Just like factories, automobiles, flying, computers, and the internet changed the way the world did things, what do you think the next ground-breaking discovery/invention will be for the world? We had this discussion at work the other day and we all ended up with different ideas. Some guy said personal flying devices would be the next "thing". I think he's an idiot though and didn't really understand the topic... My prediction would be Genetics. Mapping the human genome. Such as the fact that we already test our unborn children to see if they will have any birth defects. Then we can decide whether or not we want to terminate the birth. What if there were a "gay" gene or a gene that decided whether or not someone was going to be malicious? We could essentially only give birth to good people or straight people if we so desired... This is all theoretical of course. What if by looking at your unborn child’s gene's you could decide if s/he was going to be a genius? Another prediction, which I think is the most likely, was the mass use of an engine that could run on hydrogen. If that were to happen imagine the impact it would have on the world? No longer would we be slaves to crude oil. Yes we would still need it, but it wouldn't be as priceless as it is now. A lot of people would lose a lot of money. Power and control would shift hands. Some of the richest nations in the world would unfortunately need to seek alternate means to pay the bills. That brings me to the point of this thread. What do you think? Alternatively fueled engines? Genes? Or something stupid like personal flying devices? WHAT IS THE NEXT BIG "THING"?! (sorry for the wall of text)
Was looking at some videos on YouTube from Discovery channel and the effects that Genetic Modification will have on the world in 50 - 100 years time, I was amazed what things might actually be possible. One thing was creating someone who weighed 700lbs of muscle and 10 foot tall (personally I think it would be nearer 1000lbs), but I mean wow, how I wish I would be that person.
Personally I reckon the next "thing" that'll influence our world in any way as much as the industrial revolution did, or the dual revolution of computers and the internet have - is an evolution of the last bit. Human integration to the net. I guess this would be through man-portable technology first (this is arguably almost arrived) - then perhaps through external tech that's powered by their wearer (you need to eat an extra meal a day perhaps). And finally, through cybernetics. Right now, tonight in fact, I wanted to know a fact so I walked through to my room where my computer was, I hit two key combinations, and then typed in what I wanted to search for. A click later, I had my fact. This took maybe 15-20 seconds. What if I could simply think "google X" and I could be presented with the results instantaneously, perhaps to a wearable terminal, or perhaps to a display that was part of what I saw on a day to day basis? The speed increases, the efficiency, the networking cababilty - that will be a revolution when it happens. The only question is: will it be the next major progression of humankind, or will something else come along first. Personally I think given the extremely complicated nature of genetics - people have no idea how low a level we're at with genetic engineering at this point (you all want to build skyscrapers, we're currently at the stage of chucking sticks in a heap and hoping we somehow get something resembling a rain shelter) - that cybernetics is likely to progress faster. We may not understand everything about how we're built as humans, but we're making impressive progress in replacing bits of ourselves with our own creations. Artificial hearts have been created, people have had limbs replaced with synthetics which they control by thought - just as you or I control our limbs. Ocular implants are coming along nicely too. Oh and OP, I'm sorry to say this but I think you have a great misunderstanding of the hydrogen economy, and just how much oil is used for besides fuel. edit: Major, why would you want to be a 50 stone muscle machine? You'd need to eat over 15,000 calories a day just to stay alive for a start. The beauty and perfection of the human body isn't in extremes, it's in balance. Specialising is the road to weakness, extremes are too. Adaptability is survivability.
From what I know, I would say: (i) The quantum computer. Once they perfect it, the amount of information it will be able to process will be some orders of magnitudes above what we have today. Which will leads to the solution of major problems we have today, such as protein folding. A lot of major science can be achieved solely from an increase in computing power. (ii) A hydrogen based economy. This is something that will happen eventually as the world's oil supply's run out. Unfortunately, the technology isn't that great at the moment, so we'll have to wait and see.
Why are people so interested by the hydrogen economy? It's an inferior replacement to an already successfull system.
You're right now that you mention it. My mind was doing it's one-track thinking. I completely ignored the fact that oil is used for many other products aside from fuels. I blame all the news about raising gas prices...
Yes, at the moment it is less efficient to what we have, but at the current rate of consumption, we cannot sustain it. The hydrogen based technology has received a lot of investment from the big energy corps, which suggests to me that it could be the successor. And the technology is getting better iirc, we did a module in Materials and Mineral Sciences relating to this, and a lot of the stuff in it was barely a year old!
My point isn't about the fact that it's an immature technology. My point is that our entire society is based upon oil right now, and people are touting something which may replace oil for a single one of it's thousands of uses (albeit a moderately important one) as revolutionary. It doesn't seem that way at all to me. It seems fairly boring and doesn't seem like it'll actually have much of an effect on your average person's day to day life at all, whether they put hydrogen gas in their car at the gas station, or oil based petrol.
Well the focus in this century is biology, gone are the days of big physics and hello to the days of big biology. Genetic engineering will become very commonplace. Cures to diseases such as Parkinsons will be readily available and minature scanning technology will be available for the masses. In terms of chemistry, petrochemicals will die out, superconductors will come in as well as nanoscale objects and complicated materials. Physics will create more efficient chip technology with the aid of new materials. Some electrical and biological integration but not to the effect of what spec has mentioned, more like personal health monitors and RFID. I see a bigger focus on optics and so better optical technology, this may filter down to affordable cheap and very efficient solar panels, which will take a large slice of the energy pie. Fusion may happen, but not until the latter part of the century.
