But a century ago, scientific confidence often exceeded scientific understanding. What will future generations think of the science we believe in today?
A Century Between Two Worlds
Imagine travelling back to 1926 and telling a scientist that, within a century, humans would walk on the Moon, transplant organs, edit DNA, communicate instantly across the planet and carry devices with more computing power than entire rooms of machinery.
They might believe some of it. Much of it would sound like science fiction.
Now imagine travelling in the opposite direction. A scientist from 2126 arrives today and examines our hospitals, laboratories, computers and scientific textbooks.
What would astonish them? What would they admire? And which of our most confidently held beliefs would make them smile in disbelief?
The year 1926 offers an unusually revealing starting point for this thought experiment.
It was a time of profound scientific change. Physics was challenging conventional ideas about reality, television was emerging from experimental laboratories, and rocketry was taking its first tentative steps towards spaceflight.
Medicine was advancing, yet dangerous treatments, incomplete theories and misleading commercial health claims remained widespread.
Science in 1926 was neither primitive nor foolish. It was a developing system of knowledge, capable of remarkable discoveries but still constrained by what researchers could observe, measure and understand.
That distinction matters because we are living through the same process today.
The Birth of Television: Seeing the Future
On 26 January 1926, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird demonstrated a working television system before an audience in London.
His mechanical television was primitive by modern standards. It used rotating discs to scan images and reproduce them as crude patterns of light and shadow. The pictures were small, indistinct and a long way from the high-definition screens now found in homes.
Nevertheless, the underlying achievement was extraordinary.
For the first time, moving images could be transmitted and reproduced electronically through a developing system of visual communication. The possibility of broadcasting events into people's homes was beginning to move from speculation towards reality.
Baird was not the only pioneer. Other researchers, including Vladimir Zworykin and Japan's Kenjiro Takayanagi, were developing different approaches to television. Electronic television would ultimately supersede mechanical systems.
The consequences were enormous. Television changed entertainment, politics, journalism, advertising and the way people understood distant events. Eventually, the development of digital communications would allow moving images to travel across the internet and appear on devices small enough to fit in a pocket.
In 1926, the idea that a person might watch live events happening on the opposite side of the planet would have seemed remarkable.
Today, we take it for granted.
The lesson: Scientific breakthroughs do not always look impressive at first. Sometimes, the technology that changes the world begins as an awkward machine producing barely recognisable pictures.
The Rocket That Helped Open the Road to Space
On 16 March 1926, American physicist Robert H. Goddard successfully launched the first liquid-fuelled rocket.
The flight lasted only a few seconds. The rocket rose approximately 12.5 metres before falling back to Earth.
By modern standards, this was a modest achievement. Yet it demonstrated an important principle: liquid propellants could be combined in a working rocket engine to produce thrust.
Earlier rockets had relied heavily on solid propellants. Goddard's work helped establish an approach that would become central to the development of powerful launch vehicles.
At the time, the practical value of rocketry was not widely appreciated. Some people regarded the prospect of travelling beyond Earth's atmosphere as unrealistic.
Goddard himself faced considerable scepticism. In 1920, a newspaper editorial responding to his research had ridiculed the idea of rockets operating in the vacuum of space.
The criticism reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of rocket propulsion: rockets carry their own reaction mass and do not require air to push against.
The principle is straightforward. Expelling gas in one direction produces a reaction force in the opposite direction.
That same principle would eventually help launch artificial satellites, robotic spacecraft and human beings beyond Earth.
By 1969, astronauts had walked on the Moon. Today, rockets deliver scientific instruments into orbit, send probes towards distant planets and support ambitions for a sustained human presence beyond Earth.
Goddard's tiny 1926 flight was not the beginning of space exploration by itself, but it was one of the important milestones on the road towards it.
Imagine explaining that to an observer watching the original launch.
The machine would appear almost comically unimpressive compared with a modern rocket. Yet the physics connecting the two would remain recognisable.
