What new technical things will we know in 2030 that we don't know today?

[BWV]

Curious what members think may be discovered this decade - nature of dark matter? any new physics? extraterrestrial life (like micro-organisms on Mars)?

 

[ZapperZ]

Curious what members think may be discovered this decade - nature of dark matter? any new physics? extraterrestrial life (like micro-organisms on Mars)?

I think you were looking for the Psychic Forum.

Zz.

 

[BWV]

I think you were looking for the Psychic Forum.

Zz.

whatever, no call to be condescending. The Op was a serious question about what realistically might be discovered over the next ten years , but if no one is interested then don't post anything and let this die

 

[phinds]

What will we know in 2030 that we don't know today?

As Yogi Berra is reputed to have said, it's very hard to predict the future, especially when it's about something that hasn't happened yet.

 

[StatGuy2000]

To the OP,

The beauty of science is that even if we may think we are on the path to a specific discovery, nature has the tendency to surprise us with discoveries we could not have foreseen.

 

[BWV]

Last time I posted this, it received some thoughtful responses:

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/what-will-we-know-in-2020-that-we-dont-know-now.825637/

 

[Stephen Tashi]

Perhaps we will know some unified theoretical approach to Artificial Intelligence, instead of it being an assorted bag-of-tricks. Competition in technology tends to motivate theoretical advances.

 

[berkeman]

Moderation Note -- several political commentary replies have been deleted, and the title of this thread is refocussed on technical advances that we think may occur. Please stay on-topic with replies. Thank you.

 

[berkeman]

Curious what members think may be discovered this decade - nature of dark matter? any new physics? extraterrestrial life (like micro-organisms on Mars)?

I'm not much help on the physics side of this question, but the next decade looks to be an amazing time for medical advances. From targeted cancer-fighting therapies (based on the individual) to advances in recovery from paraplegia and quadriplegia, to many other great therapies. It would be a great time to be a young doc or medical researcher, IMO.

 

[mfb]

Last time I posted this, it received some thoughtful responses:

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/what-will-we-know-in-2020-that-we-dont-know-now.825637/

Quick analysis:
#2: I don't think anything major changed about the perception of string theory.
#3: "What happened between August 2015 and December 2019." - you win the prize for technical correctness
#4: JWST didn't launch yet.
#5: More data everywhere, sure.
#6: We still don't know the mass order of neutrinos and we don't have much better mass constraints, but we have better estimates for the other parameters. I would judge the other points as "true".
#7-#11: We don't have "super healthy people" in that context, can't comment on the rest.
#12: Silicon chips are still around, indeed.
#13: We know more about it but the flight is still a mystery.
#14:
- Gravitational waves detected: Yes!
- B-mode in the cosmic microwave background: No.
- The Gaia mission was extended so it didn't complete its survey, but we do have a catalog of over 1 billion stars already. Exoplanets are not expected before the final catalog is released.
- TESS is at 1600 candidates, significantly less than expected. Not sure why.
- We know more about Mars, Pluto, Ceres and so on.
- No extraterrestrial life yet, but I didn't expect it either.
- We know SpaceX manages to land and re-use their rockets, it has become routine now. Inflatable space station modules work.
- See above for neutrinos.
- We do know better where Supersymmetry is not.
Overall I like my old predictions.
#15: I don't see lighter than air aircraft being popular, no relevant flying cars either.
#17: Not sure how serious that was, but it didn't happen.

---------------------

New predictions:

• The number of known exoplanets will continue to grow a lot. TESS will add more, Gaia should add many (but not habitable planets), PLATO (launch expected for 2026) could start adding some towards the end of the 2020s.
• There is a reasonable chance to find hints of extraterrestrial life if life is common in the universe. JWST in space and ELT on the ground will perform spectroscopy of several rocky planets in the habitable zone. TMT can join if they can finally build it. And maybe we'll find something on Mars or Europa.
• We will know more about the interior structure of neutron stars from gravitational wave measurements.
• We will know more about the Moon, from sample return missions and quite likely from crewed missions to the Moon.
• We will know more about Mars from various spacecraft going there in the 2020s.
• "We" will know how to build fully reusable rockets. Well, at least SpaceX will know, not sure in which state other companies will be by 2030.
• We will have good statistics about the reliability of self-driving cars, and I'm quite sure they will be much better than humans by 2030.
• We might determine the mass order of neutrinos - towards the end of the decade and early in the next one probably.
• We will learn if the B-physics anomalies seen at LHCb and other experiments are real, theory problems, or something else.
• I'm sure we'll find many unexpected things.

 

[BWV]

I think the dairy business will be disrupted by vat-grown milk and egg products and maybe the entire livestock industry by vat-grown meat. The environmental benefits being enough to persuade consumers to get over their reluctance to the technology

 

[phinds]

... and maybe the entire livestock industry by vat-grown meat. The environmental benefits being enough to persuade consumers to get over their reluctance to the technology

Amazing optimism. Vat-grown meat will only take over when it is better than real meat in EVERY way, not just in being better for the environment and even then it will be an uphill slog in some places, at least while the current older generations die out.

 

[Buzz Bloom]

There is a good chance it will become known which of the following two alternatives is correct.
1. There is life on other planets in the Milky Way within some specified fairly large distance from the solar system other than life on Earth.
2. There is a high likelihood that there is no life on any planets in the Milky Way within some specified fairly large distance from the solar system other than life on Earth.

 

[BWV]

Amazing optimism. Vat-grown meat will only take over when it is better than real meat in EVERY way, not just in being better for the environment and even then it will be an uphill slog in some places, at least while the current older generations die out.

