You can make things simple if they don't have to last long. In the case of a pulse jet fatigue life lets you cut weight significantly for a 2 hour life vs a 10,000 hour life.difficulty of making a functional Pulse Detonation Engine compared to the pristine simplicity of a WW2 era V-1 buzz bomb's pulsejet.
Is it just me...
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Simon, I do not think that this problem is (solely) political. The A 380 is among the most modern airplanes arround and it was built in Europe, where government involvement is even worse than in the US...
I think airplanes are a good example, as was mentioned before by djolds and CaptainBeowulf.
The Concorde flew first when? 1969... The 747 in 1970, only 20 years after the first jet airliner entered service. That was 40 years ago!
What has changed since then? The 747 is still flying. The planes got a little more fuel efficient and there is one, only one plane that is actually bigger and capable of transporting more people. Not really what I would call big progress. Considering that it has been 40 years, I can only be disappointed.
The thing is, there never was a lack of designs or ideas. I have been reading (popular) science publications for30 years now and I still own some of the very old ones. When I pick them up and browse through them, I realize that nothing much has changed since then. Some of the tech back then was "just arround the corner" as it is now.
Or take robotics. I have a Peter Mosleitner (german science mag, like Pop Mech) magazine here, that talks about the robots that will be everywhere within a couple of decades. Where are they? The toy robots that are arround now, are only marginally more advanced than the ones at the beginning of the 80ies. That despite the HUGE progress electronics have made. Computing power is now what? 3000 times, 4000 times of what it was back in the times of the C64? Probably more than that. But for some reason, there are still no humanoid robots roaming the streets, doing our shopping for us. At least I have not noticed (cleans his glasses).
Another consumer electronics example: Where are my holographic TVs?
We were supposed to have those coming too. Sure we have 3d movies and TVs now, but that tech (as it is being used for Avatar) has been arround for decades as well (it just got rediscovered now and improved in details).
In regards to space tech: It took 20 years to go from the first manned rocket to the space shuttle. Then development pretty much stopped.
When the DC-X was flying for the first time, it looked like something better was "just arround the corner". It never happened. Today, 20 years after the DC-X, we are actually going back to ELVs for manned space transport. Even if one can argue that this is not a step back (the shuttle cost more than an ELV), it is definitely not progress either.
So what is the problem?
One explanation could be that technology has become to complicated. A single man was able to build and understand every piece of technology in a WW1 plane. No man in the world can do everything that is needed to build a modern airliner like the A 380. Maybe that has to do with it? I am not sure. Are we so overwhelmed by the details that big progress has become impossible?
But maybe it is not that? Maybe we are missing some piece of key technology which would be required to make everything else work?
Power sources come to my mind, e.g.
A technology like polywell would be a game changer, it would enable, faster and bigger airplanes, better space transport, etc.
Is it just that? If so, maybe it is time that all the industries that are currently stuck, take a step back and invest and I mean invest big time into research projects like polywell.
Of course there are other technologies that are even further out there, like ML thrusters (though they would probably only affect the transport sector, not a small one by any means, but not big either).
Is it that? Are we missing those technological breakthroughs that would allow us to reach the next level?
I think airplanes are a good example, as was mentioned before by djolds and CaptainBeowulf.
The Concorde flew first when? 1969... The 747 in 1970, only 20 years after the first jet airliner entered service. That was 40 years ago!
What has changed since then? The 747 is still flying. The planes got a little more fuel efficient and there is one, only one plane that is actually bigger and capable of transporting more people. Not really what I would call big progress. Considering that it has been 40 years, I can only be disappointed.
The thing is, there never was a lack of designs or ideas. I have been reading (popular) science publications for30 years now and I still own some of the very old ones. When I pick them up and browse through them, I realize that nothing much has changed since then. Some of the tech back then was "just arround the corner" as it is now.
Or take robotics. I have a Peter Mosleitner (german science mag, like Pop Mech) magazine here, that talks about the robots that will be everywhere within a couple of decades. Where are they? The toy robots that are arround now, are only marginally more advanced than the ones at the beginning of the 80ies. That despite the HUGE progress electronics have made. Computing power is now what? 3000 times, 4000 times of what it was back in the times of the C64? Probably more than that. But for some reason, there are still no humanoid robots roaming the streets, doing our shopping for us. At least I have not noticed (cleans his glasses).