Quantum Mechanics: The Universe Refuses to Behave
While engineers were experimenting with machines, physicists were confronting a problem that reached much deeper. The familiar laws of classical physics could describe many everyday events remarkably well. They explained the motion of projectiles, the behaviour of machines and the orbits of planets.
But when scientists investigated atoms and subatomic particles, the old descriptions proved insufficient.
During 1926, Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger developed wave mechanics, one of the foundational formulations of quantum mechanics.
His work built on earlier contributions from physicists including Louis de Broglie and Werner Heisenberg.
Quantum mechanics transformed the description of the microscopic world.
Instead of treating electrons simply as tiny planets following definite classical orbits around a nucleus, the theory describes quantum states and the probabilities of different measurement outcomes.
This was not merely a mathematical adjustment. It challenged deeply rooted assumptions about how physical reality should behave.
The implications would eventually reach far beyond theoretical physics. Quantum theory became essential to understanding the behaviour of atoms, chemical bonds, semiconductors and many other systems.
Its principles underpin technologies that include modern computer chips, lasers and magnetic resonance imaging.
The quantum revolution also produced enduring philosophical questions.
What does a quantum state represent? What happens during measurement? How should we understand the relationship between mathematical predictions and the physical world?
Physicists have made extraordinary progress in applying quantum theory, but debates about its interpretation continue.
One important qualification is necessary: Heisenberg's famous uncertainty principle is associated with his work in 1927, rather than being a discovery completed in 1926. Schrödinger's wave mechanics was one of the major developments of 1926 that helped establish the new framework.
A century later, quantum mechanics remains one of the most successful scientific theories ever developed.
Yet it also illustrates an important point: a theory can be extraordinarily successful at predicting observations without answering every question we would like to ask about reality.
Perhaps the scientists of 2126 will look back on our current understanding of quantum physics as a remarkable foundation that was nevertheless incomplete.
Or perhaps they will discover that some of our unanswered questions are far harder to resolve than we imagine.
Medicine in 1926: Progress Mixed With Dangerous Assumptions
Medicine in 1926 occupied an uncomfortable position between genuine breakthroughs and serious limitations.
Doctors possessed effective treatments for some conditions, understood much about anatomy and physiology, and were beginning to benefit from important advances in laboratory science. But they lacked many of the diagnostic tools, medicines and safeguards that modern patients expect.
The discovery of insulin had recently transformed the prospects for people with diabetes. Frederick Banting, Charles Best and their colleagues had helped establish insulin as a treatment in the early 1920s.
Before insulin therapy, a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes was frequently fatal. The new treatment offered patients a chance of survival, although insulin management remained difficult and potentially dangerous.
Antibiotics had not yet transformed routine medical practice. Alexander Fleming would discover penicillin in 1928, but its subsequent development into a widely used treatment would take further work.
Doctors in 1926 also had far less sophisticated imaging, laboratory testing and monitoring than their modern counterparts.
Some of the period's most troubling practices arose from incomplete knowledge. Others resulted from commercial exploitation, weak regulation or excessive confidence in treatments that had not been adequately tested.
Radium: When Radioactivity Was Marketed as a Health Benefit
One of the clearest examples was the promotion of radium as a supposed source of health and vitality.
Following the discovery of radioactivity, radium acquired a reputation as a remarkable scientific substance. Its ability to emit radiation made it fascinating to researchers and the public alike.
Unfortunately, that fascination was exploited commercially.
Some products marketed during the early twentieth century included radioactive water, health tonics and devices intended to expose the body to radiation. They were promoted using the language of scientific progress, sometimes implying that radioactivity could restore energy, improve health or rejuvenate the body.
The reality was far more dangerous.
Ionising radiation can damage cells and DNA. Depending on the dose, exposure and circumstances, it can cause tissue injury and increase the risk of cancer.
Radioactivity has legitimate medical applications, including carefully controlled forms of cancer treatment and diagnostic imaging. That does not make indiscriminate exposure safe. The distinction between a medically useful dose and a harmful one is crucial.
