• Question: what do you think science will be like in 40 years

    Asked by cakeking2000 to Ellen, Elliot, Hazel, Rupesh, Thomas on 21 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Thomas Biggans

      Thomas Biggans answered on 21 Jun 2016:

      I think to appreciate where science make takes us in the next 40 years we should look back to what it was like 40 years ago.

      Concorde had just started flying, the first passenger plane to go faster than the speed of sound. We landed our first ever spacecraft on Mars. Major advances in the use of circuit boards and lasers. We just started using tools that could alter genes.

      Now we have a double decker plane, we’re planning to send people to Mars, there are simple circuit boards to control your washing machine or complex ones that manage the internet. We have laser weapons but we also have laser cameras that can take pictures of the inside of your eye. And Elliot is altering genes in his lab all the time to discover new things.

      So in 40 years I’d say we’ll have people on Mars, I think the biggest developments will be related to biology, cures for diseases, longer lifespans, and I think the internet will be used more and more to collect knowledge and carry out experiments.

    • Photo: Elliot Jokl

      Elliot Jokl answered on 21 Jun 2016:

      Very interesting question.

      Even though I am a Biologist and think there will be exciting stuff happening with cures for diseases, like Thomas said, I think the two biggest technologies are going to be nuclear fusion and better batteries.

      That might sound a little bit boring, but if we have nuclear fusion sorted out, that is an incredibly good source of power which is much more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels. If we have better batteries, I think most cars in the future will be electric, which will again help us to reduce our impact on the environment. I think it will also have interesting political consequences, because we will no longer be reliant on oil, a lot of which is controlled by a small group of people. I think it might change things for the better.

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