Another consumer electronics example: Where are my holographic TVs?
We were supposed to have those coming too. Sure we have 3d movies and TVs now, but that tech (as it is being used for Avatar) has been arround for decades as well (it just got rediscovered now and improved in details).
In regards to space tech: It took 20 years to go from the first manned rocket to the space shuttle. Then development pretty much stopped.
When the DC-X was flying for the first time, it looked like something better was "just arround the corner". It never happened. Today, 20 years after the DC-X, we are actually going back to ELVs for manned space transport. Even if one can argue that this is not a step back (the shuttle cost more than an ELV), it is definitely not progress either.
So what is the problem?
One explanation could be that technology has become to complicated. A single man was able to build and understand every piece of technology in a WW1 plane. No man in the world can do everything that is needed to build a modern airliner like the A 380. Maybe that has to do with it? I am not sure. Are we so overwhelmed by the details that big progress has become impossible?
But maybe it is not that? Maybe we are missing some piece of key technology which would be required to make everything else work?
Power sources come to my mind, e.g.
A technology like polywell would be a game changer, it would enable, faster and bigger airplanes, better space transport, etc.
Is it just that? If so, maybe it is time that all the industries that are currently stuck, take a step back and invest and I mean invest big time into research projects like polywell.
Of course there are other technologies that are even further out there, like ML thrusters (though they would probably only affect the transport sector, not a small one by any means, but not big either).
Is it that? Are we missing those technological breakthroughs that would allow us to reach the next level?
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blaisepascal
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You want bigger, faster passenger jets. We could build bigger, faster passenger jets. But who will pay for them?Skipjack wrote:Simon, I do not think that this problem is (solely) political. The A 380 is among the most modern airplanes arround and it was built in Europe, where government involvement is even worse than in the US...
I don't believe that the Concorde was ever profitable, and it was built and flown more for nationalism than for practical purposes. A monument to the greatness of Britain and France. I'm sure that if Pan-American or Trans-World Airlines had ever gone to Boeing, McDonald-Douglass, Lockheed or Martin Marietta and said "We want a transcontinental supersonic passenger liner to rival the Concorde" then there would have been one developed and sold. But it would be expensive to design, expensive to make, expensive to buy, and expensive to run. I'm confident the reason one doesn't exist is because no potential customers have expressed a serious demand.
Humanoid robots: First, it turns out that humanoid robots are a lot harder than they initially appeared (this is true for a lot of stuff which appeared in SF in the 50's and 60's). Bipedal balance and walking is *hard*, it only seems easy because our brains are hardwired for it. If you want to see what is state of the art in terms of walking robots, take a look at the Big Dog.
But more importantly, what can a humanoid robot do to justify the cost of development? There are plenty of robots out there, and only animatronics and showpieces are humanoid shaped. It's generally easier and more cost effective to use robots shaped for the task.
How cheap would a humanoid robot have to be to be cost effective to send it shopping?
It's fair to say that we haven't gotten a lot of stuff that SF and futurists said we were "supposed to have". That includes holographic TVs, jet packs, etc. Part of that is that they were optimistic, part unrealistic, and in part they didn't think through the implications. I think it's fabulous that the SF of our youth turned us on to technology and gave us hope for the future, but it's unrealistic to hold that vision as a promise.
The DC-X was a prototype designed to drum up funding for the rest of the program it was the prototype for. There weren't any buyers. That doesn't mean that it wasn't goo technology, but that no one wanted to pay for it.
No single man would build and understand every piece of technology in a WWII plane, and I doubt that a single man built and understood every piece of technology on the USS Maine -- certainly not well enough to put a lot of space between the coal and ammunition bunkers.
So what is the problem?
One explanation could be that technology has become to complicated. A single man was able to build and understand every piece of technology in a WW1 plane. No man in the world can do everything that is needed to build a modern airliner like the A 380. Maybe that has to do with it? I am not sure. Are we so overwhelmed by the details that big progress has become impossible?
It was not profitable, but tehe 747 was very profitable and where is the follow up to that?I don't believe that the Concorde was ever profitable
Also, I think that with the technological progress that was expected at the time, there could have been profitable successors. But that is what I mean, there was none there, because the technology was not there.