By the 1920s, some medical professionals were already warning about the dangers of radium products. The problem was not that nobody recognised the risks, but that scientific understanding, regulation and public awareness had not developed sufficiently to prevent widespread misuse.
The episode provides a powerful warning for the present day.
A product does not become safe because it contains a scientifically interesting substance. Nor does an impressive explanation of its supposed mechanism establish that it works.
The real test is evidence of safety and effectiveness, not the sophistication of the marketing.
Smoking: The Dangers Were Not Yet Fully Understood
Tobacco use was widespread in 1926, and cigarettes were frequently marketed using reassuring claims about taste, comfort and health.
The relationship between smoking and serious diseases was not yet understood with the strength of evidence established in subsequent decades.
That distinction is important. It would be inaccurate to suggest that every doctor in 1926 believed smoking was harmless, or that nobody had expressed concerns. Medical understanding developed gradually, and some early warnings were available.
However, the evidence linking smoking to lung cancer and other major diseases would become much stronger later in the twentieth century.
Today, the health risks are firmly established.
Future historians may regard the normalisation of smoking in the early twentieth century as an example of a society accepting a widespread risk before it had adequately understood the consequences.
They may also examine modern products and ask whether we are repeating the same pattern in other areas.
Are we introducing substances into the environment faster than we can study their long-term effects? Are commercial interests influencing the interpretation of scientific evidence? Are we mistaking the absence of immediate harm for proof of long-term safety?
These are not questions confined to the past.
The Wider Problem: Medicine Without Today's Safeguards
Modern clinical trials, ethical review, pharmacovigilance and regulatory systems developed over time. They were not available in their present forms in 1926.
Medical research still involved observation, experimentation and professional judgement, but the standards governing evidence and patient protection were less developed.
Treatments could become popular before their risks were properly understood. Advertisements could borrow the authority of doctors and scientific institutions without providing reliable proof of benefit.
It would be unfair to judge every physician of the period by modern standards. They worked with the knowledge and tools available to them.
Nevertheless, the history of medicine demonstrates that sincere intentions and professional confidence do not guarantee correct conclusions.
A century from now, some treatments we currently consider routine may be viewed as unnecessarily crude, ineffective or harmful.
That possibility is not an argument against modern medicine. It is an argument for continuing to test it, improve it and acknowledge uncertainty.
What Scientists in 1926 Could Not Yet See
Some of the most consequential developments of the following century were only beginning to emerge, or had not yet become practical possibilities.
Penicillin and antibiotics: Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. Its development into a widely used medicine later transformed the treatment of bacterial infections, although antibiotic resistance has become a major challenge.
The expanding universe: Edwin Hubble's observations in the late 1920s helped establish that distant galaxies were receding, providing key evidence that the universe is expanding.
Nuclear energy: Research into the atomic nucleus would eventually lead to nuclear power, nuclear weapons and new forms of medical technology.
Computing: Early electronic computers appeared decades later. The development of transistors, integrated circuits and microprocessors would ultimately make powerful computing available to ordinary people.
DNA and genetics: The discovery of DNA's double-helix structure in 1953 helped establish the molecular foundations of heredity. Subsequent advances in genetics and biotechnology opened possibilities that would have seemed extraordinary in 1926.
Space exploration: Artificial satellites, human spaceflight, robotic planetary missions and observations from space would transform our understanding of Earth and the wider universe.
These developments did not emerge from one year's work or a handful of isolated geniuses. They depended on generations of researchers building on earlier discoveries, correcting errors and developing new instruments.
That is the less glamorous but essential reality of scientific progress. A breakthrough often requires decades of apparently incremental work before its full significance becomes visible.
The inventors of 1926 could not have predicted every consequence of their research.
Neither can we.
The Science of 2026: What Might We Be Getting Wrong?
We now possess technologies that would have seemed miraculous a century ago.
