Meanwhile, I think my wife was talking to the realtor about me as she toured. I could have sworn I heard the words child and idiot, but it’s always possible she was talking about someone else (okay, in my wife’s defense, I made this last bit up, but I’m pretty sure she was thinking it)
ADDENDUM: I finished the section above over a month ago, including the part about taking electricity for granted, which I presented in a somewhat lighthearted manner. In the past few days, however, the criticality of electricity has taken a much darker turn. Even though this novel is scheduled to be published very soon, I thought I would add a few words about this at the last minute.
As I write, Texas and several other states are experiencing both an arctic blast and a loss of electricity, with the number of people without power rising into the millions, and dozens dead due to this tragic state of affairs. As a resident of San Diego, which has a relatively narrow range of temperature extremes, I neglected to mention the even more devastating impact a power outage can have during times of excessive heat or cold. Even natural gas, propane, and oil furnaces can require electricity for ignition, power dampers, pumps, and so on.
At the other extreme, my son graduated from the University of Arizona in Tucson, and I visited several times when temperatures exceeded 110 degrees.
If power goes out during extremes of either heat or cold, the situation goes from an inconvenience to a potential catastrophe.
I hope that all those affected by lack of power in Texas, other states, and around the world—now and in the future—will be able to weather this loss, and will see a speedy return to normalcy.
Going against consensus (breaking the mold)
For purposes of this novel, I needed a young, down-on-her-luck scientist to produce groundbreaking work from out of left field. So out of left field that it would catch Tech Ops, and most of the rest of the world, completely off guard.
But as I was writing this character, it struck me that the greatest breakthroughs of all time have come from the unlikeliest of places. Newton and Einstein would have never been on the radar of a group like Tech Ops when they did their revolutionary work.
This was somewhat of an epiphany for me, so I thought I’d include it in the novel. Even beyond these two superstar scientists, consensus and dogma are usually stubbornly persistent, even in the face of compelling evidence against them. This is why I find the Schopenhauer quote so insightful. “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
This has proven to be true in my own (previous) field, molecular biology. In the first half of the twentieth century, it was widely believed that protein carried the genetic code. Scientists thought the composition of DNA was too simple to dictate the instructions for life, consisting of only four different nucleotides. In hindsight, of course, this was epically short-sighted. The English alphabet consists of only twenty-six letters, but is capable of coding an infinite amount of information. But this error was understandable. Scientists believed the nucleotide letters were random, conveying about as much information as a bowl of alphabet soup. In reality, DNA was clever enough to produce and copy billions of letters in perfect order.
Not alphabet soup, but the complete works of Shakespeare.
In 1944, an experiment was conducted that should have conclusively proven that DNA was actually the carrier of the genetic code, but these results were resisted and largely ignored. Scientists had convinced themselves that DNA was too simple to be the conductor of the orchestra, and clung to this belief. Again, once consensus is reached, it isn’t easily overcome, even by seemingly compelling research. It wasn’t until eight years later, after even more definitive experiments were conducted, that the tide began to turn, and the role of DNA became self-evident.
Nanofabricators—3D printing gone wild
Nano is short for nanometer, which is one twenty-five-millionth of an inch. Alas, the nanites depicted in The Immortality Code are hundreds or thousands of years away. Scientists are working in this direction, and have made considerable progress, but the field is still in its infancy.
Even so, scientists have long been getting better at visualizing and moving matter at the atomic scale. As early as 1989, IBM Fellow Don Eigler used a scanning tunneling microscope to manipulate individual xenon atoms to spell out “I-B-M”. This was followed in 1991 by the creation of an atomic switch, a critical first step in the design of devices of atomic dimensions.
As mentioned, the brilliant scientist Richard Feynman is considered the father of this field, having given a lecture in 1959 entitled, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom: An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics.” During this lecture, Feynman indicated that it should be possible to make nanoscale machines that “arrange the atoms the way we want,” and “perform chemical synthesis by mechanical manipulation.” He also presented the idea of creating a microscopic surgeon that could patrol our bodies, a concept he called “swallowing the doctor.”
Since the capabilities I depicted in the novel are so far in advance over what is possible now, I thought I’d briefly turn to developments in 3D printing. I pointed out that some think of nanofabrication as a perfect, infinitely versatile, microscopic version of this technology.
While there are issues with such an analogy, this isn’t a horrible way to look at the technology. Both 3D printers and nanofabricators can be thought of as constructing a variety of objects one layer—or one atom—at a time, drawing on detailed programming.
3D printing has grown by leaps and bounds during the last decade and shows no sign of slowing down. This is a technology that increases manufacturing speed and versatility, especially of prototypes, and decreases costs. A technology that is improving every year.
I’ve provided a few excerpts below that I hope will capture the field’s momentum.
Nature, February 2020. “3D printing gets bigger, faster and stronger.”