Spec: I wasn't reffering to vehicles for the most part. Think of power sources. Huge coal and oil power plants. The world uses oil to power much more than your car(you know that). What if there were a replacement to that sorce of energy that didn't run out? As far as I understand the water on earth today is the same water we crawled out of the sea from... Maybe I'm not getting my thoughts out and as comprehendable as I think. Hydrogen based energy would be revolutionary. (if I'm mis-informed on something please let me know)
Quantum computers only (currently and forseeably) have 2 really good applications, database searching (which is only a respectable increase for large databases (and by large i mean millions -> 100 millions of records - and even then you can only really search for Key X and get back a probability that Key X exists)) and cryptography (namely breaking classical cyphers, best application of qcomps so far). Basic mathematics and stuff like that is still in need of a major breakthrough (you can currently add, but the amount of qubits you need to even add 10 and 10 together starts getting incredibly large). Though it has incredible potential as a kind of "extra" bit of a computer I guess - I wouldn't expect to see quantum components in your computers in your lifetime without a really /really/ big breakthrough in engineering and physics (you literally need atoms which don't touch stuff [because if they do you lose your superposition and thus any tangeable data gains], so the best ideas at the moment use lazers to confine atoms). Plus, the governments dont want everybody to be able to break cyphers Anyway, I think the next big change in the world is going to be in the way of transport. The big problem with the world at the moment, afaik, is the rising CO2 so naturally some kind of alternative is needed. Other than that, fusion power and genetics.
Thing is, right now, it would be an extreme, in 100 years, it won't be, and you won't need 15,000cal of food to live (injections and what not etc). Being a real "Incredible Hulk" would just be awesome.
In general i think biology will be the next area to provide a substantial leap forwards. In terms of technology/computing i think AI is the next hurdle, creating truly intelligent system could have some serious implications/results.
hydrogen based economy is for sheep, idiots.... and people that are mis-informed (you are simply mis-informed ). hydrogen is and always will be an energy carrier (at least here on earth), not an energy source, it would be an energy source if you had hydrogen in its pure form in the world and you could harvest it with little or no effort. Today if you want to fill your car with 23Kw of hydrogen you would need to spend 100Kw of electricity to produce it in the first place, and how would you produce the electricity? why not put it into your car directly? you do know what kind of motor a hydrogen car uses? http://www.physorg.com/news85074285.html if you compare it with what we do today, as in use X energy to take Y amount of energy as fuel from the ground and process it using Z amount of energy, were Y > X+Z for the process to be economical and logical..... with this i say hydrogen economy makes absolutely no sense! for me the thing that will happen in the near future and that will be awesome is the ability to merge humans and computers and make it possible for the "normal" human to have the ability to access and store huge amounts of information in a very fast and efficient way, and also grant him the ability to easily use machines and cybernetic prosthetics to enhance the longevity and usefulness of a human being, and with this we will see the catalization of human evolution into something great or something awful. we will also see the appearance of new power sources that are cheap and scalable and that allow micro energy generation or scattered energy generation, instead of one central power station and the subsequent loss of energy during transport. i also see people starting to use more efficient appliances.... http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/index.aspx and http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn13266-crystal-coat-warms-up-led-light.html nanotechnology will make amazing things possible. smart use of land will help people produce food efficiently (i remember a video about this on TED, were a guy was talking about giving nature what it wants and let her give us what we need instead of bending her on the table and screwing her from behind) he talked about putting several species in a peace of terrain were each one helps the other and complements the other, and with this the farmer could make a huge amount of food with little land. i feel that we are on the verge of a jump in human/technological evolution.
After making the post I started finding more articles closer to what you said. That article you linked was very informative. Thank you. This is the type of discussion I was hoping to create. The only problem I see with integrating humans with computers is all the ways it could possibly go wrong! HAVE YOU NOT SEE SPIDERMAN?! HOLY CRAP! IMAGINE THE CONSEQUENCES!!! Sorry just couldn't resist that with all the human/computer integration theories. If we used electronics to store data instead of our brains... How would that work? Do you really think there is a way to do such a thing? I mean, how on earth would we be able to make the data write to a hard drive of sorts and not our brain. And then on top of that, how would we then control the database of knowlege on a piece of electronics? I don't think we have near the knowledge of how the brain works to get close to that.(I realise that was just one part of your point) Sounds pretty wicked if/when that ever happens. Edit: The brain does work using electrochemical signals so I can see this as a possibility
think about it like a man with a book and a pen. If you want more knowledge about something you check the book, and soon after forget about it or absorb it, it you want to add something to it you use a pen. imagine yourself on the street thinking: "i wonder how a Hadron Collider works?" then you think "google Hadron Collider" and soon after get all the information about a Hadron Collider and what does it do. you want to add something to your blog? just think about it. you want to add something to a database or on-line encyclopaedia? just think about it. you want to take a picture or make a video using your eyes? just think about it. stuff like that. the possibilities are endless, both in terms of good and bad things that could be done with such technology. I fear that humans are still to "immature" and primitive to use this technology safely.
If you're that interested in what may be the next big thing you should try reading "The Singularity is Near" by Ray Kurzweil. Admittedly some of his predictions do appear to be a little far fetched but they do make a kind of sense and are believeable possibilities imo.
