Forever Almost Here

“Science has not yet mastered prophecy,” Neil Armstrong (the first man on the moon) once said. “We predict too much for the next year and yet far too little for the next ten.” Indeed, some technologies exist in a tantalizing but perpetual “almost there”, always just a few years away. Consider the examples below, then discuss with your team: why are these technologies stuck in the near future, and which one would you be most excited to see in action?

fusion power | cure for cancer | graphene | flying cars | virtual reality
nanotechnology | space elevator | food pills | artificial general intelligence

A flying car has been two years away since 1949 — on magazine covers, at every World's Fair, in a start-up video this month. Dazzling in the demo, absent from the street.

Key concepts

The Valley of Death: The stretch between a working prototype and a product somebody can buy. Research money ends when the science is proven and investment starts when sales are provable, so a technology that works once, in a lab, can die in the gap where neither will pay for it.
Proof of Concept vs. Scale: Making a thing once and making it by the million are different problems, and usually different sciences. Graphene has existed since 2004 and still cannot be manufactured in reliable sheets at a sane price, which is why a miracle material can sit twenty years from a factory.
The Hype Cycle: Gartner's curve for how a technology is received: a spike of inflated expectation, a crash into disappointment when it cannot deliver on the schedule the spike implied, then a slow climb to whatever it is actually good for. The crash is about the promise rather than the machine, which is why a technology can be written off and useful at the same time.

Every work — at a glance

Fusion Power (technology)

Energy from fusing light nuclei, as the sun does — 'thirty years away' for about seventy years.
Cure for Cancer (technology)

The one prediction whose failure hides a success: no single cure, and childhood leukaemia now survivable.
Graphene (material)

Carbon one atom thick, stronger than steel — stuck because nobody can make it at scale.
Flying Cars (technology)

They exist, and always have; the obstacles are licences, noise, energy and the way aircraft fail.
Virtual Reality (technology)

Three hype cycles since the 1980s, each with hardware that worked and an audience that left.
Nanotechnology (technology)

The molecular assembler never came; the boring version is in the chip in your phone.
Space Elevator (technology)

A cable to orbit, blocked by one missing thing: a material strong enough to hold its own weight.
Food Pills (technology)

Defeated by arithmetic — calories are matter, so a day's food cannot fit in a capsule.
Artificial General Intelligence (technology)

A machine as flexible as a person; the least measurable entry here, since nobody agrees what would count.
Amara's Law — Roy Amara (heuristic)

The rule of thumb that we overrate a technology's short run and underrate its long run.

What to know

01
Each of these is stuck for a different reason, and naming the wall is the whole skill. Fusion and the space elevator are blocked by physics and materials; the flying car by licences, noise and the fact that an aircraft cannot fail safely; the food pill by arithmetic; graphene by a factory that does not exist; 'a cure for cancer' by a target that was mis-worded, since cancer is hundreds of diseases. Sorted this way, the list stops being one mystery and becomes five different problems.
02
The technologies nobody predicted are the ones whose only obstacle was cost. A supercomputer in every pocket was never blocked by physics, so it arrived abruptly and caught everyone out — which is why 'what is expensive today?' forecasts better than 'what is impossible today?'

Across subjects

Music has its own graphene. Leon Theremin's instrument, played by waving your hands near two aerials, was so astonishing that RCA licensed it in 1929 and built hundreds. It failed for a human reason no engineer could fix: almost nobody could play it in tune. The electronic future arrived anyway, decades later, as the synthesizer.

Theme connection

Every item here is a promise with a receipt. One reading is patient: the long run is underrated, so keep funding the hard ones and wait. The other is sceptical: 'a few years away' is a story that raises money, and some of these were always going to stay drawings. Deciding which is which is the exam.

Practice

Check what you've read

Pick the best answer — you'll see why each option is right or wrong.

Question 1 of 2

SCIWhat is the name for the rule that we overestimate a technology short-term but underestimate it long-term?

Question 2 of 2

SPCA physicist explaining why fusion power is still not on the grid is LEAST likely to blame —