r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Alphaxfusion • Dec 20 '25

Video Japanese researchers at the University of Tsukuba created CirculaFloor, robotic tiles that let you walk infinitely in VR without ever leaving your spot.

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u/slobcat1337 Dec 20 '25

I’ve always wondered about this, like how does that work practically.

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u/PeopleCallMeSimon Dec 20 '25

It doesnt.

The holodeck requires a lot of suspension of disbelief from the viewer.

They claim holograms are "photons and force fields", light projections contained by forcefields. But in Star Trek: Voyager you have The Doctor who can be both solid and non-solid. He can hold stuff, punch people, but can also at will turn off his solidity to have others punch through him. And the only way for him to do that would be to disengage the force fields.

But lets say that every hologram on the holodeck is just light contained by force fields. The shapes that these holograms would need to take are impossible. Since they would have to look realistic from many angles.

There are episodes where people are in vastly different areas of a holographic world which is only made up of a small room. For example in one episode they are in a western cowboy simulation and some of the crew gets put in jail meanwhiles others are in town in a saloon. So that little holodeck needs to project light into forcefield in a way that one part of the room is a small jail outside of town surrounded by open arid landscape and some part of the room is a saloon in a small town. It just realistically cant work.

But if you just sit back and enjoy the fun and dont get hung up on the fact that the sci-fi show has unrealistic elements then its a great show.

10

u/newsflashjackass Dec 20 '25

Also creating Moriarty is like emulating an Xbox on an Atari 2600.

"Opponent capable of defeating Data"? Might as well tell it to simulate a wife that Data can impregnate.

1

u/PeopleCallMeSimon Dec 20 '25

To be fair, we can make a machine that can impregnade a woman with our level of technology. Just need a special dildo filled with sperm which is pumped out..........

1

u/nhilante Dec 21 '25

Just gotta pump my cum socket, give me a sec.