EXCERPT: As a metal platform rises from a vat of liquid resin, it pulls an intricate white shape from the liquid—like a waxy creature emerging from a lagoon. This machine is the world’s fastest resin-based 3D printer and it can create a plastic structure as large as a person in a few hours, says Chad Mirkin, a chemist at Northwestern University. The machine is one of a slew of research advances in 3D printing that are broadening the prospects of a technology once viewed as useful mainly for making small, low-quality prototype parts. Not only is 3D printing becoming faster and producing larger products, but scientists are coming up with innovative ways to print and are creating stronger materials, sometimes mixing multiple materials in the same product.
Sportswear firms, aerospace manufacturers, and medical-device companies are eager to take advantage. “Major manufacturing companies are really adopting this technology,” says Jennifer Lewis, a materials scientist at Harvard University.
Says Iain Todd, a metallurgist at the University of Sheffield, UK. “We can get performance out of these materials that we didn’t think we could get. That’s what’s really exciting to a materials scientist.”
3D Printing Today, September 2020. “3D printing is making a giant leap into health. That could change everything:”
EXCERPT: You can print a lot of things with a 3D printer. A gun, a home, a dinner. Soon, you could even print new pieces of yourself.
While most uses of 3D printing involve extruding layers of plastic through a nozzle to create a three-dimensional structure, before too long, similar technology could let physicians print structures made of human cells—from tiny structures like ‘organs on a chip’, to huge ones like whole replacement organs.
“Bioprinting has a great promise,” says Dr. Ibrahim Ozbolat, a principal investigator at Penn State University. “It has a lot of advantages and capabilities, and good things are going on in the field.”
One of those things is making replacement organs. First, you have to get some stem cells from the person who needs the new organ,
culture them in the right biochemical soup until you’ve got enough, then turn them into a bio-ink that can be extruded through a nozzle that’s two microns thick (or 1/80th the size of a human hair). The bio-ink will be pushed through the printer, usually onto a scaffold made of hydrogel. A bit more culturing, and you could have a usable tissue that can either be printed directly onto the patient in an operating theatre, or built in a lab and then implanted.
Futurism, April 2019. “Researchers Just 3D Printed The First-Ever Complete Heart Using Human Tissue.”
In what the Israeli media is calling a “world’s first,” scientists at Tel Aviv University have 3D printed a small heart using human tissue that includes vessels, collagen, and biological molecules—a breakthrough that they hope could one day render organ donation obsolete.
The technology is still many years out from human transplants, though—the team’s rodent-sized printed heart isn’t quite there yet.
“The cells need to form a pumping ability,” said lead scientist Tal Davir. “They can currently contract, but we need them to work together. Still, this is the first time anyone anywhere has successfully engineered and printed an entire heart complete with cells, blood vessels, ventricles, and chambers.”
To print the heart, the scientists created a “personalized hydrogel” to form “bio-inks,” according to a paper published today in the journal Advanced Science.
The human soul. Are we just the sum of our parts?
The argument presented in The Immortality Code that consciousness is an emergent property is perhaps the most popular scientific explanation for consciousness there is. On the other hand, what I call the radio theory of the soul is much more obscure.
Regardless, the question of what consciousness really is, how it comes about, along with questions of free will, are perhaps the most fundamental questions science and religion can ask, yet these still remain a mystery. While the words, emergent property, sound good, an explanation of how this truly works is lacking.
Personally, I’m not sure what to think. It isn’t obvious to me how a collection of microscopic parts can achieve glorious self-direction. Yet, if they can’t, this would imply that there is some other mysterious quality at work that can’t be observed or measured.
Neither answer is very satisfying to me. But as I’ve mentioned in my notes a number of times now, the more I learn about nature, physics, and cosmology, the more certain I am that I don’t have a clue, that anything is possible. I feel like an amoeba trying to understand the mind of Albert Einstein—so far out of my league that even things I feel certain about could be nothing but persistent illusions.
The Star Trek replicator
If you’ve read any of my books you won’t be surprised to learn that I’m a huge Star Trek fan. Not enough of a fan to attend conventions, so not really a pro, but a weekend amateur for sure.
Within the vast cannon of Star Trek lore are countless examples of the use of a replicator. Memory-Alpha defines a replicator as follows: “A replicator, or molecular synthesizer, was a device that used matter-energy conversion technology similar to a transporter to produce almost anything from a ship’s replicator reserves.”
I dutifully read this and other similar descriptions of replicator technology, which matched how I had always thought the tech would work, and then wrote this into The Immortality Code.
Imagine my shock, then, when I watched a new Star Trek Discovery episode after this section of the novel had been written, one that shot this part of the cannon to shit. Literally.
I hate to be critical, but I’m not sure what the writers were thinking. I’ve pasted a description of this unpleasant and unnecessary addition to the Star Trek universe below, from a ScreenRant article written in January, 2021, entitled, “The Disgusting Truth About Discovery’s 32nd Century Food.”
