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Futurama Scientific Achievements
The Smelloscope: The smelloscope is certainly a possible device,
though impractical. The smelloscope clearly cannot collect actual scent
particles, but that is not necessary. It would be possible to use lasers
to analyse distant particles, and have their smells recreated for the
smelloscope's user, in fact, simple current spectography technology
could easily be used to identify the particles. A somewhat similar idea
was developed using lasers to identify different forms of bacteria,
though not to recreate their smell. Also, the technology to recreate
smells is certainly possible, and had been developed by the year 3001,
as the beginning of "The Honking" says "Smell-o-vision users insert
nostril tubes now", showing that similar smell technology was available.
The Dark Matter Engines: Firstly, the actual existence of dark
matter is dubious, but assuming it exists, it could be anything, and
could quite possibly have strange properties, allowing it to somehow
be used to create large amounts of energy for propulsion. Also, the
engines arguably DO move the entire universe around the ship, as well
as moving the ship within the universe, it all depends on your point
of reference.
Increasing the Speed of Light: Many scientists believe that
the speed of light is not an absolute constant, but has in fact changed
throughout the life of the universe, and that it may have once been
much higher. While certainly unlikely, perhaps this means that scientists
could have changed the speed of light.
The 200% Efficient Afterburners: While the actual existence
fo 200% efficient afterburners is impossible, and blatantly breaks numerous
laws of thermodynamics, that doesn't mean that there couldn't be devices
created with much the same effect. Perhaps the afterburners not only
draw energy from this universe, but somehow draw some from other universes.
Therefore, the total amount of energy in existence has not changed,
but its distribution between universes has.
Intelligent Robots: There is no reason that intelligent robots
could not be created. After all, humans could arguably be considered
the same as extremely complex organic robots.
Solution by Bosda: We SAID intelligent robots. Not the same as Humans. New!
The Death Clock: Okay, this one IS blatantly impossible, for
it is impossible to know enough about this universe to calculate what
would happen in the future, due to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.
This is not to mention that the processing power needed to calculate
the future would be impossible to achieve.
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