“The future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed.” – William Gibson, November 1999

Ten years later, smart phones provide platforms for applications that haven’t even been dreamt of yet. Wingsuits are in the testing phase. People are trying to figure out how to abandon parachutes altogether. Full on robots are flying over Afghanistan.

Some things, however, don’t need to be deployed all over the globe before we say that we’ve accomplished something absurd. One Large Hadron Collider is enough. One Higgs-boson is all it takes to change the world. And really, long before we finally see that mysterious particle, or don’t, we’ve already altered the possible. The LHC’s cathedral sized ALICE detector is, in itself, a wonder of modern engineering. Unknown, unremarked, unpraised before the LHC was complete, but beautiful regardless. Before ALICE was complete, we had developed some other astounding thing.

More and more, this is how we appear to alter our capacity as a species, with big things, giant things even. But small and no less amazing theories, components and objects are tested without fanfare every day. They are just lost amid sporting results and civil unrest. It is generally only when they come together that we see them, all in a rush. It is as if huge chunks of the future crash into us like icebergs: White, dazzling, and with an impact before we’re ready.

Ten years after that opening quote, unlikely technologies are all around us. All kinds of deep, and blue, and jagged things are going on just beneath the surface. The echoes of the future are everywhere, in India, Indonesia, and Izmir. We’re just waiting for the next big hit.