Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Make a sustaining gift today to support local journalism!

The Case Against Flying Cars

It's remarkable to contemplate how much of science fiction's vision for the future has already come true. But in some ways we have been left out in the cold in terms of the future we expected. The reason for the gap sometimes has more to do with what nature allows, than what we have the will to build.

I have just written a piece for The New York Times exploring why we don't have "air cars" and by this I mean the sci-fi flying vehicles of movies and books (not a car with wings and a propeller). The reason, I argue, we don't have "hovercars" and their ilk is that we have only no control over the force gravity (as compared with other forces).

To see what I'm saying consider this one fact. To reach the domains where gravity becomes quantum mechanical (that is what we'd need to explore to move toward controlling gravity) then we'd need to build a particle accelerator millions of light years long.

Good luck getting that funded.

When it comes to controlling gravity the way we control electromagneistm (which makes all your e-devices work), we are still at the level of dropping rocks on peoples heads.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Adam Frank was a contributor to the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos & Culture. A professor at the University of Rochester, Frank is a theoretical/computational astrophysicist and currently heads a research group developing supercomputer code to study the formation and death of stars. Frank's research has also explored the evolution of newly born planets and the structure of clouds in the interstellar medium. Recently, he has begun work in the fields of astrobiology and network theory/data science. Frank also holds a joint appointment at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a Department of Energy fusion lab.

You make NHPR possible.

NHPR is nonprofit and independent. We rely on readers like you to support the local, national, and international coverage on this website. Your support makes this news available to everyone.

Give today. A monthly donation of $5 makes a real difference.