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Another (albeit restrictive) way to consider the progress of science is asking what practical advances it has made that people value. Obviously the understandi
by dane-pgp 6y ago
Another (albeit restrictive) way to consider the progress of science is asking what practical advances it has made that people value. Obviously the understanding that allowed us to create semiconductors and lasers has been put to good use, but, outside of biology, have there been many discoveries from science in the past 50 years, say?
I'm not saying that the only research worth doing is that which leads to an institution or company making a profit from the discoveries, but understanding the economic factors behind scientific research is helpful if we want to think about its future trajectory.
To go some way towards answering my question above, though, I will give the examples of graphene (isolated and characterized in 2004) and arguably the understanding from climate science about how the Earth's climate can vary with specific changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration (which has important policy implications).
Others can probably think of a few more, although there is much scope for debate about what counts as a "discovery" and "science". For example, public-key cryptography was invented in 1970s, but this could be said to be "merely doing engineering" or "merely inventing mathematical processes" rather than learning about the natural world.
- p_l 6y agoLots of material sciences, also knock-on effects like CERN needing lots of non-physics related stuff done to the point that I have been using CERN's docs to work on automated pipe cutter in factory...
- philipov 6y agoOne argument I like is that if you're only interested in practical value of science, then consider that the data processing requirements for CERN operating the LHC were a large factor driving the development of cloud computing. The value of cloud computing in the economy is so large that if the project accelerated it by just a small amount, that added value is still to be measured in the billions of dollars. And that's not even considering the value of technological developments such as better magnets that were needed to build and upgrade the collider.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kamikaz1k 6y agoWould you be willing to cite that claim? It does not match up with my understanding of how the market was being developed.
- philipov 6y agoI'm paraphrasing Nima Arkani-Hamed in a lecture where he talks about the value of doing fundamental research, but I wasn't able to find a concrete link to it in 30 minutes of skimming on youtube, since there are many many hours of those lectures to go through.
- not_knuth 6y agoNot sure whether you were specifically interested in the history of cloud computing or unconvinced by the justification of CERNs existence. But FWIW, another spinoff of CERN was the web.
- unishark 6y agoyou'd have to compare it to the result of that same brain power doing something else.
- alisonkisk 6y agoThat's because scientists had political power. If the same investment went to support government operations or business in general, it would have motivated to the same productivity much more cost efficiently.
- Chris2048 6y agoIt seems pretty dependant on where you draw the line. If we have quantum-computers in the near-future, did this come from "general" science, or the development/refinement of existing science?
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoThat depends on how different they are. There are different kinds of invention, and they're not interchangeable - in the philosophical sense of how much new creative and physical space they open up for exploration. Modern computing is qualitatively different to a 17th century calculating mechanism like Napier's Bones. It doesn't just do the same thing but faster, it does a lot more besides, and it creates social, political, and economic effects that extend far beyond the physics and math involved in construction and programming. QC will probably be similar. It's too early to tell what the qualitative changes will be, but QC's place on the developmental tree of technology will depend on how unexpected and extreme they are, and not just on how hard it is to get to a useful number of cubits.
- rob74 6y agoHow about the blue and white LEDs which were invented and improved over the last 30 years? May seem like a relatively modest example, but the applications made possible by them are everywhere, from smartphones to LED video walls and energy-saving lighting solutions.
- jackcosgrove 6y agoRobert Gordon makes a similar claim in his works, that the pace of technological discovery has slowed down. He has a lot of numbers to back his claim up. I think we have invested a lot of time and energy in social solutions rather than technical solutions compare to the mid-20th century. The biggest example of this is the worldwide adoption of English as a lingua franca. It's not high tech for sure, but it's a sea change in human civilization that has had many positive effects for hundreds of millions of people, and that number will only grow. Now does this effort conflict with science and technology? I don't know, but it seems like since the 1960s we have focused more of our efforts on global convergence rather than pushing frontiers.
- Ar-Curunir 6y agoMost of computer science is post-1975.