Technological Stagnation?

[FairAndUnbiased]

It seems to me that technology is going to stagnate in general due to two reasons:

1. hard limits imposed by the laws of physics
2. slow decay due to losing records, memory, etc.

1.

We are approaching the limits of physics right now. Monocrystalline, single junction solar cells are already approaching the theoretical thermodynamic limit. Transistors are approaching the size of a few Si atoms. The hardest materials, the most malleable metals, etc. have already been found. Chemical fuels have a hard limit set on their possible efficiency. There is a minimum size possible for feasible nanotechnology due to heat transfer, information density and power source constraints.

There are areas of improvement: photovoltaics will get better with new materials. Their cost/watt will definitely decrease significantly. Nuclear power will improve due to new designs. Quantum computing may become possible for niche applications (but will almost certainly never be possible for everyday computing). Agriculture will improve. Electric vehicles will likely become the mainstream mode of transportation. But none of these changes will be as radical as the changes during the 19th and 20th centuries. The 21st century, and possibly beyond, will likely be a refinement of the technologies introduced in the 20th century, not a revolution.

2.

Today, unless you were someone who was extremely important or careful, it is very difficult to access newspaper headlines from even the 1970's. That was merely 40 years ago. Technologies such as the Saturn V are essentially lost, with their blueprints scattered around multiple archives, the tools required to make the parts no longer in existence and without the economic ability to bring both blueprints and tools together again.

In the future, with the weight of centuries of headlines, news, policies, designs, records, etc. older technologies will be gradually lost. For instance, once electric cars come out, the knowledge of how to build internal combustion engine cars will gradually fade away. Techniques that are passed down by experience, will become lost. Even today, some instruments in my lab are essentially run on memorization, since they are so old, nobody knows how to really run the software or fix the hardware, so we memorize the manual.

So my opinion is:

The 22nd century will look much like the 21st century, but with less resources. It will NOT feel the same. Instead of hope and progress, there will be only disappointment and a feeling of stagnation.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Presently countries spend 0.01% on technology from collective GDP if world spent 50% on technology we would already have colonies on Moon/Mars and water extraction missions from moons that have frozen ice to excavate water for moon and mars colonies

 

[C130]

I don't agree. the only thing that can stop us from reaching further and further is collapse of civilization.

are we going to reach the level of Star Trek in the next 100 to 200 years, no, but we will be colonizing Mars and Moons by then.

 

[jetray]

It seems to me that technology is going to stagnate in general due to two reasons:

1. hard limits imposed by the laws of physics
2. slow decay due to losing records, memory, etc.

1.

We are approaching the limits of physics right now. Monocrystalline, single junction solar cells are already approaching the theoretical thermodynamic limit. Transistors are approaching the size of a few Si atoms. The hardest materials, the most malleable metals, etc. have already been found. Chemical fuels have a hard limit set on their possible efficiency. There is a minimum size possible for feasible nanotechnology due to heat transfer, information density and power source constraints.

There are areas of improvement: photovoltaics will get better with new materials. Their cost/watt will definitely decrease significantly. Nuclear power will improve due to new designs. Quantum computing may become possible for niche applications (but will almost certainly never be possible for everyday computing). Agriculture will improve. Electric vehicles will likely become the mainstream mode of transportation. But none of these changes will be as radical as the changes during the 19th and 20th centuries. The 21st century, and possibly beyond, will likely be a refinement of the technologies introduced in the 20th century, not a revolution.

2.

Today, unless you were someone who was extremely important or careful, it is very difficult to access newspaper headlines from even the 1970's. That was merely 40 years ago. Technologies such as the Saturn V are essentially lost, with their blueprints scattered around multiple archives, the tools required to make the parts no longer in existence and without the economic ability to bring both blueprints and tools together again.

In the future, with the weight of centuries of headlines, news, policies, designs, records, etc. older technologies will be gradually lost. For instance, once electric cars come out, the knowledge of how to build internal combustion engine cars will gradually fade away. Techniques that are passed down by experience, will become lost. Even today, some instruments in my lab are essentially run on memorization, since they are so old, nobody knows how to really run the software or fix the hardware, so we memorize the manual.

