# Things that are basically impossible **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 9, 2017, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374 "2017-02-09T04:46:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/41 "2017-02-10T03:47:19Z")
> [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](#): > > I will always remember the first time I entered the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum years ago. Hanging in front of your eyes was the original Wright flyer, the first powered flight for man. Directly below it was the Apollo 11 capsule that took men from Earth to our species first landing on another celestial body. > > Sixty-six years separated them. Sixty-six. > > Seems almost impossible, even today. Orville lived until 1948, meaning he saw his invention go from a barely flying contraption to a very sophisticated WW2 jet fighter. He must have thought that was impossible, but he witnessed it with his own eyes. In 1944 he was given what was to be his last ride in an aircraft-a Lockheed Constellation. A plane that was 126 feet in length longer than his original flight (120’). ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/42 "2017-02-10T03:58:13Z")
Women. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/43 "2017-02-10T06:04:00Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > I remember the 1969 moon landing. My father kept saying, “They are on the moon. They are talking to people on earth, _from the moon_.” I remember the spring of 1970, closely following the travails of Apollo 13. It was terrifying. And the got them back alive. If I were in the habit of using that kind of language in those days, I probably would have said, “_Well, fuck me, they made it._” Wish I could have seen Apollo 11 on TV, but my dad decided everyone else would be home watching it, so we got a really nice spot in the Hoh rainforest campground. It was a good vacation, but, damn. Speaking of camping, one of our favorite spots was Spirit Lake. Went to the southside public campground numerous times with my family and the boyscout camp on the north side at least three. Was there when the radio informed us that the president was resigning. Then that goddam mountain blew up and wiped it all out. Still seems unbelievable. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/44 "2017-02-10T06:42:14Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > If I want to see a picture of the surface of Mars, I carry in my pocket a device which will show it to me in seconds. And you can see LIVE tv of the Earth from the ISS, 200 miles overhead. We can see pictures of the Earth from weather satellites, giving us much better forecasts. We can call up pictures of weather radar, letting us keep track of local weather developments. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/45 "2017-02-10T07:04:38Z")
The LIGO interferometer measures tiny distortions of a 4 kilometer tube. An atom is pretty tiny, right? It’s a hell of an achievement to measure a distortion the size of an atom across 4 kilometers. Well, LIGO isn’t just atomically precise. It measures distortions that are _as small compared to an atom as an atom is to a person_. And it doing so, it characterizes the behavior of a couple of objects, just a few dozen miles across, over a billion light-years away. ---
**Author:** ![Magicicada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c67d28/32.png) [@Magicicada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magicicada)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/46 "2017-02-10T07:36:16Z")
I am the same age my grandmother was when I was approaching adolescence. She was an old woman. Not quite elderly, but old, not just by my own estimation, but by the standards of the time. Yet, I am middle-aged. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/47 "2017-02-10T07:45:15Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > How in the world can you take a flat piece of vinyl and scratch into it with a stylus in such a way that when you put a needle back into the cut groove it reproduces the original sound so accurately? Phonograph records seem highly implausible if not impossible. Digital recording seems simple by comparison. Actually, one more thing about this. I can just about accept that a sound wave can be modulated onto a bit of plastic, and the modulations read back with a stylus and turned back into an approximation of the sound. But STEREO. ONE stylus following ONE scratch in the vinyl somehow produces TWO distinct and separate outputs? I’m sorry, that’s ridiculous and you can’t prove it’s true. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/48 "2017-02-10T13:05:09Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > The LIGO interferometer measures tiny distortions of a 4 kilometer tube. > > An atom is pretty tiny, right? It’s a hell of an achievement to measure a distortion the size of an atom across 4 kilometers. > > Well, LIGO isn’t just atomically precise. It measures distortions that are _as small compared to an atom as an atom is to a person_. And it doing so, it characterizes the behavior of a couple of objects, just a few dozen miles across, over a billion light-years away. Speaking of insanely sensitive instruments: an [inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductively_coupled_plasma_mass_spectrometry) measures concentrations of atomic elements in samples. It’s so sensitive that it’s capable of measuring concentrations as low as 1 part per quadrillion. It doesn’t seem like this should be possible… ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/49 "2017-02-10T13:20:05Z")
