Starts With A Bang!

Ask Ethan: What Science Experiments Will Open The Door To The Future?

“Provided that we have some luck, what science experiments that are going to happen withing a couple of decades could open us a way to build some sci-fi movie tech?”

The dream of futuristic technologies and what they might enable us to do – travel back in time, create artificial gravity, traverse the stars, create unlimited energy – are some of the best goals science can aspire to. While a great many of the technologies we’ve envisioned might well prove to be physically impossible, these four could immediately become reality if just one experiment, potentially within the next decade, reveals a surprise it should be able to detect. If dark matter is detected and proves to be its own antiparticle, then all we need to do is figure out how to harness it and unlimited fuel along an interstellar journey is ours for the taking. Antimatter might fall upwards in a gravitational field, having a negative mass, which would create artificial gravity and even, potentially, warp drive. And if the Universe rotates with just the right value, traveling back in time might become a part of science, not just science fiction.

There are experiments ongoing today and ones presently under design that might unlock these mysteries and more. Find out all about them on this week’s Ask Ethan!