So my opinion is:

The 22nd century will look much like the 21st century, but with less resources. It will NOT feel the same. Instead of hope and progress, there will be only disappointment and a feeling of stagnation.

Yes technology is becoming stagnant other than 1990's silicon revolution ,we are still use the same basic technology with more refinement. If you look at the evolution of technology it comes in burst like renaissance ,industrial revolution or silicon revolution.

More ever our standards have deteriorated , when facebook or google or whats app are called revolutionary you can imagine where we stand. These applications are nothing but thin layer over the innovation done by previous companies like Sun,IBM,HP ...etc.

More ever now a days most of the companies/countries try playing catch up with western counterparts rather than doing some thing new. As such diversity in technology is not present and every one falls into the same ditch. If you look at medieval ages world was different , countries had different technologies based on their region.

 

[somebozo]

the future will be something like Biology, Chemistry and Physics mixed all into one..so our computers will not only be electronic devices but may also have a laboratory grown organic brain which things and functions like human brain with its own onboard blood and oxygen supply..

 

[libertycall]

The biggest threat to humanity is the failure of states to collect sufficient taxes from mega-corporations. This revenue failure is preventing states from engaging in 'big projects' which will lead to major technological improvements.

Mega-corporations by their very nature are only interested in producing goods and services which will be bought and paid for by a sufficient number of citizens to justify the cost of the research.

It is only the state itself which is prepared to invest in technologies which will provide a reward in several decades time.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

I don't agree. the only thing that can stop us from reaching further and further is collapse of civilization.

are we going to reach the level of Star Trek in the next 100 to 200 years, no, but we will be colonizing Mars and Moons by then.

colonizing Mars?

Why not colonize Antarctica, Siberia or the Gobi Desert? These are places with land effectively as cheap as Mars and 1000x easier to get to. It is also economically useless for mining because it's hard to get things out of the Mars gravity well, IMO, since Mars gravity is 0.43 that of earth while being 8 months of travel away. Moon or Mercury colonization is much more likely because they are economically useful for mining, have regions where the temperature is near 300 K and are closer to earth.

However, until advances in both materials science and propulsion are made, in addition to the economic need for off-world resources, any extraterrestrial colonization will be a dream.

Yes technology is becoming stagnant other than 1990's silicon revolution ,we are still use the same basic technology with more refinement. If you look at the evolution of technology it comes in burst like renaissance ,industrial revolution or silicon revolution.

More ever our standards have deteriorated , when facebook or google or whats app are called revolutionary you can imagine where we stand. These applications are nothing but thin layer over the innovation done by previous companies like Sun,IBM,HP ...etc.

More ever now a days most of the companies/countries try playing catch up with western counterparts rather than doing some thing new. As such diversity in technology is not present and every one falls into the same ditch. If you look at medieval ages world was different , countries had different technologies based on their region.

exactly, we are hitting fundamental physical limits right now. there's not much that can be done that is truly revolutionary. economically the cost of innovation has also skyrocketed since the low hanging fruit and plentiful resources have already been exhausted.

 

[NP-complete]

The next two centuries will be the centuries of automation. The decision-making aspect of human lives will be almost entirely transferred to computers. It will free the human mind for leisure and creativity which will change the life experience radically.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

The next two centuries will be the centuries of automation. The decision-making aspect of human lives will be almost entirely transferred to computers. It will free the human mind for leisure and creativity which will change the life experience radically.

the current supercomputers are not even smart enough to make decisions on the level of mosquitos.

Automation of everything works only as long as the marginal cost of automation is less than the marginal profit of the products of automation. Otherwise, only the things that need to be automated at any cost (dangerous tasks, computing, military, etc) will be automated while things that depend on profit will not be automated.

How about I flip that around? The next few centuries will consist of struggle against resource shortage, global warming and other hard physical limits. People can maintain a "fun" lifestyle by dropping energy wasting activities like car racing and pursue activities mostly online and in social settings, but there will be hard limits on everyone.

 

[NP-complete]

the current supercomputers are not even smart enough to make decisions on the level of mosquitos.

Automation of everything works only as long as the marginal cost of automation is less than the marginal profit of the products of automation. Otherwise, only the things that need to be automated at any cost (dangerous tasks, computing, military, etc) will be automated while things that depend on profit will not be automated.

