The Exponential Growth in Science & Technology

[wolfrayet]

I would be interested to here some of your thoughts on the following questions please.

Is it me or are we moving faster in terms of Scientific discoveries than ever before?

Is the Internet responsible for the exponential growth through information/communication or generally the digital age as a whole?

Looking at the discoveries in astronomy/cosmology in just the past 10 years for example - what sort of information do you think will we be pulling in 10 years from now - in fact where do you see technology & information about the Universe in 10 years from now?

Are we really privileged to be living right here right now on the brink of collosal discoveries about who we are & where we're from?

 

[lrkun]

Re: The Exponential growth in Science & Tech discoveries

I would be interested to here some of your thoughts on the following questions please.

Is it me or are we moving faster in terms of Scientific discoveries than ever before?

Is the Internet responsible for the exponential growth through information/communication or generally the digital age as a whole?

Looking at the discoveries in astronomy/cosmology in just the past 10 years for example - what sort of information do you think will we be pulling in 10 years from now - in fact where do you see technology & information about the Universe in 10 years from now?

Are we really privileged to be living right here right now on the brink of collosal discoveries about who we are & where we're from?

We are privileged. Chances are we could never have been born, or if born, maybe sometime in the past or in the future. At this moment, I can see this as the top of man's achievement, but if I were born in the future or in the past, I would probably still hold the same opinion and be biased about said timeline.

10 years from now is not something that I can really imagine, because I'm one that lives the moment. Just now, but if I am to imagine, I think it we'd be more accurate in terms of data gathering and analysis.

Internet is responsible for a lot of good and bad things, it includes good information among the trash. The hard part is looking for treasure amidst the trash.

Yes, we are moving faster in terms of scientific discoveries, because there is a demand for such.

-oOo-

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Re: The Exponential growth in Science & Tech discoveries

Some people think this growth is exponential but I think it's asymptotic!

 

[Ozymandyus]

Re: The Exponential growth in Science & Tech discoveries

Some people think this growth is exponential but I think it's asymptotic!

So what, you think we will reach some point where we will know everything there is to know, and then time will end?

 

[Unwardil]

Re: The Exponential growth in Science & Tech discoveries

I'll borrow a term from the science of discworld: Extelligence. That is to say, all the knowledge that is stored outside your brain. Books, math, anything that communicates an idea which can be stored for future generations or just other people to learn.

As I see it, the growth in technology has always been linked to two elements. The ability of a culture to produce extelligence and the availability of that extelligence to a wide number of people. The more writing and the more freely available that information is, the faster technology is going to spread.

Now, there are several factors at the moment which are at unprecedented levels.

First off is that english is more or less the common language of the developed world. There are very few people in the G8 nations who don't at least poses nearly conversational english. This means that anything written in english can be broadly understood, same goes with math as most people are quite comfortable with basic math. (Note, I'm not giving english any particular merit here, aside from the fact that it is very popular)

Second is the internet, obviously a great resource of information, but more than that, it makes it very easy to find what you're looking for. Before the internet, if you wanted a specific book and it wasn't available where you lived, it was a massive inconvenience to go out and get it. Now, it's a google search away.

Lastly, with digital memory, it has become incredibly cheap to store information. Books are not cheap to make. They're very costly to make, what with all the paper and the printing presses, but now, information can be stored and published electronically so that anyone who owns a computer can access it.

So Extelligence is more plentiful than it's ever been, it's available to more people than it's ever been and it's easier to access it than it's ever been. Hence the near cubic rate of information and technological growth.

 

[Nelson]

Re: The Exponential growth in Science & Tech discoveries

Some people think this growth is exponential but I think it's asymptotic!

So what, you think we will reach some point where we will know everything there is to know, and then time will end?

I agree with Ozy here. If time is the x-axis and technology (or knowledge or whatever similar concept you like) is the y-axis, it doesn't make any sense to hit a vertical asymptote. If you are talking about a horizontal asymptote, then this works, but the implication is that we will hit some "knowledge ceiling" beyond which we can't progress so we will just slowly level off.

I think exponential growth is the correct model for technology in general. The idea of a technological singularity is very relevant to this discussion if people haven't heard of this idea before. The catalyst being either AI or brain-computer interfacing that creates new consciousnesses that are more intelligent than their creators.

Example: If I can design an interface that lets me directly interface with a computer to access large amounts of data and process my thoughts faster, then my new more intelligent self should be able to design an even more efficient interface, and so on. Whether this is how such developments will really occur remains to be seen, but I think it is a pretty cool idea regardless, and makes for some interesting sci-fi.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Re: The Exponential growth in Science & Tech discoveries

Some people think this growth is exponential but I think it's asymptotic!