Scientists can sequence genomes, observe individual cells, detect gravitational waves, create increasingly capable artificial intelligence systems and investigate the atmospheres of planets beyond our Solar System.
We can image the inside of the human body without surgery, manufacture materials with specialised properties and edit genetic sequences in ways that earlier generations could scarcely imagine.
Yet advanced instruments do not automatically produce complete knowledge. Several areas of modern science may look very different by 2126.
Artificial Intelligence: Intelligence Without Full Understanding?
Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to analyse data, identify patterns, assist scientific research and generate predictions.
These systems may accelerate the discovery of medicines, materials and physical relationships that humans would struggle to identify unaided.
However, a system that produces a useful answer does not necessarily provide a complete explanation of how it reached that answer, nor does every output have the same reliability.
AI can make errors, reproduce biases in its training data and produce convincing claims that are unsupported by evidence.
Future scientists may develop methods that make today's systems appear primitive. They may also establish more effective ways to verify AI-generated discoveries.
Alternatively, they may find that some problems remain resistant to automation, despite enormous advances in computing.
The central question is not simply how intelligent machines will become. It is how humanity will establish that their conclusions are reliable, explainable and safe to use.
Medicine: Will Today's Treatments Look Crude?
Medical science is moving towards increasingly personalised approaches to diagnosis and treatment. Genetic information can already help guide certain medical decisions.
Gene-based therapies are available for specific conditions, while research into cell therapies, regenerative medicine and targeted treatments continues.
By 2126, some diseases that are difficult to treat today might be preventable or manageable through methods we have not yet developed.
Scientists may become much better at identifying diseases before symptoms appear, repairing damaged tissues or tailoring treatments to an individual's biology.
But these possibilities are not guarantees.
Cancer, dementia, autoimmune disorders and other complex diseases arise through multiple interacting biological processes. Their causes and treatments cannot always be reduced to a single gene or mechanism.
Future generations may also judge us harshly for how we manage chronic disease, mental health, environmental pollution and unequal access to medical care.
Perhaps they will ask why we tolerated preventable suffering when the necessary scientific knowledge was already available. Or perhaps they will discover that some problems we consider straightforward today were far more complex than we realised.
Climate Science: Will Future Generations Judge Our Response?
The physical science of climate change is much more firmly established than many of the speculative technologies discussed in this article.
Human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, are warming the planet. Scientists have spent decades improving their understanding of atmospheric processes, feedback mechanisms and likely consequences.
Nevertheless, uncertainties remain about the precise regional effects, the timing and magnitude of some changes, and how different ecosystems will respond.
By 2126, scientists may possess substantially better climate models, more detailed environmental monitoring and more effective ways of forecasting local impacts.
They may also have developed technologies for removing carbon dioxide, storing energy and adapting cities to changing conditions.
But technological capability does not guarantee political or social action.
Future generations may have access to extraordinarily sophisticated environmental science while still confronting the consequences of decisions made today.
They could look back at the early twenty-first century and wonder why societies continued to debate the seriousness of a problem while accumulating further evidence of its risks.
The lesson is uncomfortable: understanding a problem scientifically is not the same as solving it.
Quantum Computing: A New Technological Revolution?
Quantum computers use quantum-mechanical properties to perform certain computational tasks in fundamentally different ways from conventional computers.
They are not simply faster versions of ordinary machines, and they will not necessarily outperform conventional computers at every task.
However, sufficiently capable quantum computers could have important applications in areas such as molecular simulation, materials research and certain mathematical problems.
By 2126, quantum computing may be an established scientific tool, or its practical applications may prove narrower than some current expectations.
The history of technology offers examples of both outcomes.
Some developments exceed their pioneers' expectations. Others encounter technical barriers that take generations to overcome.
A century from now, the important question may not be whether quantum computing became revolutionary, but which particular problems it actually solved.
Space Science: Will Earth Still Be Our Only Home?
In 1926, the first liquid-fuelled rocket had barely left the ground.
A century later, space exploration includes robotic missions to other planets, space telescopes capable of examining distant galaxies and spacecraft travelling far beyond the outer planets.