How about I flip that around? The next few centuries will consist of struggle against resource shortage, global warming and other hard physical limits. People can maintain a "fun" lifestyle by dropping energy wasting activities like car racing and pursue activities mostly online and in social settings, but there will be hard limits on everyone.

Automation does save resources. It saves the resource of working hours. In a Boston hospital computer is working in place of doctor. All of the patient's medical history goes into the computer and it makes the diagnosis in light of that data. The saved hours of the doctor can be used in places like Africa.

 

[Sky lord]

Thanks @FairAndUnbiased - really interesting topic, surprised that there isn't more activity on this thread. You should move it to the technology section.

My perspective is a little different. I think human beings tend to get a little over impressed with themselves and feel that they have reached hard limits when nothing of the sort has been reached. Famously in the 19th century Charles Holland Duell said that "everything that can be discovered has been" we know how wrong he was.


My feeling is that the only actual limit to human discovery is the limits imposed by our simian brain. Our brain evolved in the grasslands of East Africa mainly to avoid getting eaten long enough to be able to reproduce. The fact that this simple brain went on to understand quantum physics is an amazing testament to how good it is. But ultimately we will come across a wall, things that are simply too difficult to understand...we are close to that already in some areas.....only a handful of people, all of them outliers, really understand Einsteins theories.

We cannot evolve fast enough , So ultimately our needs will outgrow the capabilities of our brains. At that point, we can move no further without intelligent machines that can do our thinking for us......and that opens up a whole new can of worms!!

If such a point comes though, it would be several centuries into the future. immediate future - next 50 years - is going to be the fall out from the human genome.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Automation does save resources. It saves the resource of working hours. In a Boston hospital computer is working in place of doctor. All of the patient's medical history goes into the computer and it makes the diagnosis in light of that data. The saved hours of the doctor can be used in places like Africa.

sure it does in this case. But how much does it make sense to automate waiters? janitors? mining? etc. it doesn't in many cases until the cost of production goes down.

Thanks @FairAndUnbiased - really interesting topic, surprised that there isn't more activity on this thread. You should move it to the technology section.

My perspective is a little different. I think human beings tend to get a little over impressed with themselves and feel that they have reached hard limits when nothing of the sort has been reached. Famously in the 19th century Charles Holland Duell said that "everything that can be discovered has been" we know how wrong he was.


My feeling is that the only actual limit to human discovery is the limits imposed by our simian brain. Our brain evolved in the grasslands of East Africa mainly to avoid getting eaten long enough to be able to reproduce. The fact that this simple brain went on to understand quantum physics is an amazing testament to how good it is. But ultimately we will come across a wall, things that are simply too difficult to understand...we are close to that already in some areas.....only a handful of people, all of them outliers, really understand Einsteins theories.

We cannot evolve fast enough , So ultimately our needs will outgrow the capabilities of our brains. At that point, we can move no further without intelligent machines that can do our thinking for us......and that opens up a whole new can of worms!!

If such a point comes though, it would be several centuries into the future. immediate future - next 50 years - is going to be the fall out from the human genome.

I don't think so. let me postulate:

1. all new theories of physics must include current physics as a special case of the theory. this is because current physics has already been shown to be valid in a wide variety of situations. the new theory also has to explain a phenomena that is currently unexplained.

2. In the 19th century, there were multiple huge and unexplained phenomena occuring at everyday length, time and energy scales. This means that there were undiscovered physics relevant for our daily lives on Earth. It was a huge leap to go from belief in spirits to mechanics. It was a large but smaller leap to go from mechanics to electricity and thermodynamics. It was a much smaller leap to go from electricity and thermodynamics to quantum mechanics and relativity: alot of the properties of solids could be predicted from CLASSICAL theories alone, and up to 1990 there were no applications of relativity. Particle physics is essentially irrelevant for everyday life. But the cost of gaining new knowledge is exponential. It takes 1 joule to conduct a mechanics or electricity experiment. It takes 10^15 joules to conduct a particle physics experiment.

3. There are no new basic phenomena being discovered today at length, time and energy scales relevant for everyday life. For instance: let's say that a new theory of the universe allows for faster than light to exist. Well, for energies up to the highest energies of particle accelerators on Earth, we have found that faster than light does not exist. That means that even if it is theoretically possible, we will never be able to access it.

