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Science fiction novel and movies are carry with far - out ideas , most often as the springboard for an action mechanism - packed adventure rather than a serious attempt to predict succeeding trends in science ortechnology . Some of the most common tropes , such as accelerating a ballistic capsule to fantastic speeds in a matter of seconds without crushing the occupants , are just apparently impossible grant to the police force of physics as we understand them . Yet those very same law appear to allow other on the face of it far - fetched sci - fi concepts , from wormholes to twin universes . Here ’s a summation of some of the sci - fi ideas that could really be done — in hypothesis , at least .
1) Tractor beams
In sci - fi films , nothing raises tenseness quite like the good guy ' starship getting caught in an inconspicuous tractor ray that allows the baddie to slowly whirl them in . And nowscientists are developing a real - liveliness tractor beam . But instead of trapping helpless starship cowcatcher , the destination of the substantial - life adaptation is to pull defunct satellite out of scathe ’s path and into a " graveyard arena " around Earth .
The real - life tractor shaft , known as an electrostatic tractor , would use a servicer space vehicle that fires electrons at a target satellite , leaving the target with a negative complaint and the servicer with a positive direction . The electrostatic attraction between the two ballistic capsule would get them to " stick together " and allow the servicer to slowly take out the satellite away .
Several experts are convinced that the prototype applied science could work in practice . But it will cost tens of meg to get a work on variation into space , which could prevent it from urinate the saltation to reality .
An artist’s impression of the inside of a wormhole.
2) Wormholes
The idea of a wormhole — a crosscut through quad that allow almost instant change of location between upstage parts of the universe — sounds like it was created as a fancied level - gadget driver . But under its more formal name of an Einstein - Rosen bridge , the construct has existed as a serious theoretic conception long before sci - fi writer got hold of it . It number out ofAlbert Einstein’stheory of general theory of relativity , which viewsgravityas a distortion of space - time triggered by massive objects . In coaction with physicist Nathan Rosen , Einstein hypothecate in 1935 that points of extremely strong gravity , such asblack holes , could be like a shot connect with each other . And so the theme of wormhole was born .
The forces around a fatal hole would destroy anyone that amount tight to it , so the idea of actually traveling through a wormhole was n’t given serious considerateness until the 1980s , when astrophysicist Carl Sagan decided he was going to pen a sci - fi novel . According to theBBC , Sagan encourage fellow physicist Kip Thorne to arrive up with a viable style to jaunt interstellar distance in a flash . Thorne duly contrive a way — potential in theory , but highly improbable in practice session — that humans might achieve interstellar traveling by traversing a wormhole whole . The outcome found its manner into Sagan ’s novel " Contact " ( Simon and Schuster : 1985 ) which was subsequently adapted into a film with Jodie Foster in the lead office .
While it ’s extremely unlikely that wormhole will ever become the unproblematic and convenient methods of transportation impersonate in movies , scientists have now hail up with a moreviable way to construct a wormholethan Thorne ’s original suggestion . It ’s also possible that , if wormholes already exist in the universe , they could be located using the new generation of gravitational - wave detectors .
An artist’s illustration shows how an electrostatic tractor beam could be used to pull defunct satellites out of geostationary orbit around Earth.
3) Warp drive
An essential prerequisite for most space - ground adventure stories is the ability to get from A to B-complex vitamin much faster than we can today . wormhole aside , there are multiple stumbling blocks to achieving this with a conventional starship . There ’s the tremendous amount of fuel required , the vanquish effects of acceleration , and the fact that the universe has astrictly imposed velocity boundary . This is the speed at which twinkle travels — exactly onelight - yearper twelvemonth , which in a cosmic context is n’t very fast at all . Proxima Centauri , the second - closest star to Earth , is 4.2 weak - years from the sun , while the center of the galaxy is a whopping 27,000 tripping - years aside .
luckily , there ’s a loophole in the cosmic speed limit : It only dictate the maximal focal ratio we can travelthrough space . As Einstein explain , space itself can be distorted , so perhaps it ’s potential to manipulate the space around a ship in such a way as to corrupt the speeding limit . The starship would still travel through the surrounding space at less than the speed of light , but the distance itself would be moving faster than that .
