Humans have long had a desire to capture the now—to freeze the current moment to look back on after it has left us. We painted, wrote things down, developed photography and storage systems, and built vast libraries of books and images. In 
Humans have long had a desire to capture the now—to freeze the current moment to look back on after it has left us. We painted, wrote things down, developed photography and storage systems, and built vast libraries of books and images. In 1939, during the New York World’s Fair, Westinghouse introduced the first-ever “time capsule” (at least, the first one that went by that name): an 800-pound box full of things like a microscope, a spool of thread, a Sears Roebuck catalog, and a 15-minute newsreel. Since then, thousands of classrooms and companies around the world have created time capsules. There’s even an official Smithsonian guideline about how to make them properly, including a list of manufacturers who make sturdy, durable containers.
We’re not actually burying anything in the ground, but we did ask our readers what they might include in a science time capsule. A collection meant to show the future what we did—and, in some cases, didn’t—understand today. Here’s what they wanted to seal up for the future:
1. Portraits of female scientists: So that they may be remembered, even if they fail to get the credit they deserve in their own time.
2. A detailed blueprint of the LHC: Arguably the most complicated and impressive obj