> projected scaling trends aren't an inevitability
Reminds me of a projection I read back in the early 1960s (I think). The author charted the rise in speed of human beings over ten or twenty thousand years, where that speed had increased when horses were tamed, clipper ships were built, steam trains invented, automobiles, airplanes, and then rockets. (Assuming this was just after Gagarin, that got "us" to 5 miles per second.)
He pointed out that the acceleration was (ahem) accelerating, with thousands of years between humans running and horses being domesticated, vs. about sixty years between the Wright brothers and Gagarin. Extrapolating, it was clear we would exceed the speed of light (using a warp drive or something) by the year 2000.
Of course the current record speed was set in 1968 at about seven miles per second, and not even equaled since 1972. So much for extrapolation.
Reminds me of a projection I read back in the early 1960s (I think). The author charted the rise in speed of human beings over ten or twenty thousand years, where that speed had increased when horses were tamed, clipper ships were built, steam trains invented, automobiles, airplanes, and then rockets. (Assuming this was just after Gagarin, that got "us" to 5 miles per second.)
He pointed out that the acceleration was (ahem) accelerating, with thousands of years between humans running and horses being domesticated, vs. about sixty years between the Wright brothers and Gagarin. Extrapolating, it was clear we would exceed the speed of light (using a warp drive or something) by the year 2000.
Of course the current record speed was set in 1968 at about seven miles per second, and not even equaled since 1972. So much for extrapolation.