Yes, I know that it is hard. 30 years hard? With the progress we have had in microprocessors? I am not so sure. Also, we do have some robots by Honda and Sony. They do pretty well, but they have been arround for a while now too and they still walk funny. They have progressed a lot less than the CPUs have that power their brains. Why?Bipedal balance and walking is *hard*, it only seems easy because our brains are hardwired for it. If you want to see what is state of the art in terms of walking robots, take a look at the Big Dog.
Well, holograms have been arround for more than 30, much more. But somehow they are a dead end, or so.That includes holographic TVs, jet packs, etc. Part of that is that they were optimistic, part unrealistic, and in part they didn't think through the implications.
I always thought that jetpacks were rather silly. Biggest problem with them is that they are darn hard to fly.
I am not talking about science fiction. I am talking about magazines that were at least trying to be "realistic". Magazines comparable to Popular Mechanics, or Scientific American which even has a German version.It's fair to say that we haven't gotten a lot of stuff that SF and futurists said we were "supposed to have".
That is not really what I would call sci fi.
Note quite correct:The DC-X was a prototype designed to drum up funding for the rest of the program it was the prototype for. There weren't any buyers.
http://www.all-science-fair-projects.co ... pedia/DC-X
I think you are referring to the X33, which was more in that direction (Venture Star). Unfortunately NASA had cancelled the DC-X programme in favor of the X33, which was again cancelled due to NASA management problems and cost overruns thanks to a cost plus funding model.
I said WW1, not WW2. WW2 planes were a lot more complicated, but I could imagine there to be some experts that could understand every aspect of it (but not build it, since the tooling would have been to complicated).No single man would build and understand every piece of technology in a WWII plane
I agree on the biotech point.
The change in what computers are and how they are used between about 1970 and now is absolutely profound. The fact that we can use them as toys would blow the mind of anyone from the 50's. They would know what a computer is, but never guess how small, cheap, and taken-for-granted they are, or how powerful the entry level machines are.
But biotech ... in 1970 we could not read the genetic code. We've had the entire human genome sequenced for what, over a decade now? We can sequence the DNA of a 4000 year old corpse and determine that he was short, had brown eyes, tended to go bald, and his closest relatives outside Greenland were from Siberia. I mean, darn!
We can spot genetic diseases. Pretty soon we will be routinely treating them based on a reading of the genes responsible, with targeted therapies.
We will crack aging. We're not ready for the consequences.
Basically, there is no technology with more potential for good and ill than biotech, and the advancements are largely underappreciated by most people.
The change in what computers are and how they are used between about 1970 and now is absolutely profound. The fact that we can use them as toys would blow the mind of anyone from the 50's. They would know what a computer is, but never guess how small, cheap, and taken-for-granted they are, or how powerful the entry level machines are.
But biotech ... in 1970 we could not read the genetic code. We've had the entire human genome sequenced for what, over a decade now? We can sequence the DNA of a 4000 year old corpse and determine that he was short, had brown eyes, tended to go bald, and his closest relatives outside Greenland were from Siberia. I mean, darn!
We can spot genetic diseases. Pretty soon we will be routinely treating them based on a reading of the genes responsible, with targeted therapies.
We will crack aging. We're not ready for the consequences.
Basically, there is no technology with more potential for good and ill than biotech, and the advancements are largely underappreciated by most people.
Biotech is going to be for the next 4 decades that semiconductors was for the past 4. Progress is very rapid in this field:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/03/microf ... times.html
Current developments in life extension:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/03/life-e ... undup.html
DIY Biotechnology:
http://www.synthesis.cc/2010/03/garage- ... alley.html
Synthetic biology:
http://diybio.org/
http://openwetware.org/wiki/Main_Page
DIY biology is cheaper than building your own polywell device.
It is true that things have slowed down, particularly with regards to jet planes and the like. However, I think progress in bio-science will be very rapid and dramatic over the next few decades. My number one personal objective (other than to make a lot of $$$) is to get cured of aging. Fortunately, many of the biohackers I know of want to cure aging as well. I know a lot of bio-science people who consider the aging process to be public enemy number one and want to cure it.
Then there are the funky physics wild cards of Mach-Lorentz thrusters and Heim drive.
There is, of course, the IEC polywell, which is why we are all here in these discussion groups, assuming it actually works as advertised. If not, the Gen IV/V nuclear fission plants are likely our energy future, which can be considered incremental improvements over current fission plants.
