Quote:
Originally Posted by mapuc
I get the feeling that science and space interested people only think on what we have now and what's in the pipeline/in development.
I try think 50-100-150 year a.s.o ahead.
I'm pretty sure we will have following within the next 50 years from now.
Phaser-Today we have Taser which will be developed into a phaser
Replicator(none food) Instead of ordering things from online store-we buy and then our replicator build it.
Laser-Well this is nothing new, but I'm convinced that in 50 years from now our military will have almost Star Trek like laser/phaser as main weapon.
Diseases - We may get rid of some and find antidote against others, while new will appear.
Flying cars-It's only a matter of time before this will be an ordinary sight.
Computer-If we within the next 50 years will have developed a quantum computer and if it will be each man's property I can't say.
And many other things
Markus
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“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future!”
It is true that our understanding of nature has changed radically and suddenly at certain points in history. Newton was right until he wasn't, at least not all the time. Einstein's theories of relativity are being questioned, Copernicus was utterly wrong until we knew he was essentially right. The best theories we have today are, I'll borrow this one: "the best of bad ideas" meaning they are almost certainly not correct. They are just the best we have at the moment. It is entirely possible that our understanding of nature will be laughable at some point in the future. "Can you believe that? They actually believed in space-time!"
In fact, we have no reason to insist that an orange can not possibly spontaneously change into a ballerina. Noone has ever seen an orange change into any sort of dancer but there is nothing we know in science with certainty that strictly forbids it to happen. The best we can say is that it is so incredibly unlikely that looking into it is as close to a guaranteed waste of time as we can comprehend. Still, we can't outright dismiss the possibility... as a matter of principle of course.
Quantum mechanics and the theories of relativity are the most successful theories to date but we know for a fact they can not be entirely correct. The best of bad ideas. Noone knows what future physics is going to look like.
Flying cars have been a couple of decades into the future for about 100 years now. We dream, dreams drive us to discover new things. Dreams of space travel drove Tsiolkovsky to come up with the equations that allowed us to send this rover to Mars. Some dreams though, are old and still dreams.