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[Rolepgeek]

I always wondered why an advanced society wouldn't just make a robot from 100% transparent materials.

How do you tell where the robot is?

[Parsely]

I always wondered why an advanced society wouldn't just make a robot from 100% transparent materials.

What's the point in just making a robot that's transparent? What's it for? Also mind that transparent doesn't mean the same thing as "invisible".

[Amperzand]

I don't believe there's such a thing as a perfectly transparent material. It'd basically have to stop interacting with light, and also be made of something that doesn't immediately collect a layer of crap and get visible.

[Arx]

I always wondered why an advanced society wouldn't just make a robot from 100% transparent materials.

What's the point in just making a robot that's transparent? What's it for? Also mind that transparent doesn't mean the same thing as "invisible".

Presumably, to make it difficult to see, considering there was a post about camouflage and invisibility right above it.

[Parsely]

Presumably, to make it difficult to see, considering there was a post about camouflage and invisibility right above it.

Well of course, but what is this proposed robot for? It's one thing to say you can make something invisible, it's another to explain how that's actually useful. Certainly there's no reason to just make all kinds of robots hard to see, so I can infer that he had something more specific in mind. I could assume that he meant some kind of combat bot, but again, why should I guess when I can ask him?

[Arx]

Presumably, to make it difficult to see, considering there was a post about camouflage and invisibility right above it.

Well of course, but what is this proposed robot for? It's one thing to say you can make something invisible, it's another to explain how that's actually useful. Certainly there's no reason to just make all kinds of robots hard to see, so I can infer that he had something more specific in mind. I could assume that he meant some kind of combat bot, but again, why should I guess when I can ask him?

Mainly because it slows down the conversation, it's a very safe assumption given this is primarily the theoretical weapons thread, and it's probably a contributing factor to Tack finding you blunt, because it comes off as combative. :v

There's no reason not to ask, but there's also no reason for me not to ask who you mean by 'he'.

I don't intend to argue this point, just note it.

[Sheb]

You'd be severely limited in what aterial you could use though.

[TheBiggerFish]

I was thinking more like refraction actually, yeah. Many, many tiny hologram/camera pairs would work, but then we run into the problem of current holograms; they're fairly simple to set up, but they need space-consuming infrastructure that you wouldn't be able to fit. Dang it light, why can't you just clump together when we want you to

Well we CAN stick photons together...

[Dirst]

Well we CAN stick photons together...

I'm surprised we got almost to reply #1000 before getting into the wonderful properties of duct tape

[Grimlocke]

Who knows, perhaps in the far far future duct tape will actually be suitable for repairing ducts.

[Dirst]

Who knows, perhaps in the far far future duct tape will actually be suitable for repairing ducts.

We're discussing perfectly reasonable inventions like pocket nuclear reactors, uniforms that work in any climate, and affordable sturdy metamaterials... let's not get silly and talk about using duct tape on ducts!

[Tack]

Nah, people will make a new type of 'photon tape' which is great for everything and never gets used to stick photons together.

[chaotic skies]

Why don't we just use cheese to stick everything better? Once it breaks, you get a nice little snack!

[i2amroy]

Is it though? The current cost of an infantryman's equipment is about 17.000 apparently, but the Pentagon is already testing ways to make that more expensive, including smart guns, heads-up display etc etc.

And then of course stuff like HAL would be great for troops like artillerymen.

That's $20k on top of the cost for all the other actual equipment that they would be wearing (armor, guns, ammo, etc.), not $20k instead of the current cost. (So more than a doubling in the current cost).

[chaotic skies]

No, that'd be just under double, not more than double