Biotechnology is real and will be dramatic in the future. The rest of the "singularity" concept is a load of hype.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/03/microf ... times.html
Current developments in life extension:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/03/life-e ... undup.html
DIY Biotechnology:
http://www.synthesis.cc/2010/03/garage- ... alley.html
Synthetic biology:
http://diybio.org/
http://openwetware.org/wiki/Main_Page
DIY biology is cheaper than building your own polywell device.
It is true that things have slowed down, particularly with regards to jet planes and the like. However, I think progress in bio-science will be very rapid and dramatic over the next few decades. My number one personal objective (other than to make a lot of $$$) is to get cured of aging. Fortunately, many of the biohackers I know of want to cure aging as well. I know a lot of bio-science people who consider the aging process to be public enemy number one and want to cure it.
Then there are the funky physics wild cards of Mach-Lorentz thrusters and Heim drive.
There is, of course, the IEC polywell, which is why we are all here in these discussion groups, assuming it actually works as advertised. If not, the Gen IV/V nuclear fission plants are likely our energy future, which can be considered incremental improvements over current fission plants.
Biotechnology is real and will be dramatic in the future. The rest of the "singularity" concept is a load of hype.
I worked on some bits for the A320. Europe accepts FAA regulation as valid for their aircraft. Basically it is all one big regime when it comes to aircraft.Simon, I do not think that this problem is (solely) political. The A 380 is among the most modern airplanes arround and it was built in Europe, where government involvement is even worse than in the US...
It works tolerably well. Aircraft do not fall out of the sky often. But it is also the sign of a mature field where the rules on how to get the requisite quality are known.
If you want to do experimental work you can get an experimental license where the rules are less constraining. It has led to some incremental improvements. Canard control came back into vogue due to experimentals and wing tip devices to increase lift came out of that milieu.
But the rules - for housing say - are not forward looking and rather than being determined by agency regulations which might change as new materials and methods are developed they are written into law. And that is harder to change. Especially with 10,000 jurisdictions.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
In 1975 the hackers who were working on small computers could see a day when computers would be used in toasters - a marketing gimmick. And derided that. Now they are used in toasters and it is not even remarked on. Why? The added cost is really low.Tom Ligon wrote:I agree on the biotech point.
The change in what computers are and how they are used between about 1970 and now is absolutely profound. The fact that we can use them as toys would blow the mind of anyone from the 50's. They would know what a computer is, but never guess how small, cheap, and taken-for-granted they are, or how powerful the entry level machines are.
But biotech ... in 1970 we could not read the genetic code. We've had the entire human genome sequenced for what, over a decade now? We can sequence the DNA of a 4000 year old corpse and determine that he was short, had brown eyes, tended to go bald, and his closest relatives outside Greenland were from Siberia. I mean, darn!
We can spot genetic diseases. Pretty soon we will be routinely treating them based on a reading of the genes responsible, with targeted therapies.
We will crack aging. We're not ready for the consequences.
Basically, there is no technology with more potential for good and ill than biotech, and the advancements are largely underappreciated by most people.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Hardware is not the problem. The problem is software. And the software just for crossing the street is really really hard.But for some reason, there are still no humanoid robots roaming the streets, doing our shopping for us.
As to holographic TV. It may be a while. But the problem of cost is really really hard. 3D TV is just coming on the market and shipments will reach the millions per year in the next two or three years. In 20 years it will be a commodity.
The problem there is cameras, bandwidth, and displays. And "without glasses" displays are really hard. A related problem is that how you handle a camera for 3D is very different than how you do exciting 2D. For exciting 2D you do lots of cuts and fades and panning. For 3D a well positioned stationary camera seems better.
When you have to change lots of things to make something better it takes a while to roll out the infrastructure.
Polywell is nice because it is a "plug in" solution. You just change power plants. You don't have to change the grid and retrain the meter readers.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
My father was a radar technician in WW2 - turned me onto SF when I was 6 with the Lensman series. He worked out at White Sands Missile Range, where they had a ballistics calculator with 2k of ferrite core memory. He never though much of personal computers - when they came out in the 'late 70s, early '80s, he though of them as toys... and when you went into a computer shop in the early '80s, that's about all you saw. He was amazed when the Osborne's came out and I brought one home, but he didn't see any general utility in it.