So what, you think we will reach some point where we will know everything there is to know, and then time will end?

I think it will grow without end until it suddenly becomes undefined!

I make no guarantees as to what knowledge will be like after the ascention...

 

[Sparky]

Re: The Exponential growth in Science & Tech discoveries

Is it me or are we moving faster in terms of Scientific discoveries than ever before?

For sure we are. The (relatively) huge computing power today enables us to perform simulations/experiments that even 10 years ago would have been impossible or perhaps possible only on a supercomputer. The rate at which computer power increases constantly too because having faster computers allows us to design even faster computers - it's a great cycle

Is the Internet responsible for the exponential growth through information/communication or generally the digital age as a whole?

The digital age as a whole I would say - but one cannot neglect the importance of information sharing in the increase in scientific discoveries.

Looking at the discoveries in astronomy/cosmology in just the past 10 years for example - what sort of information do you think will we be pulling in 10 years from now - in fact where do you see technology & information about the Universe in 10 years from now?

Hard to say. Depends on the resources dedicated to the area.

Are we really privileged to be living right here right now on the brink of collosal discoveries about who we are & where we're from?

Well we already have a pretty good idea of who we are and where we come from - unless you are referring to the origins of the Universe in which case it is a real stretch to say that we are on the brink of discovering anything particularly huge. But yes I think these times are exciting scientifically in general and that we are lucky.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Re: The Exponential growth in Science & Tech discoveries

For sure we are. The (relatively) huge computing power today enables us to perform simulations/experiments that even 10 years ago would have been impossible or perhaps possible only on a supercomputer. The rate at which computer power increases constantly too because having faster computers allows us to design even faster computers - it's a great cycle

Conversely, if all the computers in the world were to suddenly break down, we couldn't just build another one because even building a computer requires a computer. We'd have to start from scratch and build a very primitive computer by hand and write very primitive software so we can make better software and better computers and bootstrap ourselves back into the information age...

Is the Internet responsible for the exponential growth through information/communication or generally the digital age as a whole?

The digital age as a whole I would say - but one cannot neglect the importance of information sharing in the increase in scientific discoveries.

In all seriousness, I would say that language, especially in its written form, and the scientific method are the cause of accelerated knowledge. Language allows knowledge to be preserved and not forgotten, even across generations. The scientific method allows the correctness of knowledge to strictly improve instead of allowing the adoption of new but false beliefs. The more you know, the more you know to examine and this feedback loop causes the acceleration of knowledge...

 

[wolfrayet]

Re: The Exponential growth in Science & Tech discoveries

In all seriousness, I would say that language, especially in its written form, and the scientific method are the cause of accelerated knowledge. Language allows knowledge to be preserved and not forgotten, even across generations. The scientific method allows the correctness of knowledge to strictly improve instead of allowing the adoption of new but false beliefs. The more you know, the more you know to examine and this feedback loop causes the acceleration of knowledge...

Aye, but surley t'internet is souly responsible for the acceleration we see now in the Scientific method & Knowledge?

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Re: The Exponential growth in Science & Tech discoveries

Aye, but surley t'internet is souly responsible for the acceleration we see now in the Scientific method & Knowledge?

Not at all...

First, the scientific method hasn't been accelerating. It's merely a method and has been relatively the same for a while now... maybe even a couple of centuries...

Second, knowledge has been accelerating but it has been doing so long before the internets. It facilitates communication, which is nice, but time spent doing so is relatively small compared to the time spent on actual experimentation and just plain thinking!

Again, the acceleration is caused by the monotonic nature of current knowledge, made possible by language and the scientific method, and how knowledge branches into more knowledge. The more you know, the more you know to investigate and those investigations will produce more knowledge and the cycle continues.

To put this very abstractly, imagine that you can quantify knowledge with a simple number starting with 1. An investigation of some questions of this one unit of knowledge can produce another piece of knowledge so you'd then have 2 units of knowledge. Now you can investigate these two units and produce another two units, making four units in total. You can continue this process and note that the second derivative of this function is greater than zero so this accumulation can be described as accelerating...

 

[wolfrayet]

Re: The Exponential growth in Science & Tech discoveries

First, the scientific method hasn't been accelerating. It's merely a method and has been relatively the same for a while now... maybe even a couple of centuries...
Second, knowledge has been accelerating but it has been doing so long before the internets. It facilitates communication, which is nice, but time spent doing so is relatively small compared to the time spent on actual experimentation and just plain thinking!

What I mean by accelerating is that the rate of which our knowledge has 'evolved' has increased since the internet has been available, through ease of finding reference data for example - much quicker therefore, speeding the whole process.