There is a large global population that would like more meat in their diet but can’t afford it

in the developed world, the livestock industry exists on thin profit margins and if eggs in industrial baking and meat in animal food are replaced by cheaper synthetics (which is likely the repective first areas of adoption) it could trigger a downward spiral for traditional livestock and dairy producers

 

[phinds]

There is a large global population that would like more meat in their diet but can’t afford it

in the developed world, the livestock industry exists on thin profit margins and if eggs in industrial baking and meat in animal food are replaced by cheaper synthetics (which is likely the repective first areas of adoption) it could trigger a downward spiral for traditional livestock and dairy producers

A reasonable point. I do tend to look at things in a parochial way and for the US I stand by my comments. I was just telling my wife last week that I hope it WILL happen here but I'm not holding my breath for it to happen soon.

 

[Mark44]

Amazing optimism. Vat-grown meat will only take over when it is better than real meat in EVERY way, not just in being better for the environment

Several US fast food chains such as Burger King and Carl's Jr. have been touting their synthetic meat lately, so I tried one of the offerings from Burger King. It was NOT better than real meat, at least taste-wise.

There was another company, maybe 25 years ago, called Morning Star Farms, if memory serves. They sold synthetic hamburger and sausage patties that tasted pretty good to me. I don't know if they're still in existence. The next time I'm at the market, I'll look for them.

How many of you remember what I think was gen 1 of synthetic meats? Back in the late 60's or early 70's there was TVP, or texturized vegetable protein, which was made from soy beans. They came in various flavors to simulate bacon bits or hamburger. The stuff wasn't too bad, but it must have been really hard to digest, and produced a lot of "wind," if you know what I mean.

 

[BillTre]

I think the dairy business will be disrupted by vat-grown milk and egg products and maybe the entire livestock industry by vat-grown meat. The environmental benefits being enough to persuade consumers to get over their reluctance to the technology

Based upon how expensive it is to do tissue culturing, I don't think this will happen soon.
Culturing cells for any reason requires a lot of sterile conditions, equipment, and ingredients. More so than found in most hospital settings. This will not be cheap. There will also (probably) be more labor involved/meat mass produced.

Putting herds of animals weighting hundreds of pounds (or Kg's) out on a field and collecting them later for harvest is simpler and easier.

Extreme example: I know a fish farm where they can dig a ditch in the sandy soil, let it fill with ground water (water table is just below the surface and the water is great quality), throw fertilizer in the pond they created, seed it pond with algae, let the algae grow, seed with pond with rotifers (which eat the algae), and then add fish larvae. They than come back in 3 months, pump out the water and collect the fish for sale.
Its hard to beat the efficiency of a natural biological process for producing live stock.

I do think there will be more things like meat substitutes, produced from naturally grown products like the new meatless burgers.

Life on Mars:
We may know if there is life on Mars by 2030, but if we don't we will not be able to rule it out.
Some life forms on Earth live miles under ground and are not easily found. This is an obvious refuge for life, if it once existed on Mars's surface.
It will be harder to determine this on Mars than Earth and will not even be attempted by 2030.
So a positive on this is possible, but a negative in this time frame is not.

We will know more:
Saying we will know more about things where ongoing studies are underway is not much of a prediction.
We will know more about how various sports teams do in 2020-2030, duh.

Origin of Life Studies:
There are now at least three attempts to reproduce aspects of the origin of life on Earth in labs, using different approaches.

• Create white smokers in the lab: initital conditions, some degree of parallel-ness in the reactions
• Using microflow systems to test specific combinations of chemicals and conditions: many different conditions can be tried, but only in small numbers
• Using large numbers of chips as reaction sites for chemical mixes: try various chemical mixes, parallel-ness of reactions.

I am guessing there will be more. Rather than trying to create life from scratch, they will be looking for achieving incremental steps in generating pre-life forms from conditions feasible on an abiotic earth.
This is another example of on-going stuff being further worked out, but I expect several new approaches and new testable concepts related to this problem to emerge.

Space Stuff Question:
Other than space tourism, communications, and other current ventures, will someone make a profit on operations in space?
I think not, but?

 

[BWV]

Synthesized milk with real animal proteins is already a thing

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna973236

 

[Wrichik Basu]

LHC is going to start again in 2021 (Run 3), and there will be a long shutdown during 2024-2026 for the final upgrade to HL-LHC. If everything goes fine and the LHC fires up in late 2026 for Run-4 as scheduled, we should be having new discoveries by 2030.

FASER collaboration has developed the FASERν detector for detecting neutrinos produced in the ATLAS detector. The emulsion detector is supposed to be placed in TI12 of the LHC, 480m downstream of the ATLAS. Work on the SHiP detector is also going on.

There are a number of different collaborations which are working on dark matter, like XENON collaboration. We can hope that they too will find something interesting.

GW detection should be advancing further as well. Recently found a paper which states that current gravitational wave detectors based on Michelson interferometer principle, as well as those on the principle of Fabry-Perot-Michelson interferometer, can be modified to make them more sensitive to dark matter. Maybe something that LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA and other collaborations would be taking into account in the long run. LIGO India is under construction and should be operational by 2030.

Japan's government has given the green signal to the Hyper Kamiokande detector. Construction work is supposed to begin in April 2020, and should have progressed quite a lot by 2030.

 

[OCR]

There was another company, maybe 25 years ago, called Morning Star Farms, if memory serves.

Morningstar Farms - Wikipedia

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