Electricity was probably the most important discovery to come out of the 18th century. It's arguable that the steam engine was the most important development during the 19th century. The internal combustion engine and the transistor vie for the most important inventions of the 20th century.

Considering such things as universality of application to everyday life, what do you think could come out of the 21st century?

Far too early to tell, but technology is forging ahead at such an unprecedented pace that many wonderful and maybe not so wonderful things could emerge during the course of the century.

Today it was announced that British scientists have created 'artificial life'... (BBC news) this is potentially the beginning of something huge and unfathomable!

I think the greatest changes to our way of life will come about with the evolution of robots, AI, cloning, nanotech, and brain chips, but the potential for new technologies, especially stuff created in zero gravity (space) and their uses is still daunting for us early centurians.

The way I'm seeing things right now is that SF is quickly catching up with reality.

Where is Jules Verne when we need him? And maybe it's reality catching up with SciFi.

The proliferation of fully automated tech. Factories that don't need anybody to operate them. Autodocs. Self perpetuating iron mines.

While there may (or may not) be many amazing innovations of the coming century, there are a few that must occur in order for the others to have any real meaning.

#1. A new source of energy. Clean and abundant. We are already feeling the pinch of a declining oil-based culture (even if much of the 'pinch' is still artificial and solely intended to line the pockets of oil moguls.) The fact is that oil will run out. There are theories that oil is in fact renewable as some of the older oil fields seem to be 'refilling', but they are hardly doing so at a rate which would continue to support the needs of our energy culture, let alone the needs of a coming culture that can only increase in energy demands (although, see #2 below.) There is also a method in the works of turning organic waste into oil. It's still in the beginning stages and is yet to be seen if turkey guts will lead to the salvation of oil culture.

#2. Increase energy efficiency. If a suitable energy source is not discovered, then perhaps we can learn to use the fuel that we now have more efficiently. Hybrid cars, increased efficiency at power plants, superconductor technology, etc...

#3. An efficient means of interplanetary (and even interstellar) travel. Let's face it, the Earth is overpopulated as it is, if something isn't done to start off-loading courageous frontier-type people to the stars and planets, then we're going to be facing wars for territory the likes of which have never been seen.

#4. An effective means of population control. If emmigration is not possible, then the out of control population explosion must be by brought under control. There are more people alive today than lived in the entire history of mankind. And, more are born everyday. And people are living longer. China has already faced this reality and will likely soon reap the rewards of their one-child policy as their population drastically reduces. The rest of the world must follow this example of population control. Sure, they've got their problems (infanticide, corruption, etc...), but what they've done is practically unprecedented on such a large scale. Here we are in the 21st century and there are still primitive mind-sets that ban contraception for religious purposes. This is too much. Much too much.

#5. Terraforming technology. Hand in hand with #3. If man is to spread from the planet Earth to colonize the universe then he must be able to adapt ecosystems found along the way to one which can support Terran life. At the least a vast improvement in self-sustaining biosphere technology is needed.

#6. Genetic manipulation towards colonization. This one's tricky and fraught with peril. But, perhaps the best means of colonizing space is not to adapt space to us, but adapt ourselves to space (other environments that is.) As I've said, this is tricky and has numerous dangers attached to it. I don't think I need to go into them here.

#7. A four-assed baboon. This one is self-evident and needs no explanation.


Anything else? Oh yeah. I could probably go on all day with this. But, I think you get the point and I've said enough here. In the long run, those things which overcome the greatest limitations of our day will be viewed as the 'best' of the 21st century. However, we should keep in mind that with the ever-increasing rate of technological innovation, it's quite possible that we may solve our present problems and run into a whole new crop several times in the next century. In which case, the best of the best must be decided upon. And only hindsight will be able to determine that. We can hardly begin to conceive the problems that our 'solutions' may bring about.

Jules Verne and H.G. Wells had it easy. They still lived in a society in which the ancients could find correlations. True their were amazing things also, but compared to the rate of change since then, they might as well have been Babylonians.

And, I doubt if anyone would say that the submarine was the best of the 20th century (overlooking the fact that it in fact existed in the 19th century.) Would you?

Tivo

#2. Increase energy efficiency. If a suitable energy source is not discovered, then perhaps we can learn to use the fuel that we now have more efficiently. Hybrid cars, increased efficiency at power plants, superconductor technology, etc...

More aerodynamic vehicles would do it. They have bikes (the kind you pedal) that go more than 80 mph because they've reduced wind resistance so much. At 20 mph on a normal bike, 9/10 of the energy goes into fighting drag.

So if we had super lightweight aerodynamic cars, we could get way better mileage. The only problem is when someone runs into a super lightweight car with their 2 ton Suburban, everything goes to hell. In little fiber glass splinters.

So we just build roads (lightweight ones) on top of the old ones. All the old gas guzzling steel clunkers can drive on the bottom, and the lightweight fiberglass things can drive on the top.

Did you mention Submarines, invert_nexus? I thought they ran on diesel since before WWI, or mostly nuclear power now. A good list, but you forgot edible yams!

I think energy and food supply would top the list.

I think bigger in essence than even those above will be AI. Why? Once machine intelligence reaches the point where it is well beyond our own human intelligence, machines will solve numerous problems for us, and do all the inventing for us. They would also of course take over the development of increasingly superior AI. When all this occurs, the pace of tech development will make todays look snail like.

Also with this AI attached directly to the human brain, life will really change!


Lava