3 ms·

Ask HN: Greatest breakthrough in your field?

15 points by eimrine 4y ago

What invention or discovery was absolutely greatest in the field you are working on? upd: fixed typo.

pacarvalho 4y ago
I once worked on MRI conditional robotic devices. A difficulty in the field was how to actuate these robots. We worked on developing plastic electric (or photonic) motors. Although not quite there, it is a technology that once ready will help the field quite a bit: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-59773-3_12 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-59773-3_...
AnimalMuppet 4y ago
s/Breakthrow/Breakthrough/ A breakthrow in my field would be, like, literally throwing my desktop out the 4th floor window. Satisfying, but frowned upon.
- coder4life 4y ago
  I was going to say, it's when my manager screws me out of a break! Greatest one? When I worked at a place (1993) and they could file tickets as "breaking" - you weren't allowed to leave for lunch until code was fixed.
jakzurr 4y ago
Telephone I can carry in my pocket. So I don't have to be paged. Or walk to a phone (possibly distant) to find out what someone thinks is an important "issue". Or possibly just read a text or email when convenient. And I can (hopefully) turn it off at night.
mikewarot 4y ago
The greatest breakthrough ever? I'd say the machine tool, a cutting tool made to follow a path by purely mechanistic guidance. There are a lot of things that were enabled once the dependence of the skill and dexterity of a person holding a tool were removed from the equation.
yarg 4y ago
Not my field, but quantum dots are incredible. Quantum dots are of reversible polarity, a QD can absorb a photon of the same frequency it can release. QD frequency response is a function of size, not composition: unlike traditional LEDs there's no need to discover the specific doping materials required for a given frequency. Make the design bigger/smaller, and it will resonate with a proportionally higher/lower wavelength (respectively). There are limitations, UV frequencies require very small dots and infrared relatively large, which presents manufacturing difficulties. A lot of the current dots utilise rare earth metals in their composition, but less toxic and more readily available materials have been researched and found viable (though I'm not sure about difficulties reaching mass production). So what can we do with them? Absorb and emit light - think televisions, solar, heating, cooling, refrigeration, cameras, projectors. Imagine a television with subzero blacks and active glare elimination. The same panel (with infrared dots) could heat or cool the room. You could have a television that can emit light across the whole of the visible spectrum. Defective monitors could be adapted as solar panels (reverse the polarity).
- yarg 4y ago
  One thing that I did skip over: the limiting factors in manufacturing. judging by the pictures on the Samsung marketing page, the nucleus of their current design is down to 15 atoms for the highest frequency dot. in this case size does matter in terms of constitution; they might need to change the recipe for UV dots. manufacturing larger elements (under similar production conditions) often results in an increase to the defect rate. This could increase the cost for infrared dots. If any one does have any actual understanding of these things, I have been wondering: What is the impact to frequency response in spheroid quantum dots and is directionality impacted?
cevi 4y ago
The solution to the Dichotomy Conjecture for Constraint Satisfaction Problems [1] (also [2], but this proof is much more difficult). This gives a clear dividing line between the types of problems that are easy to solve exactly and the types of problems that are difficult to solve exactly, for a fairly large class of problems. I wouldn't even dare to dream that something like this could be done until I saw it happen! [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.01914.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.01914.pdf [2] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.03021.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.03021.pdf
cm2012 4y ago
Facebook's excellent targeting changed the game for digital direct response ads. Before targeting was so bad only lowest common denominator ads (teeth whitening, weightloss, ringtones) could make money, now you can even advertise a niche b2b SaaS company effectively.

15 points by eimrine 4y ago

What invention or discovery was absolutely greatest in the field you are working on? upd: fixed typo.

I once worked on MRI conditional robotic devices. A difficulty in the field was how to actuate these robots. We worked on developing plastic electric (or photonic) motors. Although not quite there, it is a technology that once ready will help the field quite a bit: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-59773-3_12 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-59773-3_...

AnimalMuppet 4y ago

s/Breakthrow/Breakthrough/ A breakthrow in my field would be, like, literally throwing my desktop out the 4th floor window. Satisfying, but frowned upon.

coder4life 4y ago
I was going to say, it's when my manager screws me out of a break! Greatest one? When I worked at a place (1993) and they could file tickets as "breaking" - you weren't allowed to leave for lunch until code was fixed.

jakzurr 4y ago

Telephone I can carry in my pocket. So I don't have to be paged. Or walk to a phone (possibly distant) to find out what someone thinks is an important "issue". Or possibly just read a text or email when convenient. And I can (hopefully) turn it off at night.

mikewarot 4y ago

The greatest breakthrough ever? I'd say the machine tool, a cutting tool made to follow a path by purely mechanistic guidance. There are a lot of things that were enabled once the dependence of the skill and dexterity of a person holding a tool were removed from the equation.

yarg 4y ago

Not my field, but quantum dots are incredible. Quantum dots are of reversible polarity, a QD can absorb a photon of the same frequency it can release. QD frequency response is a function of size, not composition: unlike traditional LEDs there's no need to discover the specific doping materials required for a given frequency. Make the design bigger/smaller, and it will resonate with a proportionally higher/lower wavelength (respectively). There are limitations, UV frequencies require very small dots and infrared relatively large, which presents manufacturing difficulties. A lot of the current dots utilise rare earth metals in their composition, but less toxic and more readily available materials have been researched and found viable (though I'm not sure about difficulties reaching mass production). So what can we do with them? Absorb and emit light - think televisions, solar, heating, cooling, refrigeration, cameras, projectors. Imagine a television with subzero blacks and active glare elimination. The same panel (with infrared dots) could heat or cool the room. You could have a television that can emit light across the whole of the visible spectrum. Defective monitors could be adapted as solar panels (reverse the polarity).

yarg 4y ago
One thing that I did skip over: the limiting factors in manufacturing. judging by the pictures on the Samsung marketing page, the nucleus of their current design is down to 15 atoms for the highest frequency dot. in this case size does matter in terms of constitution; they might need to change the recipe for UV dots. manufacturing larger elements (under similar production conditions) often results in an increase to the defect rate. This could increase the cost for infrared dots. If any one does have any actual understanding of these things, I have been wondering: What is the impact to frequency response in spheroid quantum dots and is directionality impacted?

cevi 4y ago

The solution to the Dichotomy Conjecture for Constraint Satisfaction Problems [1] (also [2], but this proof is much more difficult). This gives a clear dividing line between the types of problems that are easy to solve exactly and the types of problems that are difficult to solve exactly, for a fairly large class of problems. I wouldn't even dare to dream that something like this could be done until I saw it happen! [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.01914.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.01914.pdf [2] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.03021.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.03021.pdf

cm2012 4y ago

Facebook's excellent targeting changed the game for digital direct response ads. Before targeting was so bad only lowest common denominator ads (teeth whitening, weightloss, ringtones) could make money, now you can even advertise a niche b2b SaaS company effectively.