Next Major Scientific & Technological Breakthroughs?

[cjbirch]

This weekend provided me with some upto this point very limited personal thinking time with my 'scope. Pondering the galaxy and beyond wondering if at all possible I may stumble upon some previously unidentified phenomena!
Due to the rather simplistic technology telescopes provide us ('cept of course those rather large one's and the one's orbiting the Earth), it got me considering the discoveries of the last 100 years, and the retrospective idea of our predecessors contemplating the ideologies and technologies that would be present to our contemporary scientists. After all we have only known about the discovery of x-rays by Wilhelm Roentgen. Thus our view of our world and the distant cosmos has changed dramatically over the last 100 years, the creation of a new class of instruments able to detect the smallest atomic particles, to those of which like Hubble on its 16th Birthday provide the public with the opportunity to view distant galaxies, with unprecedented scrutiny.

My question to you all is, what do you speculate may be the next major scientific or technological breakthroughs of this century, which in a timescale of a hundred or two hundred years from now will lead to our view of the universe being dramatically affirmed or revolutionalised. An element of speculation and presumption is of course required!

Regards - Chris

On a sidenote I may not be able to comment on this thread for a few days, University examinations and all, but I look forward to reading the contentions forwarded.

[antoniseb]

I think it will either be the detection and classification of cold dark matter, or perhaps something with neutrinos, from an upcoming extragalactic supernova observed by IceCube. There is a possibility that the exploration of the universe's dark age by SKA will turn up something interesting too.

[cjbirch]

Yes interesting, i'd rather forgot about the SKA array. Do you think the ability to ascertain the evolution of the primordial gas to condense into the first objects in the universe, will consequently lead to a fuller determination and understanding of the universe, (inevitably it must) but also what answers do you believe it could afford considering the possibility of extra-terrestrial life? Objectively, it aims to chart the evolution of atoms from their first condensed form, to the one's present in our solar system and indeed on to the only presently known locale for life in the universe - Earth.
Our curiosity and technological devlopments thus seem to incur the further need for scientific breakthrough, in the avant garde manner that we have yet to fulfil our current conceptual aims.

Chris

[antoniseb]

I don't think that observing the condensation of the early universe into stars and galaxies will tell us much about the origin of life.

Our curiosity and technological devlopments thus seem to incur the further need for scientific breakthrough, in the avant garde manner that we have yet to fulfil our current conceptual aims.

I am not sure what you mean by the above. I think we will continue making technical advances until we can't anymore. I'm not sure what you mean by the avant garde manner or our current conceptual aims.

[Flying Deuces]

cj, I believe the next scientific breakthough(s) will come from a revolution in whatever theory fuses concepts in relativity and quantum mechanics. Clearly, some theory will end the macro/micro discrepancy that now exists. Were i to guess, it is the nature of time that will be answered, and from that, a cascade of new theories.

Having relativity and quantum mechanics both work but not reconciled with each other seems to indicate, we undertand neither fully.

[cjbirch]

Sorry that I didn't express myself clearly.
I was stating that would it be conceivable in your opinion to outline the possibilities of future discoveries, before we have fulfilled the capabilities of our current mission objectives.
For instance in regards to SKA, could we presume the possibilities of future discoveries before we have completed the mission in question. It's kind of a two-tier approach, in that you would have an overriding principle in which you seek to justify, (so in this instance it would be some scientific theory) but you have to complete one exercise (SKA) before you can move onto the subsequent mission!

[cjbirch]

Thank's Flying Deuces! I suggest that the next step from achieving a scientific breakthrough is through somehow implementing it into a technological format, which will go on to break other pre-existing boundaries. What do you then perceive (if its applicable in this case?) to be a technological post-requisite of the revolution of relativity and quantum mechanics, in retaining relevance to the OP.
Regards
Chris

[Flying Deuces]

I don't think that observing the condensation of the early universe into stars and galaxies will tell us much about the origin of life.

Agreed, nor origins in general, and I think that has less to do with our actual capabilities than a misunderstanding of the nature of time, upon which our investigations are based.

I've asked for suggestions concerning how science could address origins. Science, by its self-imposed definitions, seems unable to address the question of origins, for it would be necessary for it to make predictions for events outside of the four-dimensional universe as we comprehend it, i.e., before time=0, and then devise some means of testing an event outside of the universe, the universe as science defines it.

It simply seems impossible for science to address origins, as it is some students of science to admit, the answer to origins is not available to intelligences bound in four dimensions. A better understanding of the nature of time as a dimension would help. Perhaps we approach that time.

