Is Science Hitting a Wall?

[vuk]

good article in scientific american:

Is Science Hitting a Wall?
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-science-hitting-a-wall-part-1/

some people here may want to pay special attention to the bit on "innovation veneration" which i find to be one of the most socially destructive concepts of the past half century (perhaps longer).

 

[Arkless Electronics]

It seems pretty obvious that as the simpler problems are solved the ones left will be much more difficult and take more resources, manpower and time to solve....

 

[Swamp Thing]

I think it was Rutherford who said that there was just one of two things to sort out in Physics and we'd have finished - all knowledge complete. Sadly one of those things led to a continuing search for more an more particles, another to quantum mechanics, another to a search for a unified theory and (eventually) to the quandary that became dark matter/energy.

Mankind. Always looking under rocks.

Eventually every home will have a Hadron Collider and it will pick up again.

 

[Joe P]

Vuk,

I was worried biology was running out of breakthrough discoveries, but then LUCA came along. No, not the kid who lives on the second floor. LUCA, the last universal common ancestor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_common_ancestor

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...iversal-common-ancestor-life-earth-180959915/

https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/looking-for-luca-the-last-universal-common-ancestor/

As such, the discoveries that are developing our picture of the origin of life and the existence of LUCA raise hopes that life could just as easily exist in a virtually identical environment on a distant locale such as Europa or Enceladus. Now that we know how LUCA lived, we know the signs of life to look out for during future missions to these icy moons.

This literally (I speak in the figurative sense of literally) blew my mind.

Joe

 

[vuk]

This literally (I speak in the figurative sense of literally) blew my mind.

joe.

like the number of people considering the purchase of a pair of porche yatchs, you are in a different 0.001% capable of understanding that enough to be impressed by it.

[ just like i am puzzled why "rock" comprises 30% of music sales when classical and jazz account for only 2% each. i thought bach would have gobbled up 30% on his own these days. ]

 

[stephen bennett]

It can be about hitting things, yes. But not just walls.

My favourite is hitting things with X-Rays. Neutrons at a pinch.

Stephen

 

[Joe P]

Vuk,

Check out this video.

No Porsches or yachts, but it's fascinating stuff.

Joe

 

[davidsrsb]

The article is a very American viewpoint and the USA is diverting far too much off its resources to the military theses days, they seem to be losing their way.
Meanwhile China has taken the lead in fusion

 

[vuk]

The article is a very American viewpoint and the USA is diverting far too much off its resources to the military theses days

by these days, you mean the past 50 years?

 

[stephen bennett]

.
Meanwhile China has taken the lead in fusion

Can you recommend any albums?

Stephen

 

[Mescalito]

The article is a very American viewpoint and the USA is diverting far too much off its resources to the military theses days, they seem to be losing their way.
Meanwhile China has taken the lead in fusion

It's an article in a magazine called Scientific AMERICAN.

Chris

 

[vuk]

Vuk,

Check out this video.

No Porsches or yachts, but it's fascinating stuff.

Joe

thanks joe -- i'll check it out tonight after jimmy dore news.

 

[Seeker_UK]

The article is a very American viewpoint and the USA is diverting far too much off its resources to the military theses days..

That's always been the case - scientific discovery / development is driven by defence needs and eventually becomes more widely available (solid state electronics, computers, missiles, satellites, Kevlar, nuclear power, the Internet, chemotherapy, GPS etc)

 

[Joe P]

Chris,

Scientific American is an American publication, but it doesn't focus exclusively on American discoveries. It certainly did in its early days, when it focused on the latest U.S. patents, but now it covers all sorts of topics and developments.

It's part of the Nature group now: https://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/index.html

Joe

 

[Joe P]

Seeker,

That's always been the case - scientific discovery / development is driven by defence needs and eventually becomes more widely available (solid state electronics, computers, missiles, satellites, Kevlar, nuclear power, the Internet, chemotherapy, GPS etc)

That's true for only a narrow range of scientific discoveries and developments.

Most of all the interesting science — evolutionary biology, astrobiology, cosmology, pure physics, etc. — is done by university scientists.

Joe

 

[Joe P]

Ouch: https://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v318/n5/full/scientificamerican0518-66.html

Joe

 

[Cesare]

I'm not convinced by this argument. If we assume that more researchers are being thrown at problems, and that less results are coming out, then this could also indicate that in the current climate the value of results is very high, it's worth investing that much research time to find them - straight economics. If we look at medical research the rewards for finding a new drug can be absolutely massive, as the population is wealthy enough to support stonkingly massive costs for pills, and the patent protection is so complete that a discoverer can basically wrap up the world-wide market and get state protection.

Add to this the vanity research that tech billionaires are currently investing in, to prop up their over-inflated company valuations and that will certainly skew the results. A report I read reckoned there was north of $80 billion invested in self-driving cars in the last 3 years.

 

[Mescalito]

We do not spend anything like enough on pure scientific research.

Fusion research, much medical research, driverless cars research, just about all space research are all examples of, for the most part, engineering/technological problem solving. Very little new science is involved.

LUCA, the stuff going on at CERN and fermilab, all astronomy and cosmology is pure blue sky research, with no obvious commercial payback in sight. But then, who would have predicted in the '30s that the work of Heisenberg and the other pioneers of quantum mechanics would lead directly to solid state electronics, lasers etc.?

The mathematician Hardy once stated:
"I have never done anything "useful". No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world."

He was referring to pure mathematics. Yet it was pure mathematics which cracked the enigma and tunny codes. It is pure mathematics which gives us encryption algorithms which make Internet commerce possible. It is pure mathematics which first laid the foundations of programmable computers.

The point I am trying to make is that pure research, in and of itself, is the noblest of human endeavours, and as such should be nurtured and funded. And blue sky research has a knack of leading directly to technological revolutions of stupendous commercial value.

Chris

 

[Mescalito]

Chris,

Scientific American is an American publication, but it doesn't focus exclusively on American discoveries. It certainly did in its early days, when it focused on the latest U.S. patents, but now it covers all sorts of topics and developments.


It's part of the Nature group now: https://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/index.html

Joe

Joe,
I have had a subscription to Scientific American, along with the New Scientist since the early '80s. There is an American bias to it. Nothing serious, but a definite cultural bias.

Chris

 

[Jonathan]

not to mention the cooption of science and technology by (what appears to be) politics .. which is a whole other (and more interesting i think) issue ...