Originally posted by: Uhtrinity
Most of my students, mainly the 5th - 8th graders take all the technology they have for granted. So I have made it a point to include as much computer history in my computer lab as possible. I also make use of 20 - 30 year old dinosaurs (computers and parts) as visual aides. Most are literally astonished that we didn't always have 3d video games and the internet and that it has become big within their lifetimes.
One of my professors will often talk about "the bad old days" of CAD software. He said that the first time he and his colleagues saw 3D solid modeling software demo'd to them, "it was like, the absolute greatest thing we'd ever seen." Another professor talks about ANSYS, back before it was 3D, or even 2D, when it was just commandlines and text, and how you'd have to let it do any analysis overnight.
Now we have 3D modeling software that can handle various physical interactions, that can do curves reasonably well, and which is run on hardware so very much faster than anything available 20 years ago. Last semester, my electronics professor talked about early cellphones, the enormous things, complete with the extendable antenna.
Originally posted by: ZzZGuy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a particle accelerator and hadron collider located at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland ( [show location on an interactive map] 46°14'N, 6°03'E). Currently under construction, the LHC is scheduled to begin operation in May 2008.[1][2] The LHC is expected to become the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator.[3] The LHC is being funded and built in collaboration with over two thousand physicists from thirty-four countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories. When activated, it is theorized that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson, the observation of which could confirm the predictions and 'missing links' in the Standard Model of physics and could explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass.[4][3] The verification of the existence of the Higgs boson would be a significant step in the search for a Grand Unified Theory, which seeks to unify three of the four fundamental forces: electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force. The Higgs boson may also help to explain why the remaining force, gravitation, is so weak compared to the other three forces. In addition to the Higgs boson, other theorized novel particles that might be produced, and for which searches[5] are planned, include strangelets, micro black holes, magnetic monopoles and supersymmetric particles[6].
The collider is contained in a circular tunnel with a circumference of 26.659 kilometres (16.5 miles), at a depth ranging from 50 to 175 metres underground
They don't actually know what is going to happen, just theories like when they detonated the first atomic bomb. If it all works and nothing happens then everything we know about physics is wrong.
-edit- looking back on the OP, i see this is not quite what he meant. But still very neat.
I do love seeing stuff like this. Big projects just for the sake of learning about the Universe. I wish I could see hundreds of years into the future, to see, and quantify, just how little we still know right now. And then forward a few thousand years, to see how little was known in the previous instance of the future. We've come so far so quickly, yet we've only scratched the surface of the cover of the book which shows have far we have to go.
Originally posted by: Rainsford
The problem with technology prediction is that people aren't very imaginative. They have trouble imagining truly new ideas, so instead they basically take existing ideas and try to "futureize" them. This results in expectations of "advances" like flying cars, while far more useful things like the Internet come out of nowhere and transform society in ways that the predictions would not. People are disappointed because they are looking for advancements in the wrong place. But if they really thought about it, I don't think they'd be so disappointed. I mean think about it, we've gone from basically doing everything with paper and pencil to having a practically unlimited capability to store and process information. That is an astounding advancement in the last few decades, next to that flying cars are mundane elements of mediocre science fiction.
It's also a matter of what the public is willing to accept, or what the public
can accept. If someone did invent a flying car tomorrow that could be built for $200, and ran on plain gasoline, what would happen? There'd probably be a rash of fatal accidents, and meanwhile the airlines would either just turn tail and shut down, or else sue someone to try to stay afloat somehow. Acts of terrorism (or just vandalism) would suddenly be much easier, as anyone could fly anywhere easily and cheaply. Would the world be ready for it?
The "smart cars" are another example, at least in the US. Though most of them don't have the mileage they really should (they're tiny, and light, why do some of them have the mileage of a 4-door sedan?), it's a fine concept: a small, enclosed vehicle to transport a person to and from work. Too often they get laughed at for their appearance. Let's say they'd get 100mpg. They'd still get laughed at for how they look, regardless of their efficiency.
Or, using a sillier example, painting your car hot pink will increase its mileage to 100mpg. How many men would do it?
Technology influences where society goes, and society influences where technology goes. Try to maintain the status quo, and that's just what you'll get - more of the same. Push the status quo too much, and you'll get opposition from those who oppose change.
), so you might have to come here and pick it up yourself. So much for progress, huh.
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