[cjbirch]

Quote:
Originally Posted by antoniseb
I don't think that observing the condensation of the early universe into stars and galaxies will tell us much about the origin of life. [QUOTE]

I think this point was a little misconstrued. What I meant is related to SKAS principle aim:

"chart the development of these adolescent stars and galaxies, which will provide us with information about our own origin. The atoms in our bodies, our planet and our star were formed by the nuclear reactions that powered these early stars." referenced from http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2004/january/ska.htm

I wasn't directly relating the effects of the condensation of the early universe into a positive assertion, of the nature of the origin of life throughout the universe. Indeed what I meant was that obviously SKA aims to show how we came into being does it not? Through the evolution of the early atoms into stars into the proto-planetary material, into the elements capable of supporting life, thus I suggested as a consequence of the discoveries we ascetain through SKA, will it not lead us to any nearer the conclusion of deducing the origins of life? Whether it's a miraculous one-off or a constant distributed throughout the universe!
Thanks in advance
Chris

[antoniseb]

Agreed, nor origins in general...

Putting aside your higher dimension argument for the moment, I think that the SKA will tell us the origins of galaxies and SMBHs. Used for other projects it will also tell us a good bit more about the origins of stars.

[Romanus]

The big discoveries:

1.) I think projects like the LHC will finally give us an idea if string theory is on the right track or not.

2.) The discovery of earthlike planets--*real* Earthlike planets--will be one of the biggest stories of the century, guaranteed.

[Flying Deuces]

Putting aside your higher dimension argument for the moment, I think that the SKA will tell us the origins of galaxies and SMBHs. Used for other projects it will also tell us a good bit more about the origins of stars.

I'd be more than happy toi put aside the higher dimension argument, but for me, the higher dimension argument fulfills an essential role in my quest into the yet-to-be known. My point is, we have created an interesting condundrum: science itself has painted itself into a corner. We begin to separate from good science if we do not admit that some force, some cause, beyond our current understanding of forces, causes, is responsible for origins.

But this sort of "nonsense" is nothing new. Using our present model of the natural laws, the physics, of the universe, we are forced to accept "nonsensical" statements such as: the mass of an object approaching light speed approaches infinity and in fact reaches infinity at the speed of light; to accelerate something to the speed of light would require an infinite force; and that the origin of everything, space, matter and energy, arose from "nothing," that "nothing" existed prior to time=0, and from that nothing, everything emerged. These "nonsensical" facts won't go away.

Without getting any deeper, we have no idea of the nature of the "nothing" we cavalierly note as the progenitor of everything. Clearly, the "nothing" was something, yet - and this is the higher dimension argument - describing this nothing appears not possible from within the four-dimensional something that emerged from it.

The nature of the something we exist within we have defined in four dimensions. Our sensory/mental understanding of the something in which we exist is defined within four dimensions. Yet, within those four dimensions, we cannot (or have not, but then again, we may not be capable of so doing) define what existed prior to the Big Bang. I suppose if some theory included "negative" time, time prior to time=0, we'd begin to have a grasp of what the nothing, which precipitated everything, is. Currently, we haven't such a theory.

Nor have I an idea to predict and then test any predictions of the nature of what existed prior to time=0. Yet, something did exist prior to time=0, we simply haven't a way to describe it, other than saying from nothing, everything appeared. To deny that something did exist prior to time=0, we'd need testable predictions. We are awaiting those. Thus, at this point in our understanding of both nothing and everything, it is a faith-based statement to say nothing - meaning "no thing," - existed prior to the Big Bang, for it is a statement which cannot be proven.

I am well aware that a negative cannot be proven. That is a weakness of great benefit to science, for it means investigation in the pursuit of knowledge is justified, for, anything is possible, always - a subtle teaching of quantum physics.

It's late, I'm sleepy, and I hope I've made a little sense. We'll see...

[tadowe]

I think it will either be the detection and classification of cold dark matter, or perhaps something with neutrinos, from an upcoming extragalactic supernova observed by IceCube. There is a possibility that the exploration of the universe's dark age by SKA will turn up something interesting too.

The solar observatory and the various expeditions to comets and asteroids have paved the way for the next breakthrough: the recognition of the strong electrical force in cosmological theory and the wealth of preditions which have been confirmed by SOHO, Hubble, Chandra and the expeditions to and through our solar system and predicted by plasma scientists and engineers for the last fifty years, or more.

Your "dark matter" is becoming just another "invisible weave."