EXCERPT: Star Trek: Discovery season 3’s Admiral Charles Vance dropped a disgusting truth bomb about the food that comes out of Starfleet’s 32nd -century replicators: it’s all made from reconstituted feces. Since Commander Michael Burnham and the crew of the USS Discovery permanently jumped to the year 3189, they learned many disconcerting things about the state of the galaxy after The Burn, but the secret of the 32nd -century’s food replicators might just be the worst.
In Star Trek: Discovery season 3, episode 12, Admiral Vance randomly revealed to Osyraa that all of the Federation’s replicated food is made from “our shit.” Vance munched on an apple as he explained about the Federation’s food originating from excrement. “That’s the base material used in our replicators. We reconstruct it on the atomic level and then reform the atoms. It’s pretty good for shit, and we don’t have to commit atrocities for it.”
Of course, it could also be said that the real atrocity is the fact that the people of the Federation eat resequenced feces.
Yuck! I get that they did this for the shock value. And I get that the replicator transforms the atoms, so the end product is no longer feces in any way. But still. Come on. This really wasn’t necessary.
It’s also patently ridiculous—which is what I object to most. If you can make an apple out of feces, you can make one out of dirt. They’re trying to suggest that times in the far future are so bad, this feces reclamation project is needed as a conservation measure, but I’m not buying it. First, the tech can convert energy directly into matter, so this goes against cannon, especially since 32nd century transporter technology is so good it enables personal beaming without a transporter pad. And second, even assuming the replicator requires matter, any Federation outpost can shave a few feet off the top of a nearby moon and have enough material to feed themselves for eternity.
But enough of that shit (sorry, couldn’t resist).
One last bit of relevant Star Trek trivia. I joked in the novel that as powerful as replicator technology is, the Federation seemed to rarely use it for anything other than making tea for Captain Picard. I later found a 2017 article from a website call TrekMovie.com that helped me to understand why, which I’ve excerpted below.
EXCERPT: One of the major bits of technology introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation—and seen throughout the 24th century Trek shows—was the replicator. These handy devices could make almost anything and they were so ubiquitous, they were even seen in crew quarters. While an interesting bit of sci-fi tech, Star Trek: TNG and DS9 writer/producer Ron Moore feels they were bad for the show. In a new interview with Bleeding Cool Moore stated:
“Replicators are the worst thing ever. Destroys storytelling all the time. They mean there’s no value to anything. Nothing has value in the universe if you can just replicate everything. Nothing is unique. If you break something, you can just make another one. If something breaks on the ship, it’s “Oh, no big deal, Geordi LaForge can just go down to engineering and make another doozywhatsit.” Or they go to a planet and that planet needed something: “Oh, hey, let’s make them what they need!” The writers’ room just hated it and tried to forget about it as much as possible.
Quantum Biology
The idea that living organisms use quantum effects to their advantage is still somewhat controversial, and still somewhat fringe, but this is changing. For a good layman’s starting point in considering if consciousness, photosynthesis, and avian navigation are quantum effects, I would direct you to the following articles.
Discover Magazine (2018) “Down the Quantum Rabbit Hole: Fellow Scientists labeled him a crackpot. Now Stuart Hameroff’s quantum consciousness theories are getting support from unlikely places.”
The Scientist (2019) “Quantum Biology May Help Solve Some of Life’s Greatest Mysteries.”
Nature (2021) “Birds Have a Mysterious ‘Quantum Sense’. For The First Time, Scientists Saw It in Action.”
Hot Qubits
Everything detailed in The Immortality Code about the difficulties of building a quantum computer, and just how fragile qubits can be, is accurate. For a good summary, I recommend a 2017 article posted on the Quantum Consultants w
ebsite entitled, “What is so difficult about building a quantum computer anyway?”
The press release touting hot qubits is real, if by “hot” you mean a temperature that is still unimaginably frigid. And while this slight improvement does represent a huge leap forward, it’s easy to see how Allie’s room-temperature qubits would be a godsend.
I’ll leave this section with a brief excerpt that describes these “hot” qubits, from a 2020 piece on Singularity Hub entitled, “New ‘hot qubits’ let quantum computers run 15 times warmer than before.”
EXCERPT: Quantum computers have to be run at near absolute zero because the quantum states they rely on are incredibly fragile, and the slightest disturbance can cause the information encoded in them to be lost. But reaching these temperature requires incredibly powerful refrigeration technology, and it can easily cost millions of dollars to keep even experimental devices at operating temperatures.
Now though, two separate groups have demonstrated that they can operate silicon-based quantum chips at 1.5 Kelvin (-456.97 Fahrenheit). That might still seem pretty cold, but it’s 15 times higher than where today’s leading technology operates, and can be achieved using just a few thousand dollars’ worth of refrigeration.
Quantum computers and decryption
The material in the novel about the potential of quantum computers, and the difficulty in building one, is all true—at least I think it is. This is a complex endeavor, and I’m far from an expert, so I can’t be sure I didn’t get something wrong. But it’s safe to say huge money and resources are being thrown at the problem, qubits really are as fragile as I describe, and do need to be kept at ultra-cold temperatures, and the media makes quantum computing appear much closer than it really is.
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