In this scientific day and age, impossibility is a quality eaten away by time. The notion that something cannot be done is giving way to the moral debate over whether or not it should be done, and beneath that debate is the cold pulse of scientific advancement willing to do anything to sure up man's mastery of the physical domain. It is in this emerging netherworld of ethics and technology beyond imagination that Fringe resides, applying classical horror and fantasy story telling techniques to the realms of science, removing the impossibility from the occasion and going straight for our modern day sensibilities of techno-paranoia and fear where the question isn't "is it possible?" as much as "is anything impossible?" Keep your eye right here for an examination of some of the technology and theories at the heart of JJ Abrams' new show Fringe.
Fringe Glossary
An examination of some of the technology and theories at the heart of JJ Abrams' new show Fringe.
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October 14, 2008
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Post Morten Image Recovery
The ability to retrieve an image of the last thing someone saw before they died would be a boon for criminal investigators. In Fringe, Dr. Walter Bishop managed to distill the task down to a simple matter of having the appropriate hardware. In the film Wild, Wild, West the process was even simpler: bore a whole through the cadaver's head and shine a light through. For their obvious differences, neither method would be anymore likely than the other.
Real life scientists reviewed the methodology of Fringe and found it to be well beyond the realm of possibility. For starters, visual information is assembled in the brain - not the optic nerve. The nerve simply responds to stimulation and transmits the data. Retrieving the image data would be nearly identical to downloading thoughts from a dead body.
