Which one of these discoveries is more important?

.. If you had to choose only one to be readily available to humanity right now... which one would you pick?

1- Everlasting Free Unlimited Clean Energy (i.e. no need to ever charge your phone or fuel your car, etc..).

2- Anti Gravity (hovering cars, floating homes / furniture, etc..)

3- Teleportation (your online orders just appear instantly, no more traffic, humanity can reach other galaxies and communicate with earth in real-time, etc..)

Seems kind of unbalanced. Unlimited free energy would be a larger boon than the other two combined.

Yep, I will take #1.

I love your examples for the uses of each kind of discovery.

Unlimited free energy without a question.

Unlimited free clean energy

@Mystery_Writer:

3. Energy will still be used but it would be limited because of teleportation so it's a win win.

Anti-gravity dwindle in significance compared to the other two options so that one is out. As for the remaining two, I can see how unlimited and everlasting clean energy can be a blessing to humanity and this planet but teleportation is much cooler than anything the former might endow us with so I'm going with teleportation. Think of the possibilities they're endlessly staggering.

As fun and helpful as teleportation could be I'd still go with #1, no doubt.

number one all day every day

I like that.. you guys have a point. Humanity could spread out where they live wherever they want (islands, deserts, north pole, jungles, middle of the ocean, top of a mountain, etc..) and not worry about how they get food / water / electricity & internet / medical care / commute to work / visit each other, etc..

Also they could mine far out planets for fuel.

And finally, you could have a sustained portal, where half of your home at one place and the other half at another place (sun never sets, you could always enjoy the sun on one side of your home)

I don't know how you could choose anything besides teleportation.

And what would be powering this insanely massive new energy sink?

For the world? One. For me? Three.

Since OP mentioned online orders appearing instantly. It's safe to say that teleportation in his scenario would be cheap and thus able to be widely used.

Oh well, in that case I'd like to change my vote to number 4 "Ray that cures all diseases, that fell from an alien spaceship". I thought we were using reality as the base for our answers =P

I'd still pick teleportation even if it was too expensive to be used in day to day consumer stuff. The ability to instantly reach other galaxies would be incredible.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to visit other worlds, but, just like in real life, I'd take care of my home first before I spend all my time and money on trips somewhere else.

That's all fine and dandy and you do make a compelling argument regarding the limitless utility of teleportation, but the things I had in mind were mostly immature and frivolous in nature :3
I was imagining how I can be sitting bored at home and then decide to teleport to some entirely different country where some friend lives. I was also thinking of what the widespread availability of teleportation would do to criminal activities. Imagine the version of the "criminal on the run" in such a reality, constantly making jumps to infinitely elude law enforcement.

All this talk about teleportation reminds me of Fringe. You seem to have a lively imagination I suggest you watch that.

Ya.. I like SciFi a lot. But didn't get into fringe back in the day (watched couple of episodes). It was more biology SciFi than physics / astrophysics.

Also, while we're imagining, you could have a device that neutralizes teleportation at your home and only authorized teleportation signals are allowed. More like a cell phone call, you could see the teleported object and either accept / reject the teleportation request :)

#1 without a doubt, even though 2 and 3 would be awesome.

Starting from season 3 onward the show is about nothing but multiple universes, time travel, space-time continuum, matter, molecular degradation of the universe's fabric, etc etc. In short it makes an almost 180' shift away from biology into astrophysics and it drops the episodic trend in favor of the main plot.

Yea you could have that; but you could also have black-market teleporters or hacks to override state-administered teleporters :P

haha.. ya. that would make an interesting conundrum to solve, but still exciting to have nonetheless :)

Also, that's nice to know about fringe, gonna hopefully give it another try then.

And here, I'll return the favor with few of Sci Fi recommendations of mine:

Movie: The man from earth

Audio books:

- The Martian

- Swarm (Star Force Series Book 1)

eBooks

- Omega Rising (Omega Force Book 1)

#1 is the best for the Earth and survival. 2 and 3 could destroy civilization.

Unlimited energy could destroy civilization as well.

Teleportation. We need bigger planets lawns. Unlimited energy would just mean greater innovation of many things up to and including weapons. So I think spreading the scourge that is humanity, as some fools consider it, is best. Plus struggle keeps people distracted as does breathing room. Take your ball and go make a new home while your feisty neighbors continue their family brawling over hotdogs.

We can't handle number 1 we would definitely destroy earth

I'm gonna go with that.

Going to go with #1. Everlasting Free Unlimited Clean Energy.

I'm definitely going to check the man from earth out, looks really interesting. Thanks!

Anti-Gravity because that is probably how we will leave this solar system. If you really think about it, anti-gravity leads into the other two topics.

Oh man you threw in teleportation. If teleportation could be done with a very low amount of energy use then it's basically a greeny's (like me) wet dream. Think about how it would change our habits. Driving would become nearly a complete non-essential, we could go to work every day the very minute we are supposed to arrive and be back home the very minute we get off. Furthermore all things that need to be transported could be done instantaneously. In theory teleportation would solve global warming while giving everyone hundreds, if not thousands, of hours back every year to do with whatever they wish.

Everlasting Free Unlimited Clean Energy

Unlimited clean energy. The applications could be pretty spectacular.

Numero uno ! Number 1 most definite !