> [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](#): > > How can people accurately pilot 2-ton vehicles? Specifically, idiots who cannot see. Yet, millions of them are out there. Obligatory quote: [QUOTE=Robert A. Heinlein] Despite the name ‘automobile’ these vehicles had no autocontrol circuits; control, such as it was, was exercised second by second for hours on end by a human being peering out through a small pane of dirty silica glass, and judging unassisted and often disastrously his own motion and those of other objects. In almost all cases the operator had no notion of the kinetic energy stored in his missile and could not have written the basic equation. Newton’s Laws of Motion were to him mysteries as profound as the meaning of the universe. Nevertheless millions of these mechanical jokes swarmed over our home planet, dodging each other by inches or failing to dodge. None of them ever worked right; by their nature they could not work right; and they were constantly getting out of order. Their operators were usually mightily pleased when they worked at all. When they did not, which was every few hundred miles (hundred, not hundred thousand) they hired a member of a social class of arcane specialists to make inadequate and always expensive temporary repairs. Despite their mad shortcomings, these ‘automobiles’ were the most characteristic form of wealth and the most cherished possessions of their time. Three whole generations were slaves to them. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/e19adc/32.png) [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/50 "2017-02-10T13:59:23Z")
3D-printed, functional human organs. A decade ago a completely nonsensical sentence; today, an almost completed race to produce the first. What makes it impossible is deciding which organ I should start abusing. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/51 "2017-02-10T15:14:37Z")
I remember when AIDS was a death sentence-- and the only way you knew you had it was that you got one of the diseases associated with it, even though you were young and generally healthy, but you had a risk factor: you were gay, a drug user, or a hemophiliac, had had a transfusion, and a few other things. Now it is a manageable condition, almost like diabetes, and we may be on the verge of an inoculation-- a non-traditional one based on gene therapy, but one that will save millions of lives nonetheless. All over about a 35 year period. ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/52 "2017-02-10T17:04:10Z")
I spend a lot of time in airports and one weird thing you find in airports, especially airport bars and restaurants, are televisions showing programming with the sound turned off. I have an app that allows me to point the camera on my phone at the television and within seconds it will be playing the audio to the tv show. I can put in my earphones and listen contentedly. It has never failed. How the hell can it do that? I submit that it is impossible. (BTW, the app is called Tunity) ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/53 "2017-02-10T18:21:17Z")
Crude oil is found miles under the ocean floor, drilled out, shipped half way around the world, converted into motor fuel at refineries, shipped again by truck, marked up for profit at every step along the way, stored and dispensed from a convenient pump at a neighborhood store within a few blocks of my house, and it is cheaper than bottled water. Potatoes are grown on land that is worth thousands of dollars an acre, in a single yearly harvest, by workers and expensive machinery that till, weed, plant, fertilize, pest-protect, dig, sort, inspect, cull, wash, warehouse, bag, load, insure, file government paperwork, ship a thousand miles, wholesale, reload, truck, unload, shelve, price, scan, ring up,tax, swipe, bag, and carry to my car for ten cents each. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/54 "2017-02-10T18:32:22Z")
