I just had a cute thought, find a substance or process that when introduced to an atomic reaction causes not just a small amount of matter to be converted to energy, but is so catalyically powerful (condensing or lensing energy to an incredibly focused point) it causes the four forces to recombine - solving the hierarchy problem.
The trouble and joy of this is you've effectively unlocked the key to limitless energy. A handful of that material thrown into the Sun would take out the whole galaxy, you'd have cosmic wormholes everywhere
. You'd need to add only atoms of it to an atomic reaction to release trillions of times more energy then currently achieved - and there's the problem - controlling it.
A cute fantasy - but science fact sometimes comes about from idle fiction. Imagine if we had trillions of times more power available to us and we could harness and control it. That is enough energy to seriously start warping spacetime and doing startrek things. That is real WMD in a terrorists hands.
So forget the how it could be achieved an imagine the consequences (apologies for the ramble / preamble).
In what ways do you imagine life would change if in our lifetimes this process was discovered, unlocking the Cosmos so to speak. What would think the major changes (good or ill, personal or for whole societies) you might see happening be?