Donate to Science & Enterprise

S&E on Mastodon

S&E on LinkedIn

S&E on Flipboard

Please share Science & Enterprise

Are These Science Fiction Concepts In Our Future?

– Contributed content –

Milky Way

Milky Way (Philippe Donn, Pexels)

30 Oct. 2020. Over the years there have been numerous famous pieces of science fiction. Many of these works of arts have hypothesized and imagined what the future could look like. Some of these have even accurately managed to predict advances we have already witnessed. But could some of the most well known science-fiction concepts be a real part of our future? Let’s explore some of these possibilities in turn to answer this question.

Cryogenics

First, it’s worth exploring the concept of cryogenics. Now, it’s worth noting that cryogenics is already technology and a solution that is used today. Aluminum used in cryogenics is easily accessible on the market and we can create numerous machines capable of completing this process. So, what we’re talking about is the process of cryogenically freezing humans. In doing so, humans could live well beyond their years. Essentially, they could wake up in a completely different time and the possibilities connected to this idea are absolutely stupendous. Cryogenics could be used on people suffering from diseases and conditions for which there is no cure. It could also be a way in which people could travel through time, albeit not quite literally. Could cryogenics be possible in the future?

Currently, we’re about halfway there. We can freeze humans and keep their vital organs intact but we haven’t yet got the technology power to reverse the process. Researchers now believe that the answer is nanotechnology. Once confined to science fiction itself, nanotech now seems like a very real option and could be accessible within the next several decades.

Extraterrestrial life

Are aliens among us? This used to be a preposterous idea however, recently there have been numerous developments that suggest that this isn’t quite as crazy as it first sounds. For instance, a recent report released by the Pentagon revealed that they have vehicles that were not made on this earth. That’s not paraphrasing, that’s a direct quote from an official. Furthermore videos have been declassified where pilots are blown away by UFO encounters that they have experienced.

Experts are quick to ensure that we don’t jump to weird and wonderful conclusions here of course. We need to remain rational yet curious. Every UFO that has been encountered over the last decade could be an experimental aircraft from another country or even from our own.

However, we do continuously send out messages into space. We are constantly trying to reach out to civilisations across the stars in the hope of receiving an answer. Whether this is a smart choice is debatable. Stephen Hawking once suggested that reaching out or attempting to reach advanced civilizations was dangerous at best. He claimed any extraterrestrial life that was able to respond would see us as nothing more than bugs infesting a viable planet. This has not stopped researchers from continuing to push forward with this idea though in the hope of making contact.

It’s worth noting that some researchers strongly believe that we will never make contact with people from another world. Some humorously note that they have likely already visited and, witnessing the issues with our society, decided it wasn’t worth staying.

Advanced artificial intelligence 

Of all the science fiction concepts that we are discussing in this article, it’s arguably this one that is certainly within our grasp. Currently, the concept of machine learning is embedded in numerous industries. Machine learning is the process of software creating other pieces of software to complete processes without any human interaction at all. It can be used for a variety of different solutions. For instance, machine learning is a process that helps eliminate spam from your inbox. It also determines what you see on your social media feeds. Insiders have claimed that the process is now so advanced that researchers have no idea how some of the pieces of software that have been created actually work.

An interesting concept to explore is whether we will reach the point where AI and human intelligence is virtually indistinguishable. It’s a concept that has been explored in science fiction for decades. These days, it’s looking like this very well might occur. We have all been tricked recently when calling customer service into thinking we were speaking to an employee only to discover it was an advanced piece of answering software. Researchers have even created robots that can feel or at least understand the concept of pain.

Flying cars

Those who were obsessed with films like Back to the Future when they were younger or Blade Runner are no doubt disappointed that flying cars are not yet accessible on the market. Thus far, the closest we have come to this concept is small winged drones that can be piloted and flown for short distances. However, that’s not quite what we were hoping for and it’s interesting to question why this hasn’t happened just yet. There are a few reasons for this.

First, with the technology that we currently have, the concept of a flying car would require a lot of energy. Right now producers of cars and governments want to reign in the amount of energy that is being used by both private individuals and businesses. Furthermore, there’s a focus on creating true self-driving cars. Now, you might be thinking that self-driving cars are already available on the market. However, this is not the case. We’re only at level three of self-driving cars out of a total of five levels. Producers are aiming to ensure that in the next ten years cars will be able to drive on the road with no interaction or input from humans. It’s an ambitious concept and it will be interesting to see whether it does indeed come to fruition.

Why are businesses so focused on self-driving technology above other advancements? The simple matter is that this type of tech will make driving a lot safer and easier for consumers. One of the primary goals of producers is to reduce the number of accidents on the roads.

So, will flying cars ever be in our future? It’s certainly not an advancement that seems to be on the foreseeable horizon. However, one advancement we could see is private vehicles that could fly around cities and be used as a taxi service. These will likely resemble smaller versions of helicopters though rather than looking anything like the typical modern car.

It’s also possible that advanced self-driving technology will be key to unlocking this possibility in the next few decades, particularly when combined with EV systems.

Deep space travel

It is possible that deep space travel could be an option in the future? Perhaps, but again this could be quite far off. This will almost certainly be tied to a different type of technology that we mentioned earlier – specifically cryogenics. Once we learn how to freeze humans and then bring them back, space travel could be an option. Alternatively, the advancement that unlocks space travel could be the possibility of travelling at the speed of light. Previously light speed was presumed or theorized to be impossible. However, new studies into theoretical physics have questioned this assumption and put forward the possibility that it might be possible after all. We just haven’t reached the technology that we need to do this just yet.

Currently, the furthest that we can expect astronauts to travel will be to Mars. This is still a tremendous journey but there is a real potential to set up a base for humans here. However, it’s not likely or indeed feasible that Mars could hold the key to our future, even with tremendous leaps forward in technology.

If you want the best and clearest interpretation of space travel, Nolan’s Interstellar provides a strong outlook of what it could look like in the future. This film was created with the support of input by quantum physicists.

Time travel

Finally, it’s perhaps interesting to explore the concept of time travel. Again, it’s worth noting the work of Stephen Hawking’s. His final book suggested that time travel could be possible in the future. It’s worth noting that in some forms time travel has already been proven by researchers. Various studies have shown that it’s definitely to move at a speed through time that is slightly altered. They did this by flying a clock around the planet and found that it was seconds slower than the clocks on earth.

Traveling hundreds of years into the past or hundreds of years into the future might sound absurd. However, the answer to the problem of time travel may be a wormhole. This is a theoretical construct whereby we could travel through both time and space to reach a new point. However, the problem with time travel is that it comes with paradoxes that can not be easily explained or understood. Theorists have spent years attempting to solve them. Paradoxes may exist in science fiction but there is absolutely no evidence that they exist in the laws of nature. As such, it’s unlikely that time travel will ever be truly real.

*     *     *

Comments are closed.