:
British science fiction novelist Peter F. Hamilton has a very unique vision of how the world would work and operate if teleportation portals were invented.
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That's not science fiction, it's pure fantasy. Teleportation is magic, not science.
Like imagining "how the world would work" if you could summon unicorns with a snap of your finger.
 
orange_monster said:
ahhhhhh teleportation. Never gonna get me near one of those things. Ill be that old guy watching from his rest home as all the idiots commit suicide thousands of times over. And don't tell me about cell decay or clipping a fingernail, you are dead, and a copy is made. You died. The end.
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Of course if they're actually Portals that teleport you then we're just hopping through an aperture and we're good to go

Do wonder if he explores the bad as well, or if his future is all fluffy bunnies
 
Well, could be like Earth Finale Conflict were the people were intercepted and had something done to them.
orange_monster said:
ahhhhhh teleportation. Never gonna get me near one of those things. Ill be that old guy watching from his rest home as all the idiots commit suicide thousands of times over. And don't tell me about cell decay or clipping a fingernail, you are dead, and a copy is made. You died. The end.
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IIRC the 90's Outer Limits had a episode where a copy was made on the other planet and the original was destroyed, but an error occurred resulting in the a pause in the termination process and had to be killed later......
 
Teleportation isn't happening.
Though if it could, Mars, the Moon, Venus, Titan, Calisto, ect could all be terraformed, completely, in a year.
Open the portal between Venus the moon and Mars and all the others in a portal Gigabit switch and bam! Venus, the Moon, Mars ect would have an atmospheric pressure of Earth. Then its a process of adding plants water ect. Any excess pressure just vent to a space portal.

Nice idea but teleportation is a pipe dream. FTL communication is currently a pipe dream.
 
griff30 said:
Teleportation isn't happening.
Though if it could, Mars, the Moon, Venus, Titan, Calisto, ect could all be terraformed, completely, in a year.
Open the portal between Venus the moon and Mars and all the others in a portal Gigabit switch and bam! Venus, the Moon, Mars ect would have an atmospheric pressure of Earth. Then its a process of adding plants water ect. Any excess pressure just vent to a space portal.

Nice idea but teleportation is a pipe dream. FTL communication is currently a pipe dream.
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I'm sure that just 200 years ago if you told someone about television or radio, they'd burn you at the stake for heresy and witchcraft
 
alxlwson said:
I'm sure that just 200 years ago if you told someone about television or radio, they'd burn you at the stake for heresy and witchcraft
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But, the idea of Teleportation has been around since before TV. I don't think we're much closer today. :)
 
Hmm, this assumes teleportation is free and has no cost associated with it.
Perhaps it ages you or needs material each time that has some worth.
 
To me Salvation is as well written and paced as any of Mr. Hamilton's work. I loved the Void Trilogy, and his Commonwealth Saga is among the most captivating, if not THE MOST captivating sagas that I have ever read in this genre.

The portals are a quantum entanglement McGuffin, but Mr. Hamilton is more of a high concept sci fi author than a hard sci fi author. Reading his books one must be OK with sufficiently advanced technology looking like magic...after all, isn't it supposed to?
 
alxlwson said:
I'm sure that just 200 years ago if you told someone about television or radio, they'd burn you at the stake for heresy and witchcraft
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Watch "Time Traveling Bong" where they go back to the Salem witch trial era and they have their iPhones etc. I also seem to remember something about everyone being in awe at how straight and white their teeth were.

Re: ST transporters being murder boxes... Yeah. Pretty much you die and a copy of you appears somewhere else... that person thinks they are you, and has all your memories... but your soul/spirit/ghost in your machine/etc is dunzo. I'm with Barkley on that one... I'll take the shuttlecraft.

Now, re: this book that says teleporters will change all modes of transport... ehhh.... how much energy does it take, types of interference, etc etc. I think it would cut down on mass transit (and southwest airlines type cattle airline cars) but cars would still exist. Hotels would still exist, etc.

BUT when we get replicators... watch out, the economy is screwed!
 
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Awesome!! Dude read Larry Niven. (golf clap)

I remember how proud I was of my idea for a mass separator for use making metals on the moon, until I saw it was in SF in 1935, lol.

The Flash mob stuff was his, and teleportation was a big part.
 
pcgeekesq said:
That's not science fiction, it's pure fantasy. Teleportation is magic, not science.
Like imagining "how the world would work" if you could summon unicorns with a snap of your finger.
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you must be tons of fun at parties....

also.... to aboriginals in the first century B.C., a simple polaroid that you dismiss as ancient technology would be every bit as magical and every bit as impossible. :)
 
The idea of turning highways and such into shopping centers....did he really spend 6 months hashing things out because that's asinine. Does the internet cease to exist? If we have teleportation...you would have distribution centers that would just beam stuff to your house immediately after you order it online. Why the heck would I go to a shopping center...when was the last time you went to a mall?

I have thought about what the future will hold as drone deliveries become common place...almost ubiquitous. Like the opening scene of Ready Player One when the drone is delivering the pizza. Eventually, if we don't implode as a society, our thirst for instantaneous gratification will be further fleshed out by almost instant Amazon Prime drone deliveries, Dominos drone deliveries, etc...really anything. There are obviously a ton of things that would need to be worked out for that kind of world to exist, it won't happen overnight, but it will be someone's actually future, and I think that generation is alive now.
 
alxlwson said:
Umm, science wants to show you something.
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Sorry, but that's your ignorance you're exposing.
Quantum effects like that do not and cannot scale up to macroscopic levels.
And they are inherently probabilistic.

Any so-called "science fiction" that off-handedly dispense with the known macroscopic conservation laws (mass/energy, angular and linear momentum, information, CPT symmetry, color charge, and so on) had better be real careful about it, because the universe falls apart if you can ignore those limits. Fantasy, of course, doesn't care.
 
clockdogg said:
Teleportation is great - bandwidth issues aside. Until you hit the cap on your Comcast account and can't fully materialize to pay the overage.
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They'd probably materialize you for free.

In a labor camp.
 
harbingerofdoom said:
you must be tons of fun at parties....

also.... to aboriginals in the first century B.C., a simple polaroid that you dismiss as ancient technology would be every bit as magical and every bit as impossible. :)
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Not at all. The aboriginals would have no reason to think that a Polaroid wasn't possible.
We have many reasons to think macroscopic teleportation isn't possible.
 
pcgeekesq said:
Not at all. The aboriginals would have no reason to think that a Polaroid wasn't possible.
We have many reasons to think macroscopic teleportation isn't possible.
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this is one way of futurist thinking i never understood because it can be a reason to not doubt ANY unknown advancement.
 
alxlwson said:
I'm sure that just 200 years ago if you told someone about television or radio, they'd burn you at the stake for heresy and witchcraft
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So, if you were reading a story where, in the real world, someone could make a unicorn materialize out of thin air with a snap of their fingers, you'd accept that as science fiction?

And unlike fantasy which can have arbitrary limits on what can be done, sci-fi needs to address concerns such as, for example, why wouldn't terrorists use a teleportation system to deliver bombs. And if the answer is "there are no terrorists anymore" then your definitely talking fantasy.
 
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