> [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](#): > > Hanging in front of your eyes was the original Wright flyer, the first powered flight for man. Directly below it was the Apollo 11 capsule that took men from Earth to our species first landing on another celestial body. > > Sixty-six years separated them. Sixty-six. > > Seems almost impossible, even today. Agreed. “If God had meant man to fly, He’d have given us Orville and Wilbur.” ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/55 "2017-02-10T20:12:27Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Crude oil is found miles under the ocean floor, drilled out, shipped half way around the world, converted into motor fuel at refineries, shipped again by truck, marked up for profit at every step along the way, stored and dispensed from a convenient pump at a neighborhood store within a few blocks of my house, and it is cheaper than bottled water. > > Potatoes are grown on land that is worth thousands of dollars an acre, in a single yearly harvest, by workers and expensive machinery that till, weed, plant, fertilize, pest-protect, dig, sort, inspect, cull, wash, warehouse, bag, load, insure, file government paperwork, ship a thousand miles, wholesale, reload, truck, unload, shelve, price, scan, ring up,tax, swipe, bag, and carry to my car for ten cents each. Expanding on this theme, I give you: [The Great Pyramid of Cheops Vs. A 7-11](http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/the_great_pharaoh_cheops_at_the_7-eleven_store.html) ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/56 "2017-02-10T20:36:57Z")
Operation Desert Shield was when warfare became a spectator sport. It was only for reasons of operational security that CNN didn’t have a live feed to the cameras in the nosecones of the smart bombs. That was 1990. My video card has more RAM than my first PC had hard drive space. My phone has more RAM, storage space, and raw computing power than existed on the planet when we put a man on the moon. My phone will be effectively disposable when I get ready to upgrade. I can look up a recipe for any dish in seconds on said phone. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/57 "2017-02-10T21:48:00Z")
They went to the Moon on one Meg. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/58 "2017-02-10T22:22:01Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > I’ve been enjoying Chance the Rapper’s music for a couple years now. He’s got 3 albums out, all of them free digital downloads. He’s been the musical guest on SNL twice in the past year and on as a guest of Kanye. He’s performed at the White House and on most night time and some daytime talk shows. He’s going to be performing at the Grammy Awards and has 7 nominations this year. > > All without a label!! And stars in a Snickers commercial. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/59 "2017-02-10T23:03:20Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Actually, one more thing about this. I can just about accept that a sound wave can be modulated onto a bit of plastic, and the modulations read back with a stylus and turned back into an approximation of the sound. > > But STEREO. ONE stylus following ONE scratch in the vinyl somehow produces TWO distinct and separate outputs? I’m sorry, that’s ridiculous and you can’t prove it’s true. Even more magical, it is actually 2 scratches, and the needle reads reads left and right audio from them respectively. What is bloody impossible is that there can be actually 4 audio tracks scratched in the disc recorded in FM carrier waves that are then decoded into 4 discreet audio channels. Preposterous ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374/60 "2017-02-10T23:43:30Z")
Consciousness is a bizarre concept and doesn’t make any sense. Science and philosophy have no satisfying answers and there’s little reason to suspect an answer is coming anytime soon. For some reason, somehow, a lump of meat in a particular configuration attains self-awareness and feels things, whatever _that_ means. Life is also a bewildering. It’s made of normal matter, the same stuff you find in the dirt and the air, but it’s somehow moving around and exhibiting sophisticated behavior. On a small scale, its complexity is mind numbing. A single cell is made of trillions of tiny molecular machines and can’t be replicated artificially, except through clumsy reverse engineering. You can read documents written over 2,000 years ago. Certainly most have been lost to history, but I’m amazed much of anything outside of religious texts survive at all. They’ve weathered fires, plagues, war, floods, and the collapse of whole empires. There was always someone around who wanted to laboriously copy and store it and maybe hoped someone else would do so in the future. Animation is easy to understand. I’m sure lots of people made their own little flip book stick figure cartoons on the corners of school books and the like. I can imagine making cheap looking Flash animation you see on TV, but high quality movie length stuff blows my mind. A couple years ago I watched Bambi with a more technical minded perspective and I was astounded at how smooth the quadruped animation was (the bane of any animator) and how often the characters rotated or ran at an angle. It was made in only a couple years, no computer aid, just good old '40s technology. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-are-basically-impossible/779374.md?page=4)