By 2126, humans may have established more substantial settlements on the Moon or Mars. Robotic systems may explore icy moons, search for evidence of extraterrestrial life or investigate environments that would be dangerous for human visitors.
Astronomers may also have discovered signs of life beyond Earth.
But none of these outcomes is guaranteed.
Long-term settlements beyond Earth face major challenges, including radiation, low gravity, life-support requirements, isolation and the enormous cost of transporting equipment.
Discovering life elsewhere would be a profound scientific achievement, but the absence of a discovery would not prove that Earth is the only inhabited world.
The universe is vast, and our search has only begun. Perhaps the most important development by 2126 will not be the establishment of an off-world colony, but a better understanding of how common life is in the cosmos.
What Will Science Look Like in 2126?
Predictions about a century into the future should be treated cautiously.
In 1926, a person could have recognised the potential of television without predicting streaming services, smartphones or social media. They could have understood the principle of rocketry without imagining robotic probes exploring the outer Solar System.
The underlying discoveries mattered, but their eventual applications depended on technologies, institutions and social changes that had not yet emerged.
With that caution in mind, several possibilities deserve consideration.
Laboratories That Discover Their Own Experiments
Future laboratories may combine advanced AI, robotic equipment and automated analysis to design experiments, carry them out and interpret the results with minimal human intervention.
Such systems could test thousands of possible materials or chemical combinations far more quickly than conventional research methods.
Scientists would still need to establish whether the findings were reproducible and whether the systems were operating within appropriate scientific and ethical limits.
The result could be a new style of research in which humans increasingly direct questions while machines perform much of the routine experimental work.
Biological Repair and Regenerative Medicine
Advances in genetics, cellular biology and tissue engineering could allow doctors to repair some forms of damage that are currently permanent.
Certain organs or tissues might be grown or reconstructed using a patient's own cells. Some inherited diseases could become preventable or treatable through increasingly precise genetic interventions.
Ageing itself may be better understood as scientists identify more of the biological processes involved.
However, eliminating ageing or dramatically extending human lifespan remains speculative. Biological systems are complex, and interventions that improve one aspect of health may create risks elsewhere.
A century is a long time for research, but it is not a guarantee that every biological problem will become solvable.
New Materials and New Sources of Energy
Future researchers may develop materials that are stronger, lighter, more durable or better suited to particular electronic and industrial applications.
Advances in energy storage, nuclear technology, renewable power and electricity distribution could also transform how societies generate and use energy.
Some technologies that are currently experimental may become commercially practical. Others may remain too expensive or difficult to manufacture at scale.
As in 1926, the difference between a successful laboratory demonstration and a technology that changes everyday life may be enormous.
A Deeper Understanding of the Universe
Astronomy and fundamental physics could undergo profound changes. More powerful observatories may detect atmospheric signatures on distant planets, improve our understanding of black holes and investigate the nature of dark matter.
New experiments might resolve some outstanding questions about the early universe or the relationship between quantum mechanics and gravity.
Alternatively, researchers may discover that some questions require instruments or energies beyond anything humanity can realistically build.
Scientific progress is not necessarily a march towards complete understanding. Each answer can expose further questions.
Science That Challenges Our Definition of Life
One of the most intriguing possibilities concerns the meaning of life itself. Synthetic biology, artificial intelligence and research into the origins of life may force scientists to reconsider familiar distinctions between living organisms, engineered biological systems and machines.
Researchers may create increasingly sophisticated artificial biological systems, discover unfamiliar forms of life or establish more clearly which chemical processes are necessary for living systems to emerge.
If life is discovered beyond Earth, the consequences for biology could be immense.
But future discoveries could also demonstrate that life requires a particular combination of circumstances that is much rarer than we currently suspect.
Either outcome would transform our understanding of our place in the universe.
What Will Scientists in 2126 Think of Us?
