These are the ten best things which have not yet been invented:
Teleportation
Immortality
Invisibility
Time Travel
Holographic Displays
Mind Reader
Lie Detector
Seeing into the Future
Seeing into the Past
Cure-all Panacea for All Diseases
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FTL travel should, I think, rank higher than lie detection.
However, this and quite a few in your list are things that are impossible according to present-day theoretical physics, so the " have not yet been invented" should perhaps be "have not yet been and will perhaps never be invented".
Not at all certain that many of these are inventions that will contribute to human/societal happiness. Immortality - for example. It is clear that as we in the west live longer, we are suffering from more infirmities, diseases or whatever. If we get the cure-all-panacea as well then we have to face the question of how many people the world can actually sustain. As a historian, I would like to be able to look into the past, but can we cope with the equivalent of many centuries of Wikileaks?
And there are equally unpleasant consequences of all the other inventions.
Written in grumpy old man mode
Cheer up Dick, an eternity of Timothy Taylor Landlord, Chicken Tikka Marsala and Page 3 of The Sun isn't all that bad.
Well you can't be too sure, Torben, in Victorian England they closed the Patent Office on the grounds that everything that could be invented had been invented. But they had to re-open it.
Boring! Except for holographic displays, everything else deals with sperhuman experiences. Where has the fun gone?
Let's get some innovation organised on
- intergalactic pinball games
- Really self ironing shirts
- Pure personal (i.e. localised) audio
- stable instant-on operating systems
Etc...
Stable, instant-on operating systems - now you really are in fantasy land!
Re immortality - John Wyndham's "Trouble With Lichen" is an excellent exploration of the potentially dire consequences of this.
Strongly recommended, nothing like as heavy as it might sound, and witty too.
Thank you Stooriefit, I will download it onto my magnificent Kindle tonight.
How about something REALLY important like a method of getting real ales such as Abbot Ale to travel well so that they taste as good as they can be wherever they are drunk.
To get Abbott Ale to taste halfway decent would take more than a great invention, Mike, it would take a bloody miracle.
Made any inroads on "Trouble with Lichen" David?
Recently rediscovered by old copy and looking forward to re-reading over the festive whatever...
Yes I'm really enjoying it Stooriefit and frequently mentally thanking you for the recommendation. I am, according my Kindle, 35% of the way through. Francis the scientist has just told his children they're going to live to be 236 years old and Francis' son Paul has just told his wife with major ructions. Meanwhile I'm all agog to see what Diana is going to do about it. A real page turner and I'd forgotten what a good writer Wyndham was. Thanks, much appreciated.