For instance, we can theoretically terraform Mars right now. It will never happen because we will never access the amount of energy and material required (even with fusion).

 

[Pangu]

How many percentage of our brain capacity are we accessing right now? Perhaps, unlocking our grey matter further will facilitate heighten cognitive senses to discover the hidden within our view. An interesting story dates back to the 15th century, when the Europeans sailed into view of South American coastline, the natives on the beach saw this lumbering mass moving towards them, yet they failed to realize that it was, in fact a ship. They couldn't identify it's form to make sense of it, until they saw the sailors on it!

Stagnation of technology perhaps exist only because our understanding of this world has reached a plateau.

 

[Sky lord]

sure it does in this case. But how much does it make sense to automate waiters? janitors? mining? etc. it doesn't in many cases until the cost of production goes down.



I don't think so. let me postulate:

1. all new theories of physics must include current physics as a special case of the theory. this is because current physics has already been shown to be valid in a wide variety of situations. the new theory also has to explain a phenomena that is currently unexplained.

2. In the 19th century, there were multiple huge and unexplained phenomena occuring at everyday length, time and energy scales. This means that there were undiscovered physics relevant for our daily lives on Earth. It was a huge leap to go from belief in spirits to mechanics. It was a large but smaller leap to go from mechanics to electricity and thermodynamics. It was a much smaller leap to go from electricity and thermodynamics to quantum mechanics and relativity: alot of the properties of solids could be predicted from CLASSICAL theories alone, and up to 1990 there were no applications of relativity. Particle physics is essentially irrelevant for everyday life. But the cost of gaining new knowledge is exponential. It takes 1 joule to conduct a mechanics or electricity experiment. It takes 10^15 joules to conduct a particle physics experiment.

3. There are no new basic phenomena being discovered today at length, time and energy scales relevant for everyday life. For instance: let's say that a new theory of the universe allows for faster than light to exist. Well, for energies up to the highest energies of particle accelerators on Earth, we have found that faster than light does not exist. That means that even if it is theoretically possible, we will never be able to access it.

For instance, we can theoretically terraform Mars right now. It will never happen because we will never access the amount of energy and material required (even with fusion).

Interesting points - but (there's always a but)
There are still plenty of unexplained phenomena in Physics.

List of unsolved problems in physics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


We have just found proof of gravity waves. How much longer before we manipulate them?

Science is more than just physics. Life sciences are coming to the fore and making huge impact. I for one am excited about the discoveries with the mapping of the brain project. There is going to be huge discoveries in these areas over the coming 50 years.

Some things we may never know . I am not a physist but doesn't string theory give hints of multiverses? This we may never be able to prove. We can only ever know what our senses firmly anchored in this universe can tell us.

I thought this was interesting-

NASA - Status of Gravity Control

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Interesting points - but (there's always a but)
There are still plenty of unexplained phenomena in Physics.

List of unsolved problems in physics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


We have just found proof of gravity waves. How much longer before we manipulate them?

Science is more than just physics. Life sciences are coming to the fore and making huge impact. I for one am excited about the discoveries with the mapping of the brain project. There is going to be huge discoveries in these areas over the coming 50 years.

Some things we may never know . I am not a physist but doesn't string theory give hints of multiverses? This we may never be able to prove. We can only ever know what our senses firmly anchored in this universe can tell us.

I thought this was interesting-

NASA - Status of Gravity Control

We already know how to manipulate gravity waves. It requires moving solar masses around. Currently, if an asteroid 10 km across is heading towards the Earth, there's nothing we can do about it. The sun weighs 1 billion times more than an asteroid.

Most of those unsolved problems are of these sorts:

1. Requires extreme energies to reach for minimal gain, thus, they are irrelevant for everyday technologies.
2. Small exceptional cases. These are actually the most interesting since they are likely to lead to new technologies, but here's the catch: most of these are in biophysics, condensed matter physics, fluid dynamics, etc. and are thus unlikely to lead to a revolutionary new energy source or propulsion.

Why do I focus on physics?

Well, because the hardest limits are the ones imposed by physics: in particular, the ability to manage heat and the maximum energy available to us. These 2 things place huge limitations on what is possible and what isn't.