To put this very abstractly, imagine that you can quantify knowledge with a simple number starting with 1. An investigation of some questions of this one unit of knowledge can produce another piece of knowledge so you'd then have 2 units of knowledge. Now you can investigate these two units and produce another two units, making four units in total. You can continue this process and note that the second derivative of this function is greater than zero so this accumulation can be described as accelerating...

That's fine but many modern problems are resistant to traditional scientific inquiry & again with ease of access to information/models/ref data then the internet's use has helped propell what would have been seen as normal growth of yesteryear? (I hope that makes sense)

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

I have to fundamentaly disagree with all this. This is a myth, an ilusion created by the fact that we know more now then what we knew before.
To say that an exponential function is an acurrate model to describe the scientifc development is nonsense to say at least:
Firstly because you can't really measure in a objective quantitative maner the bulk of human knowledge.
Secondly because the growth of human knowledge isn't done continuously over time, it is generaly done in alternative periods of "breaktroughs with a large development" with periods of "stagnations and the persuit of many dead ends".
Thirdly because in the last 15 years there hasn't been a large a development as there has been in other periods of the 20th century.

That may have apeared to be so several years ago because several years back still there has been a cultural revolution and science had become extremely popular. This not only allowed to apearence of a larger amount of competent researchers capable to develop work on a much broader field of competences, plus add the fact that back then science wasn't developed as much as it is now and so there was a extremely fertile land for which researchers could have developed their fields with great lenhts without putting to much of a fight. To think that you can get away like this indefinitively is just not living on reality.
Now a days the next breaktrough is much more complicated to achieve then the previous. A sucessfull ressearcher is lucky to have made a significant breaktrough about a very restricted and specific range of components, back then we had fields completly made out of the work of 2 or 3 persons. Plus the number of researchers in several fields have maintained quite at a stamble number.
Researchers are people to, they have to grow up, get educated, find funding and go trough the same grinding process of following dead ends until it gets something right. Perhaps we will make another breaktrough if we are capable of devoloping true AI's (because they have the potentialy to be less limited then us), but it is a unfounded and wrong claim that an AI will be able to indefinitively developed a more efficient AI. I bet most of you still remember the time when you bough a top end computer and a year later it was almost crap and you tough it would allways be like this. Well look at how things are now and tell me what major development has happen in terms of computing capacity in the last years. It has developed yes, but a top end computer from 4 years ago is still close to the tipity top.


The internet hasn't made any significant contribution to the growth of knowledge at all, much less be a major drive for development. The computer (not the internet) has made a valuable contribution in the sense that with it we were able to crank a large body of information in a couple of weeks that otherwise would take a life time to preform (with many mistakes, for something most of the time doesn't really aid you much). The internet at best allowed the fast share of information with different researching cores across the globe (that could have been done with an hardrive troughmail) but mostly allowed easy acess of information to the layman. And it is in the layman prespective that the internet has boomed the worlds knowledge, because now they have acess that was previously only contained in books and mostly acessible to an academic educated person.
The internet isn't this super inteligent entity that knows everything, the internet only "knows" what people want to share, someone that knows that stuff outside the internet had to put it there for it to be there, and contrary to popular belief the majority of the scientifc knowledge isn't pratical to find on the internet (you can only get a glimps of it). And the work still exclusively being done ofline, or do you think that the you can discover room temperature superconductors on the intenet? Or the cure for aids? Or the yet unkonw propreties of the universe?

Ad it does increasingly worry me that people are atributing great significance to things that are not due.

 

[wolfrayet]

I have to fundamentaly disagree with all this. This is a myth, an ilusion created by the fact that we know more now then what we knew before.
To say that an exponential function is an acurrate model to describe the scientifc development is nonsense to say at least:
Firstly because you can't really measure in a objective quantitative maner the bulk of human knowledge.
Secondly because the growth of human knowledge isn't done continuously over time, it is generaly done in alternative periods of "breaktroughs with a large development" with periods of "stagnations and the persuit of many dead ends".
Thirdly because in the last 15 years there hasn't been a large a development as there has been in other periods of the 20th century.