When I got out of the AF in '84, he was amazed that I could make a fair living as a computer technician. He never saw any real reason to get one himself - but he got a used 8086 Leading Edge with 256k ram around 1995 to tinker with. He got his money's worth out of it - he paid $15 at a garage sale for that and a printer - but the printer was junk. He had a bit of fun with it, sold it for the same price he bought it.
They sold their house, moved out here into an assisted living facility. I gave him a used laptop with WinXP, and he fiddled with it for a while when he wasn't taking care of my mother. He liked the concept of ebooks - and I passed him a number of ebooks from the Baen free library. (He still likes paper books!)
They moved to a different assisted living facility with wifi, and I've gotten him on-line after swapping out the used laptop for a more capable used desktop system with more ram and a larger hard drive. He sees the utility of computer networks, he's enjoying being able to explore the web, and now that I've gotten him a subscription to Netflix, he's streaming movies and picking out DVDs.
And my son got an IPod Touch - father just shakes his head. It's hard believing at times that the Ipod is a distant relative of that ballistics calculator in the 50s. It's pretty much a toy - more capable than anything imaginable back in the day.
What toys will my son be giving his kid in a couple of decades?
When I got out of the AF in '84, he was amazed that I could make a fair living as a computer technician. He never saw any real reason to get one himself - but he got a used 8086 Leading Edge with 256k ram around 1995 to tinker with. He got his money's worth out of it - he paid $15 at a garage sale for that and a printer - but the printer was junk. He had a bit of fun with it, sold it for the same price he bought it.
They sold their house, moved out here into an assisted living facility. I gave him a used laptop with WinXP, and he fiddled with it for a while when he wasn't taking care of my mother. He liked the concept of ebooks - and I passed him a number of ebooks from the Baen free library. (He still likes paper books!)
They moved to a different assisted living facility with wifi, and I've gotten him on-line after swapping out the used laptop for a more capable used desktop system with more ram and a larger hard drive. He sees the utility of computer networks, he's enjoying being able to explore the web, and now that I've gotten him a subscription to Netflix, he's streaming movies and picking out DVDs.
And my son got an IPod Touch - father just shakes his head. It's hard believing at times that the Ipod is a distant relative of that ballistics calculator in the 50s. It's pretty much a toy - more capable than anything imaginable back in the day.
What toys will my son be giving his kid in a couple of decades?
Last edited by JLawson on Tue Mar 16, 2010 2:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
When opinion and reality conflict - guess which one is going to win in the long run.
MSimon wrote: When you have to change lots of things to make something better it takes a while to roll out the infrastructure.
Polywell is nice because it is a "plug in" solution. You just change power plants. You don't have to change the grid and retrain the meter readers.
If Polywell works out right - and well - wouldn't it be interesting if the model for electricity goes the same way as bandwidth? Pay $75 a month to the electric company for, say, the first 500 MW? It wouldn't be electricity too cheap to meter - but it'd be nice to get it so cheap it wouldn't be worth sending meter readers around.
When opinion and reality conflict - guess which one is going to win in the long run.
I wonder how much it would cost to build and test a Heim table-top test stand unit. The high magnetic field variety.kurt9 wrote:Then there are the funky physics wild cards of Mach-Lorentz thrusters and Heim drive.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/10/60-tes ... would.html
Someone in the vein of Paul March is needed to see if that hypothesis is complete bollocks, or has merit.
Vae Victis
True, I do also agree on the biotech point. That was a good one. Though one has to admit that Watson and Cricks discovery of the genome has been quite a while ago also. The newer, faster and most of all cheaper gene sequencing has only become possible with faster computers. I predicted that development 20 years ago and was laughed at. Turns out I was more than right 
Still that field has more benefited from the faster microeletronics than other fields have.
As another example for slow developments, I am wondering though, why super conductor reasearch has been so dreadfully slow? Again, first read about the potential 30 years ago and while there has been progress, there is still noone who can store the power for a city like Frankfurt in a 3 m^3 room as was predicted by some scientists back then. Not even close...
To bad, that would really be a big leap foreward.
Still that field has more benefited from the faster microeletronics than other fields have.
As another example for slow developments, I am wondering though, why super conductor reasearch has been so dreadfully slow? Again, first read about the potential 30 years ago and while there has been progress, there is still noone who can store the power for a city like Frankfurt in a 3 m^3 room as was predicted by some scientists back then. Not even close...
To bad, that would really be a big leap foreward.