The Holy Grail for the Sciences

What do you believe will be the ultimate scientific discovery? Is there a holy grail for each science? If so then what are they.

From anthropology to zoology, what in your estimation is the big prize?

For some sciences I wouldn't have a clue. For example, what is the holy grail for an oologist? A living dinosaur egg or Super omelette?

All kidding aside, what are we really trying to prove? What do we need to know? What do we need to know how to control? What do we need to experience?

Please share your views.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I don't believe that there's just one thing that science is ever trying to find but just trying to find out why things are the way they are and to come up with new things that they invent or discover. :bugeye:

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

A few at present

Universal origins, identification of the soul, detection of God ... there are, as Cosmictraveler suggested, plenty.

But of the few I noted, I suspect the Big Bang, the formation of life on Earth and in the Universe, and what's happening at the edge of the Universe are the big (and likely) ones at present. These three issues, when resolved, will each in their own way radically alter how humanity views itself.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Figuring out the rules of life. Not like morality or that crap, but how proteins fold and why multicellular life has bloated genomes.

 

The Grand unified theory (GUT) that unites electromagnetic, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear forces.

 

A quantum theory of relativity/gravity that agrees with experimentation

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

I would go with Mad on the Theory of everything or sometimes referred to as the Grand Unified Field Theory.

 

how reality exists. everything else is just a matter of mathematics.

 

TOE. God.

 

Psychology: Genetic classification for all major behavioral traits.
Zoology: Discovery that sub-surface biomass on Earth is much greater than surface-dwelling and ocean-dwelling biomass.
Chemistry: Custom self-replicating molecules leading to artificial fuels and foods that are grown in vats.
Electronics: Quantum computing.
Biology: Artificial life from simple, abiotic compounds.
Anthropology: Uncovering a dozen more links in the chain of human evolution from our ape ancestors.
Mathematics: Formula for the distribution of prime numbers, leading to the ability to resolve any nth prime number, however large.
Computing: Artificial Intelligence
Robotics: Skin.
Medicine: Removing the predisposition for major health risks by genetic alteration of a fetus (cancers, atherosclerosis, etc...)
Astronomy: Discovery of the signatures of life around distant planets.
Physics: Correction of current gravitational theory to remove the need for postulating Dark Matter and Dark Energy (basically to do for Relativity what relativity did for Newtonian Mechanics)
Meteorology: Ability to accurately predict the weather through more robust measurements and supercomputers.
Environmental Sciences: The discovery that Global Warming is a good thing, and that Ice Ages are very bad things.
Planetary Physics: Accurate model of planetary magnetism.
Sociology: Complete rejection of the Blank Slate influence.

 

Nice work Swiv. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out the holy grail for proctology.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Truly new discoveries, if there will be some, are in my opinion not predictable, and cannot be! Of course there is the possibillity that we now have got all important ideas. Anyway perhaps discussing new ideas of the future may imply a contradiction?

 

Getting Michael Moore's head out of his own ass?

 

Probably finding out the biggest risk factor of colo-rectal cancer, the second leading cause of cancer-related death in the Western world.

 

From a geneticist's point of view, the 'Holy Grail' is to attain a full understanding of how differences in DNA relate to physiological traits, both disease traits as well as normal physiology. We have come a long way since the mid-20th century but there is soooo much we still do not understand.

 

the roots of consciousness or what makes us "alive"

 

Well, knowing the cause helps a lot with the ultimate cure. I think the cure if more of a pharmacologists type of holy grail whereas the field of proctocology would be more interested in the cause

 

Physics. Time Machine.
Medicine. A single instant Cure for Cancer without side effects
Psychiatry. A Cure for Psychopaths. (who constitute about 99% of the human population if you count sub-clinical examples)
Cosmology. To find the cause of the Big Bang.
Religion. To find that the cause of the Big Bang is God.
Music. Mozart. You can tick that one.

 

Not possible.

The "past" doesn't still exist out there, occurring, for us to travel to. Time is just our measurement of change, and the fact that it can flow at different rates for different observers depending on velocity and nearby gravitational wells does not mean that it is "controllable" in any way.

Even the Ender Wiggins mode of remaining at high speeds for a length of time to "travel into the future" isn't really time travel. It is merely a slowing of one's metabolism with respect to others in order to last longer.

And wormholes do not exist.