List of holy grails

The legend of the Holy Grail is the basis of the modern usage of holy grail. A "holy grail" is a sought-after, all-but-unobtainable goal for a person, organization, or field.

Many scientific problems once considered holy grails have now been conquered, most strikingly the sequencing of the human genome which has in turn inspired new quests of equally daunting magnitude. Some quests such as achieving a room temperature superconductor are sustained efforts that inch tantalizingly closer with each new result, while other quests await a shocking bolt from the blue.

The following is a list of (predicted) inventions or discoveries that are considered "holy grails", arranged by scientific field.

See also: List of unsolved problems, Protoscience, List of protosciences

Archaeology

  • Wholly intact pharaonic tomb
  • The Sema (tomb) of Alexander the Great
  • A complete set of Maya codices
  • Complete copies of Livy's History of Rome, Manetho's Aegyptiaca, and the Turin Royal Canon
  • Works of Strato of Lampsacus
  • Excavation and preservation of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang
  • Discovering the Land of Punt
  • Locating the Sarcophagus of Mycerinus from the wreck of the Beatrice

Astronomy

  • Detection of a pulsar in ORBit around a black hole 1
  • Detection of an earthlike planet orbiting another star.
  • Detection of extraterrestrial life (see e.g., SETI)
  • The nature of dark matter/dark energy

Biology

  • Biological immortality in humans
  • Assembling a cell from scratch using simple precursor materials (either manually or via random seeding)
  • A complete understanding of the genetic code
  • Accurately predicting the three-dimensional structure of a protein from the sequence of its amino acids from first principles, not by similarity to other structures.

Medicine

  • A cure or treatment for all forms of cancer
  • A cure or vaccine for AIDS
  • A cure or vaccine for the common cold

Computer science

  • Artificial consciousness/strong artificial intelligence
  • A polynomial time algorithm for NP-complete problems, or a proof of its nonexistence (Does P = NP?)
  • Building a quantum computer.
  • Creating a verifying compiler, that is, a compiler that can prove if a computer program meets the specification of what it is meant to do.

Cosmology

  • The precise age of the universe
  • Whether and how the universe will come to an end

Economics

  • Solving the equity premium puzzle
  • Creating an equivalent of Black-Scholes for futures contract pricing

Film

  • A complete copy of London After Midnight.
  • Recovery of the spider-crab sequence from King Kong.

Linguistics

  • Definition of a universal grammar, or proof of its nonexistance
  • Deciphering unknown writing systems, especially Linear A, Etruscan, and the Indus Valley Civilization script
  • Translating the Voynich Manuscript
  • Linking of the Basque language to another language family

Mathematics

  • A proof of the Riemann hypothesis
  • A proof of the abc conjecture
  • A proof of the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture
  • A proof of the Hodge conjecture
  • A unified theory of mathematics

Physics

  • A theory of everything
  • A unified field theory
  • A testable physical prediction from string theory

Applied physics

  • Room temperature superconductors
  • Efficient cold or controlled fusion
  • Anti-gravity devices
  • Superluminal (faster-than-light) travel or communication
  • Time travel
  • Teleportation

High-energy physics

  • The observation of a Higgs particle
  • The observation of a magnetic monopole
  • The observation of a sparticle
  • The observation of a tachyon

References