"I Hate Spam" <removethisspam@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<9YSdnbjOLZxyMpajXTWcoQ@comcast.com>...
> "DigitalX" <digix07@shaw.ca> wrote in message
> news:k8NO9.172300$Qr.4289706@news3.calgary.shaw.ca...
> > is it theoreticly possible to create an Evangelion?
> 
>     What aspect?  I suppose we could build a giant robot today using Segway
> type stabilization technology.  As for the A-10 link, maybe another 20 years
> if ethicists even allowed such a thing to be built.

We'll probably have direct mind links long before we can build giant
robots. As I see it, the problem with building an Eva is really one of
weight. Taking a humanoid form and scaling it up to skyscraper size
just doesn't work - the volume, and hence the weight, goes as the cube
of the scaling factor, while the cross-sectional area of the legs, and
hence the weight it can support, goes as the square. So if I propose a
giant human who is twice our size in all three dimensions, he'll have
eight times the weight and only four times the leg thickness. Such men
have existed, but Robert Wadlow (the tallest giant on record outside
legend) was plagued all his life by trouble with his legs and feet,
and I don't think he was even twice the height of an average man.

OK, we could still build it with current materials. Steel, aluminium,
carbon derivatives... But don't go expecting it to move or anything.
When you take a step you're putting yourself on _one_ leg, doubling
the stress. Also, you cause stresses throughout your body, as various
parts of you are accelerated. The spine is flexible and S-shaped
simply to act as a shock absorber - else the jolts inflicted simply by
walking would run straight up to the skull and start harming the
brain. Eva will shake itself apart unless its component parts are
sufficiently flexible - but AFAIK the only materials that meet the
criteria for supporting the weight tend to be rather stiff. A man the
size of a skyscraper needs bones of steel and muscles of concrete.

Not to mention the fact that getting an Eva to walk would require
enormous power, both in the energy supply and in the motors operating
the joints. Both can be had, but the kind of motor setup you'll need
to have at Eva's knee and thigh will be large and bulky, and I thought
we'd just filled that area with solid concrete just to keep the thing
from collapsing. This is where it helps to be human-sized - meat
muscles can provide all the power necessary to propel such a small
animal, and the pressure on the legs isn't so very great that anything
stronger than muscle around a column of bone is needed.

We won't be building Evas until we have some much, MUCH lighter and
stronger materials. Perhaps the ultimate carbon derivatives - diamond
and buckytubes - would be helpful in this project, but until then Eva
is quite beyond our engineering ability. Even with such materials, it
would be a waste of effort from any serious military perspective.
Without an AT field available, Eva is a tremendously expensive and
extremely large target, moving slowly compared to (e.g) a jet fighter
carrying guided missiles. I'd be inclined to target the legs: kneecap
Eva with depleted uranium! The budget would be far better spent on
old-fashioned tanks, planes and ships (and probably spacecraft - with
Eva materials, spaceflight will be cheap and easy, and hence
strategically important.) This assumes of course that no angels turn
up at any point and need kicking.

All these structural issues didn't pose a problem for NERV, though.
They didn't build the Evas, they just plated them and wired into their
brains. Has anyone got a captive angel handy we can begin
experimenting on?