It is tempting to assume that future scientists will look back at our era as a period of ignorance. They probably will identify errors in our theories, limitations in our instruments and practices that should have been abandoned sooner.
But they may also recognise that many of our current scientific conclusions were supported by strong evidence.
The important distinction will be between what we genuinely knew, what we reasonably suspected and what we merely hoped was true.
Consider how this applies to our own time. Some scientific questions have well-established answers. The dangers of smoking, the role of DNA in inheritance and the reality of human-caused global warming are not equivalent to speculative predictions about artificial intelligence or extraterrestrial life.
Treating every claim as equally uncertain is just as misleading as treating every new theory as established fact.
Good science requires different levels of confidence for different levels of evidence.
The scientists of 2126 may also examine the influence of commercial interests, political pressures and public expectations on scientific research.
In 1926, products containing radium could be marketed as modern health innovations. Scientific language lent credibility to claims that were not justified by evidence. Today, similar problems can arise when businesses exaggerate the capabilities of new technologies, when preliminary studies are presented as definitive discoveries or when social media strips scientific findings of their qualifications.
The details change, but the underlying problem persists.
Science is a method of investigating the world. It is not a guarantee that everyone claiming to speak in its name is correct.
The Greatest Scientific Breakthrough May Be Learning What We Do Not Know
Looking back at 1926, it is easy to focus on the discoveries that eventually succeeded. We remember the development of television, the beginnings of liquid-fuelled rocketry and the emergence of quantum mechanics because we know what followed.
But history is also filled with ideas that failed, technologies that never became practical and treatments that were abandoned after their risks became apparent.
At the time, it was not always possible to distinguish between the ideas that would transform the world and those that would disappear.
The same problem confronts scientists today. A technology may attract enormous investment without delivering its promised benefits. A theory may fit the available evidence but fail when more precise measurements become possible. A treatment may appear effective in early research but prove disappointing in larger trials.
Conversely, a discovery that initially seems obscure may eventually become central to everyday life.
The development of scientific knowledge is therefore not simply a story of accumulating facts. It is also a story of correcting errors, improving measurements, revising explanations and learning to recognise the limits of our own understanding.
Perhaps the scientists of 2126 will have better instruments, more powerful computers and a much deeper understanding of the natural world.
But they will still need to ask difficult questions, test their assumptions and distinguish evidence from wishful thinking.
Those requirements are unlikely to become obsolete.
Conclusion: A Hundred Years of Progress — And a Hundred Years of Uncertainty
In 1926, a Scottish inventor demonstrated a machine that could transmit moving pictures. An American physicist launched a small liquid-fuelled rocket. The foundations of modern quantum mechanics were being developed, while medicine was advancing through genuine breakthroughs and struggling with dangerous misconceptions.
None of these developments revealed the full shape of the future.
Over the following century, scientific discoveries would transform communication, medicine, transport, computing and our understanding of the universe. The world of 2026 would be almost unrecognisable to many people living in 1926.
Yet we still face profound uncertainties. We do not fully understand consciousness, the origins of life, the nature of dark matter or the long-term consequences of every technology we introduce.
We cannot predict exactly how artificial intelligence, biotechnology or space exploration will develop over the next century.
We also know that scientific progress does not automatically produce wisdom. The same knowledge that enables medical breakthroughs can be used to create weapons. Technologies that improve living standards can damage ecosystems. Discoveries that promise benefits can be exploited commercially before their risks are understood.
By 2126, some of our treatments may seem primitive, some of our technologies may be obsolete, and some of our theories may have been replaced.
Others will have survived because they accurately describe the world.
Perhaps that is the most important lesson of 1926. The greatest strength of science is not that it is always right. It is that, when properly practised, it gives us methods for discovering when we are wrong.
And if we want the scientists of 2126 to look back on our century with respect, we should do more than celebrate our discoveries.
We should be honest about our uncertainties, rigorous in testing our claims and willing to change our minds when the evidence demands it.
The future will almost certainly surprise us. The question is whether we will be prepared to learn from it.
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