This was what the writer of " Star Trek " had in mind when they came up with the construct of a " warp ride " in the sixties . But to them it was just a plausible - sounding phrase , not literal physic . It was n’t until 1994 that theoretician Miguel Alcubierre find oneself a solution to Einstein ’s equations that produced a veridical warp drive effect , Live Science ’s sister siteSpace.com reported , contract space in front of a spaceship and expanding it to the ass . To start with , Alcubierre ’s answer was no less hokey than Thorne ’s travelable wormhole , but scientist are attempting to refine it in the hope that it might one mean solar day be virtual .
Traveling through a wormhole could be possible in certain gravity conditions.
4) Time travel
Just like with wormhole and outer space warp , the physic that tells us it ’s possible to jaunt back in clock time follow from Einstein ’s theory of general Einstein’s theory of relativity . This treats quad and time as part of the same " distance - time " continuum , with the two being inextricably connect . Just as we talk about distorting space with a wormhole or warp drive , time can be tinge as well . Sometimes it can get so distorted that it folds back on itself , in what scientists touch on to as a " shut timelike curve " — though it could just as accurately be forebode a time machine .
A conceptual invention for such a meter simple machine was published in 1974 by physicist Frank Tipler , according to physicist David Lewis Anderson , who describes the enquiry on theAnderson Institute , a individual research lab . Called a Tipler cylinder , it has to be full-grown — at least 60 sea mile ( 97 kilometers ) long , according to Humble — and exceedingly dumb , with a entire slew comparable to that of the sun . To get it to serve as a clock time car , the piston chamber has to rotate tight enough to distort space - time to the item where prison term folds back on itself . It may not sound as simple as installing a flux condenser in a DeLorean , but it does have the advantage that it really would knead — on newspaper publisher , at least .
5) Teleportation
The prototypic sci - fi example of teleportation is the " Star Trek"transporter , which , as the name indicate , is portrayed simply as a convenient way to transport force from one emplacement to another . But teleportation is quite unlike any other strain of transport : Instead of the traveler moving through outer space from the start percentage point to the destination , teleportation results in an exact extra being created at the destination while the original is destroyed . look at in these terms — and at the point of subatomic particles rather than human beingness — teleportation is indeed possible , according toIBM .
The real - world process is called quantum teleportation . This process copies the exact quantum land of one speck , such as a photon , to another that may be hundreds of miles away . Quantum teleportation destroy the quantum DoS of the first photon , so it does indeed attend as though the photon has been as if by magic channelize from one place to another . The prank is based on what Einstein referred to as " spooky action at a aloofness , " but is more formally known asquantum entanglement . If the photon that is to be " teleport " is brought into liaison with one of a duet of entangled photons , and a measurement of the result state is sent to the receiving destruction — where the other embroiled photon is — then the latter photon can be switched into the same state as the teleported photon .
It ’s a complicated process even for a single photon , and there ’s no room it could be scaled up to the form of instant - transportation system see in " Star Trek . " Even so , quantum teleportation does haveimportant applicationsin the real earth , such as for cab - proof communicating and super - fast quantum computing .
It’s theoretically possible to travel faster than the speed of light if you manipulate the space around the spaceship.
6) Parallel universes
The universe is everything our telescopes expose to us — all the billions of galaxies expand outward from theBig Bang . But is that all there is ? hypothesis says mayhap not : There might be a wholemultiverseof cosmos out there . The idea of " parallel universes " is another familiar sci - fi theme , but when they ’re depicted on screen they typically differ from our own universe only in underage details . But the reality may be much eldritch than that , with the basic argument of physical science in a parallel creation — such as the strength of gravity or atomic force — differ from our own . A classical enactment of a really different universe of this kind , and the fauna live in it , is Isaac Asimov ’s novel " The god Themselves " ( Doubleday:1972 ) .
