• Question: One day do you think we will be able to see into the future

    Asked by @Shannon on 14 May 2020.
    • Photo: Simon Spichak

      Simon Spichak answered on 14 May 2020:

      Hi Shannon! It depends on what you mean by ‘seeing into the future’. We can already make decent predictions in some fields of science, though they cannot be 100% certain. Here’s a great primer on time travel, courtesy of NASA: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/time-travel/en/. To the best of my knowledge, there doesn’t appear to be a theoretical framework for seeing into the future.

    • Photo: Jennifer Cookman

      Jennifer Cookman answered on 14 May 2020:

      Hi Shannon I think with evolving knowledge, theories and laws we will be able to predict situations better than in the past and prevent events from happening. If you take new technologies in cars for example, some have a detection system that will engage an emergency brake if identifying an object like a car that brakes quickly or even a person crossing the road inevitably saving lives on a daily basis. We call this reducing human error.

    • Photo: James Sullivan

      James Sullivan answered on 14 May 2020:

      Hi @shannon, I don’t think so.
      but hopefully the models we use to predict it will get better.

    • Photo: Aisling Ryan

      Aisling Ryan answered on 14 May 2020:

      Hi Shannon! This a really good question. Movies can give us the impression that seeing the future, or travelling to different times is something science could achieve. Unfortunately this simply isn’t possible. Science can certainly allow us to predict what the world may look like it a certain amount of years considering how we live at the moment and the affect we have on the planet e.g. climate change. These predictions are really important because it gives us the opportunity to change our behaviours to decrease the impact if the impact is negative. But unfortunately it is not possible for us to be able to physically see the future! (So we will just have to live that fantasy through lots of great movies!! 🙂 )

    • Photo: Anna Zakrzewska

      Anna Zakrzewska answered on 14 May 2020:

      Hello! I like your question 🙂 We can already predict certain events with some probability. The so-called predictive analytics is used in many fields, including network optimisation. Based on the past observation, we can train a model to discover and learn the patterns, and use that model to predict the future events. We use it a lot! By observing how the traffic changes in telecommunication networks, we can optimize how it operates to provide the radio resources, where they’re needed the most. Another example is that you can use these models to adjust the home temperature automatically, as the system will learn when you’re at home, and act accordingly. There are many more examples, where predictive analytics is used.
      It may be slightly different to what you imagine about seeing the future. As you see it’s based on modelling, and it’s impossible to model our life as an individual- at a large scale we are so unpredictable as humans!

    • Photo: Tommy Hayden

      Tommy Hayden answered on 14 May 2020: last edited 14 May 2020 11:08 am

      Hi Shannon

      My opinion is not really…

      I say this because everything we see is in the past on the basis what we see is reflections of light that needed time to travel to our eyes. Apparently some of the stars we see in the sky have burned out thousands of years ago but we can still see them because the light takes so long to travel to us

      In terms of being able to visualize the future, then definitely. There is loads of modelling software that helps predict the future. The human body is also really good at predicting the future. If somebody throws a ball to you, your body can predict where it’s going to be so that you can catch it

    • Photo: Jun Lin

      Jun Lin answered on 16 May 2020:

      If you mean using a magical ball to see future events, I don’t think so 🙂

    • Photo: Fiona Malone

      Fiona Malone answered on 21 May 2020:

      Using maths and mathematical models we may be able to predict future outcomes, but seeing into the future I’m not so sure!

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