That may have apeared to be so several years ago because several years back still there has been a cultural revolution and science had become extremely popular. This not only allowed to apearence of a larger amount of competent researchers capable to develop work on a much broader field of competences, plus add the fact that back then science wasn't developed as much as it is now and so there was a extremely fertile land for which researchers could have developed their fields with great lenhts without putting to much of a fight. To think that you can get away like this indefinitively is just not living on reality.
Now a days the next breaktrough is much more complicated to achieve then the previous. A sucessfull ressearcher is lucky to have made a significant breaktrough about a very restricted and specific range of components, back then we had fields completly made out of the work of 2 or 3 persons. Plus the number of researchers in several fields have maintained quite at a stamble number.
Researchers are people to, they have to grow up, get educated, find funding and go trough the same grinding process of following dead ends until it gets something right. Perhaps we will make another breaktrough if we are capable of devoloping true AI's (because they have the potentialy to be less limited then us), but it is a unfounded and wrong claim that an AI will be able to indefinitively developed a more efficient AI. I bet most of you still remember the time when you bough a top end computer and a year later it was almost crap and you tough it would allways be like this. Well look at how things are now and tell me what major development has happen in terms of computing capacity in the last years. It has developed yes, but a top end computer from 4 years ago is still close to the tipity top.


The internet hasn't made any significant contribution to the growth of knowledge at all, much less be a major drive for development. The computer (not the internet) has made a valuable contribution in the sense that with it we were able to crank a large body of information in a couple of weeks that otherwise would take a life time to preform (with many mistakes, for something most of the time doesn't really aid you much). The internet at best allowed the fast share of information with different researching cores across the globe (that could have been done with an hardrive troughmail) but mostly allowed easy acess of information to the layman. And it is in the layman prespective that the internet has boomed the worlds knowledge, because now they have acess that was previously only contained in books and mostly acessible to an academic educated person.
The internet isn't this super inteligent entity that knows everything, the internet only "knows" what people want to share, someone that knows that stuff outside the internet had to put it there for it to be there, and contrary to popular belief the majority of the scientifc knowledge isn't pratical to find on the internet (you can only get a glimps of it). And the work still exclusively being done ofline, or do you think that the you can discover room temperature superconductors on the intenet? Or the cure for aids? Or the yet unkonw propreties of the universe?

Ad it does increasingly worry me that people are atributing great significance to things that are not due.

I think we've got slightly side-tracked here, as per the title "The Exponential Growth in Science & Technology" implies the question - are we discovering more significant things in our time now thanks to technology than ever before.
The internet being one of those fantasticly powerful tools (in my opinion) that can cut months off research times compared to say the 50's for example & no, it's not some super inteligent entity that knows everything, it's only as good as the information people upload to it but nevertheless it's still an amazing resource if but only used for communication.

Maybe we need to step back & look at the whole picture & find out first what our main goals are & where we're heading? Then we can prove that the current technology we currently have (i.e - Green Technology,Space Probes, Rovers, Hubble etc...) is far more significant to the level of intesity of discoveries compared to 40 years ago.

 

[Nelson]

To say that an exponential function is an acurrate model to describe the scientifc development is nonsense to say at least:
Firstly because you can't really measure in a objective quantitative maner the bulk of human knowledge.
Secondly because the growth of human knowledge isn't done continuously over time, it is generaly done in alternative periods of "breaktroughs with a large development" with periods of "stagnations and the persuit of many dead ends".
Thirdly because in the last 15 years there hasn't been a large a development as there has been in other periods of the 20th century.

But an exponential model fits quite well if you can find some objective quantity to measure. Measuring something about technology is obviously simpler than picking an objective quantity to measure knowledge.

Exponential growth, no apparent stagnation in the last 15 years. If you simply mean that there hasn't been a large breakthrough like silicon transistors, or the internet, then sure.

Ad it does increasingly worry me that people are atributing great significance to things that are not due.

Well there is a distinction to be made between increasing the knowledge at the cutting edge of research, and increasing knowledge for the average person. I would argue that the internet has done a considerable amount to improve the latter, but probably not the former. I'm not sure which point the OP was arguing for.

Second, knowledge has been accelerating but it has been doing so long before the internets. It facilitates communication, which is nice, but time spent doing so is relatively small compared to the time spent on actual experimentation and just plain thinking!

I agree with this. You can argue that the explosion of technology/knowledge really started with language itself, or the first tools made, or agriculture perhaps.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

I have to fundamentaly disagree with all this. This is a myth, an ilusion created by the fact that we know more now then what we knew before.
To say that an exponential function is an acurrate model to describe the scientifc development is nonsense to say at least:
Firstly because you can't really measure in a objective quantitative maner the bulk of human knowledge.
Secondly because the growth of human knowledge isn't done continuously over time, it is generaly done in alternative periods of "breaktroughs with a large development" with periods of "stagnations and the persuit of many dead ends".
Thirdly because in the last 15 years there hasn't been a large a development as there has been in other periods of the 20th century.