The key fruit to the innovative understanding of parallel universes is the concept of " eternal inflation . " This depict the unnumberable cloth of space in a country of perpetual , incredibly rapid expansion . Every now and then a localized spot in this distance — a self - contained Big Bang — spend out of the world-wide enlargement and begins to grow at a more sedate tread , allowing material physical object like stars and galaxies to organize inside it . harmonise to this possibility , our universe is one such region , but there may be numberless others .
As in Asimov ’s report , these parallel universe could have completely different physical parameters from our own . At one fourth dimension scientists believed that only universes with virtually the same parameters as ours would be capable of supporting life , but recent studies suggest the situation may not be as restrictive as this , bouncy Science previously report . So there ’s Bob Hope for Asimov ’s foreigner yet — though perhaps not for form touch with them , as happens in the novel . Nevertheless , the traces of other universes might be detectable to us by other means . It ’s even been suggested that the secret " cold patch " in the cosmic microwave background is the scar from a collision with a parallel universe , Ivan Baldry , a professor of astrophysics at Liverpool John Moores University in the U.K. wrote inThe Conversation .
The theory of general relativity shows that it’s possible to travel back in time.
7) Habitable Mars
Who would n’t need to live on the Red Planet ? It has less gravity than Earth does , so even childlike thing like walking are difficult — and childbirth may be impossible . Marst gets less sunlight than our home base major planet does , so even the balmiest days barely go through as bearable . The only water is lock up in sparkler under the soil or at the poles . Not to mention , there ’s no breathable atmosphere … or really any ambience at all .
But almost every sci - fi story set far enough in the future has humans living on Mars . The paint here is terraforming , the process of turning the satellite ’s frigid , empty atmosphere into something more like Earth ’s . While not impossible , it ’s no easy task , because Mars does not contain enough fickle textile ( such as water , nitrogen and carbon dioxide ) to build a thick air of its own . So we would have to spell it from elsewhere , like by towing in comets from the outersolar systemand slam them into the planet .
This sort of mega - engine room is n’t unsufferable . It ’s just really , really unmanageable and would involve generations of humans working tirelessly to bring about an Earth 2.0 .
Star Trek The Adventure Exhibition In London, 2002. Sci-fi shows and films use teleportation as an easy way to move people to new locations, but the reality is far more limited.
8) Easy fusion
Even the wildest sci - fi starship need some sort of power reference , and sci - fi writer seem to have three standard go - tos : some form of made - up pith , like dilithium crystals ; antimatter ; or good previous - fashionednuclear fusion . That last one is perhaps the most plausible as a long - full term , sustainable source of energy for everything from spaceship to off - worldly concern settlements .
Heck , mankind already harness nuclear might in portable ship on Earth , under the sea . But those are fission - establish power planets , which derive power from splitting atoms apart . Fusion — in which two small atoms are smooshed together to form a new , larger one — is a whole different animate being . Fusion require much more sophisticated engineering to hold in and harness the Energy Department produced ( we already figured out how to trigger uncontrolled fusion reactions , which is what H bombs are ) .
In 2022 , scientists with the Department of Energy ’s National Ignition Facility made a vast progress : For the first prison term ever , they generated more energy out of a nuclear fusion reaction reaction than went into it . Thatremarkable accomplishment is only the first step , however . That net - prescribed energy addition did n’t include the power misplace to inefficiencies in the lasers themselves or a method acting to enamor that DOE and put it to useful work .
Bubble universes in a multiverse shown in this artist’s conception.
Still , scientists and locomotive engineer around the world are hard at work to crack the fusion puzzle , and it may yet become a staple fibre of our future tense .
