SG1: There But For The Grace of God

[McAvoy]

That is the key with the holodecks of Trek is that you need some sort of mechanism to prevent the user(s) from walking into the wall. Which makes sense, since those programs can be as big as it needs to be without a physical constraint made by the limitations of the size of the room itself.

The holodecks on the Enterprise are larger than the ones we see from Quark. His are like the size of a small bedroom. Works fine for a person or two.

[Rocketboy1313]

Probably best not to think too hard about the Holodecks.
Even by the standards of impossible Star Trek gadgets it is a whole other level of bullshit.
It works because they say it works.

[McAvoy]

Probably best not to think too hard about the Holodecks.
Even by the standards of impossible Star Trek gadgets it is a whole other level of bullshit.
It works because they say it works.

That's the whole point isn't it? TNG is 350 years in the future. The technology should be something that we as people from the 21st century cannot readily explain or understand.

It would be like someone from 1820 trying to understand how a modern car works.

[TGLS]

I dunno, explaining internal combustion would probably be the toughest part, and after that it would be pretty straightforward (gears have been old-hat for some time now).

Holodecks don't seem to work unless the they actively generate more space, which instead runs into the problem of what happens to the generated space when the power goes out.

[McAvoy]

I dunno, explaining internal combustion would probably be the toughest part, and after that it would be pretty straightforward (gears have been old-hat for some time now).

Holodecks don't seem to work unless the they actively generate more space, which instead runs into the problem of what happens to the generated space when the power goes out.

I should have mentioned electric cars.

The other thing is about this scenerio is that you may understand how it works in principle but there is really no factory or anything that would be able to replicate the engine or even close to it. The infrastructure isn't there. In 1820 everything was still hand made, more or less. Machining the parts like the pistons and the engine block is still well past them. It woukd probably take decades before they could make an engine that even approaches the efficiency of a 20-21st century vehicle.

[TGLS]

I dunno, explaining internal combustion would probably be the toughest part, and after that it would be pretty straightforward (gears have been old-hat for some time now).

Holodecks don't seem to work unless the they actively generate more space, which instead runs into the problem of what happens to the generated space when the power goes out.

I should have mentioned electric cars.

I think Electric Cars would be easier to explain, given:
1) You still need to explain how batteries work with gas cars because that's what ignites the fuel in the engine
2) They're simpler than gas cars (motor+battery: done)
3) It's actually doable at 1820's technology to build an electrical generator and motor to demonstrate the theory

[McAvoy]

I dunno, explaining internal combustion would probably be the toughest part, and after that it would be pretty straightforward (gears have been old-hat for some time now).

Holodecks don't seem to work unless the they actively generate more space, which instead runs into the problem of what happens to the generated space when the power goes out.

I should have mentioned electric cars.

I think Electric Cars would be easier to explain, given:
1) You still need to explain how batteries work with gas cars because that's what ignites the fuel in the engine
2) They're simpler than gas cars (motor+battery: done)
3) It's actually doable at 1820's technology to build an electrical generator and motor to demonstrate the theory

Here is the thing, you have someone explaining them the technology. Its different when you have someone 1820 trying to figure it out from observations. Imagine someone from 1820 trying to figure out how a Flux capacitor works in a car without context.

You can explain anything to anyone. That's called education.

[clearspira]

Ah, the electric car. The only thing stopping us from building one since the 19th century was battery size. And the only thing stopping that was the oil industry and those connected to it. All of these car companies who are so enthralled with ''green'' now have a dark history when it comes to suppressing progress.

[CrypticMirror]

Probably best not to think too hard about the Holodecks.
Even by the standards of impossible Star Trek gadgets it is a whole other level of bullshit.
It works because they say it works.

That's the whole point isn't it? TNG is 350 years in the future. The technology should be something that we as people from the 21st century cannot readily explain or understand.

It would be like someone from 1820 trying to understand how a modern car works.

I feel that is doable, steam locomotives were around then; admittedly those are external combustion engines, but it is a good starting point. Explaining Netflix or Disney+ to them, on the other hand...

[clearspira]

Probably best not to think too hard about the Holodecks.
Even by the standards of impossible Star Trek gadgets it is a whole other level of bullshit.
It works because they say it works.

That's the whole point isn't it? TNG is 350 years in the future. The technology should be something that we as people from the 21st century cannot readily explain or understand.

It would be like someone from 1820 trying to understand how a modern car works.

I feel that is doable, steam locomotives were around then; admittedly those are external combustion engines, but it is a good starting point. Explaining Netflix or Disney+ to them, on the other hand...

So I looked this up out of interest. The earliest form of what we today would recognise as a television was made in 1925 by a Scottish inventor named John Logie Baird. It was rudimentary as hell but it did exactly what it was meant to. You may have heard like I had that Philo Farnsworth invented the TV in 1927 - but Baird nicked him to the draw. Farnsworth did however invent the cathode ray tube based television which obviously won out.

I feel as if you could absolutely explain Netflix to Baird or Farnsworth in a ''imagine this but with millions of programs that come down a telephone line'' kind of way.

But then of course we could get a bit esoteric with this the phenkitsicope was invented in 1832 that displayed a moving image, the zoetrope in 1866, the flip book in 1868, the first film in 1895. The past wasn't as primitive as we like to think and I really do feel that if you found the smartest guy of his age and used contemporary (for them) language, I think you could explain the concept of Netflix to a passing standard.