It may seem to the lay-person (not that you're exactly a lay-person) that there hasn't been much relative progress made in the last 15 years or so but this isn't true. The problem is that we know so much that everything we learn in addition to this is so specialized and esoteric that lay-people are in no position to appreciate this new knowledge or even care...

For example, with perhaps one exception, no lay-person knows of any mathematical theorems made in the last half century despite that there has been many more theorems and more mathematics made during that period than there have been in the previous half century. No one hears about it outside of their specialized field but it happens...

The internet hasn't made any significant contribution to the growth of knowledge at all, much less be a major drive for development. The computer (not the internet) has made a valuable contribution in the sense that with it we were able to crank a large body of information in a couple of weeks that otherwise would take a life time to preform (with many mistakes, for something most of the time doesn't really aid you much). The internet at best allowed the fast share of information with different researching cores across the globe (that could have been done with an hardrive troughmail) but mostly allowed easy acess of information to the layman. And it is in the layman prespective that the internet has boomed the worlds knowledge, because now they have acess that was previously only contained in books and mostly acessible to an academic educated person.
The internet isn't this super inteligent entity that knows everything, the internet only "knows" what people want to share, someone that knows that stuff outside the internet had to put it there for it to be there, and contrary to popular belief the majority of the scientifc knowledge isn't pratical to find on the internet (you can only get a glimps of it). And the work still exclusively being done ofline, or do you think that the you can discover room temperature superconductors on the intenet? Or the cure for aids? Or the yet unkonw propreties of the universe?

While I don't wish to belittle the contribution that the invention of the computer is to society, I would agree that its proliferation to the lay-person has given the appearance of an explosion of knowledge. Most people on the internet now are just trying to use the pseudonym "HotCock007" to pick up Japanese schoolgirls on AOL...

When I was a kid, when I had a question that no one I personally knew could answer (which was often the case), it just went unanswered. Now with the popularity of informational sites like Wikipedia or various web forums, relatively few questions are completely unexplained...

Ad it does increasingly worry me that people are atributing great significance to things that are not due.

I don't see why this would trouble you so much...

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

Re: The Exponential growth in Science & Tech discoveries

What I mean by accelerating is that the rate of which our knowledge has 'evolved' has increased since the internet has been available, through ease of finding reference data for example - much quicker therefore, speeding the whole process.

I know what you mean and I disagree. You say that knowledge "has increased since the internet..." but I'm telling you that it has been doing so long before the internet. Its contribution is small compared to the other things I've mentioned...

That's fine but many modern problems are resistant to traditional scientific inquiry & again with ease of access to information/models/ref data then the internet's use has helped propell what would have been seen as normal growth of yesteryear? (I hope that makes sense)

I'm fascinated by this claim. Can you please exemplify these "modern problems" and contrast "traditional scientific inquiry" to a modern one? Thank you...

Information, models and reference data were all available long before the internet. The internet has made them much easier to distribute and access but it was far from impossible before then. Again, most of one's time is spent locally doing something which includes thinking...

 

[Unwardil]

You said it yourself, the internet's contribution isn't one of quantity, but one of rapid access. Also, don't discount the contribution to information storage and speed of publishing either.

Also, the internet was a massive catalyst for technological growth, because it created a whole new niche for developers to develop technology specifically for the internet and internet related things. Science and technology go hand in hand. Increase one and you'll increase the other. Science isn't all theoretical, it's also application and the internet provided vast opportunity to put all that lovely juicy theoretical science to work.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Even tough I would contest straping 2 cpu's togheter to be in equal footing to the invention of the silicon chip. It is a understatment to say that the growth of knowledge is restricted to computing. Now don't get me wrong, i am not saying that there hasn't been significant contributions to the growth of knowledge in the recent years (because it has been) just not necessarily an acelerated one. Acelerated knowledge growth is only viable as long as a set of condition align and the it is necessarily a temporary condition. If not for the advent of true AI I would even had that there is only as much as a person can learn and develop in his life time and maitaining the equivalent of gowing from stone age to space in every couple of years is never going to be a maintainable position.

I see it sort of like analysing the doubling time of the population and hen estimate that by year X with would have enough people to populate 3 earths, well we only have 1, so we will never get to 1.5 much less 3 so even without going trough a grater detail as to why it becomes obvious that the details we completly left out (but none the less are the main drivers of the situation) becomes more important in the long run than what our preception of what happen until then seam to sugest. Growth in technology and science should be no different.

 

[Pulsar]

The internet's major contribution isn't just access to, but also the structuring of information. An electronic central database, like the Astrophysics Data System is an invaluable tool for doing scientific research. When you want to do research, you first have to know what's already been done, how much it has been cited, who are the key players, etc. I cannot possibly imagine doing research without it.