3. The Fly The Teleporter
The Technology In David Cronenbergs remake of body-horror classic The Fly, scientist Seth Brundle is attempting to find out a way to transport organic matter using a teleportation device. Hes been able to transport inorganic matter without a hitch, yet when he tries to teleport living things, it all goes horribly wrong he firstly turns a baboon inside out and then manages to turn himself into a fly-hybrid (flybrid?) in an ill-advised self-experiment. All in all (and probably too late), he figures out that you cant transport living tissue without everything going ridiculously wrong.
What They Should Have Used It For What Brundle failed to notice is that he had a goddamned miracle on his hands he was the first person to ever invent a working teleportation device that could transport inanimate stuff across the room. If he was to cut his losses there, he would go down as one of the greatest scientists that ever lived. If they managed to implement his technology on a far grander scale, there would be no need for transport in a lot of industries we could order our electronic goods and find them with us in a matter of seconds, transporting military equipment would be a thing of the past and we could actually send tangible objects with our email. The world would have been changed forever, if Brundle had just stopped there. The man couldve been a trillionaire and received all the adulation in the world, yet he screwed it up by wanting more. If anything, he still could have done his experiments after hed racked up enough cash to pay for even better facilities and a test subject or two. Money makes the scientific method run that much smoother, so its not as if hed have smother his human teleportation idea he could just leave it on the backburner. Seriously, the world couldve been this guys oyster if hed have just quit while he was ahead.