9) Rock-throwing warfare
Long , long ago our ancestors took the former technological breakthrough at the time , sharpened Rock , and did their just to beat each other over the head with them . We have since progressed to more modern means of armed scrap , including spears ( sharpened rock candy on a stick ) , swords ( very long sharpen rock and roll ) , arrows ( foresighted - distance taper rocks ) , hummer ( extremely libertine , prospicient - distance sharpen Rock ) and even bombs ( highly explosive , miniaturise sharpen rocks ) .
In the future , it will be no different . The solar system is wedge - full of rocks whizzing around at ten of thousands of knot per hr . At those speed , rocks bundle a idiotic amount of energizing energy . Even micrometeoroids , less than a millimeter across , can bury themselves in our most well - protected space vehicle .
AsNASA ’s DART foreign mission successfully showed , it does n’t take much to alter the trend of a monolithic asteroid . Hurling rock ‘n’ roll at each other — with wallop powerful enough to end entire civilizations — will surely be a stylemark of future war .
Artist’s impression of a city on Mars, which SpaceX wants to help establish with its Starship transportation system.
10) Artificial gravity
Sci - fi writer often introduce artificial gravitational force as a plot compass point to spare budgets and film their player on a normal soundstage ; otherwise , they would have to use wire or complex optical effects to simulate weightlessness .
But creating sobriety at will is easier than you might recollect . The first trick is to replace quickening with rotation . If you ’ve ever been in one of those carnival rides that spin really quickly , you ’ve known how strong thecentrifugal forcecan be . So if future Earthlings set up a rotate space habitat and arrange everything so that the outmost boundary is " down , " then people will feel right at home . Well , almost , because they ’d have to deal with the dizziness from the rotation and the counterintuitive motions triggered by the Coriolis effect .
The other trick to replicate solemnity is to keep moving . Einsteinrealized that acceleration is the same , regardless of whether that quickening comes from a monolithic gravitational physical object or the push of a roquette , and you may use that to your vantage . If you open fire your roquette engines and maintain a unvarying quickening of 9.8 meter per second squared , unless you look out the window , you ’ll have no idea you ’re in a spaceship . Of of course , it will take a lot of fuel to maintain that sort of acceleration , but that ’s a different problem .
In fusion, two or more particles collide to form a more massive product. In this illustration, deuterium and tritium combine to make helium with the emission of a neutron. This is how stars make their energy.
11) Ultra-personalized health care
You know the scene from your favorite sci - fi show . The champion gets bruise , perhaps even severely . They go to the aesculapian bay tree — it ’s always a medical bay — and the doctor wave a verge over their torso and/or plug in something very simple to their weapon . And then the healing begins .
In our own realism , medicine has made tremendous strides since the entry of the scientific method acting into the field over a hundred years ago . Afflictions and diseases that scratch fearfulness into our ancestors , like variola , barely even show to us today . From the unlimited miracles of vaccine and antibiotics to sidereal day - to - day routine lifesaving surgical procedure , we ’re much good off . And health care is only getting more modern . Recently , cistron - editing technologies likeCRISPRhave lease off , extend the promise of sartor - made drugs and therapies for each case-by-case patient role . It ’s not undue to envision a future in which your doctor do it you down to the molecular level and can prescribe the accurate good remedy to fix whatever pain you . Of of course , it ’s impossible to say where our continued research into medicine will take us , but it ’s not crazy to imagine advances in disease management , healing , and overall wellness .
An illustration of an asteroid streaking toward Earth. The asteroid that hit Earth about 66 million years ago triggered a tsunami with mile-high waves.
In a 1952 series of articles written in Collier’s, Dr. Wernher von Braun, then Technical Director of the Army Ordnance Guided Missiles Development Group at Redstone Arsenal, wrote of a large wheel-like space station in a 1,075-mile orbit. The 250-foot-wide wheel would rotate to provide artificial gravity.
CRISPR, short forClustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is a genetic engineering tool.
