The days of Discovery...

[YT2095]

are they Over?

 

for the "free thinker" or the guy in his Shed etc...

is there anything New left to be discovered, something blindingly Obvious that`s been overlooked perhaps?

or is all great discovery done in Labs worth billions (and often using the same amount of volts)?

 

has it All moved now to Sofware and technology related "stuff" and the likes of Chemistry where there is Still a slim chance of a new/accidental/serendipitous discovery?

 

facts, as well as REASONABLE! opinions welcome

[Kygron]

nah, if mankind ever gets bored discovering, he'll switch to creating, and every new creation adds a dozen new possible discoveries to the universe.

[ecoli]

nah. Check out the ignobel prizes. Stuff that we might think of as being mundane is being worked on all the time, often with exciting results.

[Bluenoise]

Not at all. It's just most of the amazing discoveries are beyond the scope of a person not educated in a related field. Thus they don't make good headlines for the general public.

[raivo]

I do not think that some of future great discoveries can not be made by single individual without expensive lab.

 

There is another problem though. Discoveries are very rare. Its something like winning in lottery (and you must be genius to be able to play). There is no big discovery for everyone but something like 1 for 100 000 who might be able to make one.

 

This is if we are talking about discoveries which make you famous.

 

If fame is not required then there is lot to be discovered. Modern science does not study everything. It tries to fill gaps in theory or to improve modern industrial processes. If one just wants to discover new methods of making something in home lab then its not that hard to discover some efficient preparations that are not known anywhere in the literature. Chances are high just because all those billion dollar labs explore completely different things.

[jackson33]

I do not think that some of future great discoveries can not be made by single individual without expensive lab.

 

There is another problem though. Discoveries are very rare. Its something like winning in lottery (and you must be genius to be able to play). There is no big discovery for everyone but something like 1 for 100 000 who might be able to make one.

 

This is if we are talking about discoveries which make you famous.

 

If fame is not required then there is lot to be discovered. Modern science does not study everything. It tries to fill gaps in theory or to improve modern industrial processes. If one just wants to discover new methods of making something in home lab then its not that hard to discover some efficient preparations that are not known anywhere in the literature. Chances are high just because all those billion dollar labs explore completely different things.

 

maybe i just hope your wrong, but i do think you are. many things that they study in those labs or what is written about, came from some thought. an idea that something may not be what is said, or that some idea which has had no real study done on it, can very easily stimulate a program to investigate the possibility.

 

even here or on some other forum, questions are asked and given theoretical answers. some one could pick up on it and run. you may in a small lab mix something by accident and come up with a new substance. in fact many things have probably been seen, but for lack of understanding never followed up on.

 

some examples; is light really the fastest entity. why is the speed limited of waves to C, what keeps it from going faster. why do we have limits on visual concept. there must be something simple to give us additional sight, such as seeing 3d on a 2d screen. can mass in a near vacuum really gain mass from just speed. do we really live in that 3d + time dimension or are we just not recognizing others. gravity is really open for thought as are waves. could darkness be something or does light actually just penetrate this, the strobe light offers some clues. many lens for cameras, telescopes or microscopes can be improved on to unlimited concepts compared to what is with some no doubt simple changes....

 

you may not become famous or make a million dollars. most do not that can envision the unknown or discovered the so much that is known.

[Ndi]

Even if no other chemical compound is ever achieved, as technology moves forward new uses are discovered to existing ones. There was a joke in the jokes section that went something like this:

 

1000BC: Take these roots, they will cure you.

4: AD: Pray, the belief will cure you.

1700 AD: Have these leeches, they will cure you

1970 AD: Take these antibiotics, they will cure you

2007 AD: Take these roots, they will cure you.

 

Wine was here thousands of years ago, yet we still discover its effects and qualities. Gold was useless, then priceless, now it's a good conductor. Copper was useless, then an excellent metal, now it's a good wire.

 

Point is, we are *far* away from knowing what the heck we have, we know next to nothing regarding all known compounds and their uses in different applications, it will take loads to finally "max out" on known compounds and we need accidents and experiments to have new ones.

 

And this is just chemistry. How about biology? Physics?

 

I wouldn't worry about ceilings just yet. True, many of these experiments will be simulated via computers, since it's a lot easier to understand once, work once, then run hundreds of orders of magnitude in simulations than throw a pin every time. (see molecule processing with distributed computing).

[Comandante]

Agreed with Ndi, and as for physics, the same applies. We can't know how many of course, but there's still many discoveries to be made and we know this because there's lots of things we observe that we can't explain. Eventually discoveries will be back-related to explain our observations of previously mysterious phenomena, but 'til then - the race is on! Just to point an example take a look at "optical tempest" - that's what it's been named. It's some kind of previously-unknown radiation that comes out of LED diodes if I'm not mistaken and until 2002 virtually noone knew about it - at least in the 'open-source' science and yet it was around since the time of LEDs. (It allows potential attackers to use the phenomena to capture the view of your monitor's screen on their own screen to within a decent 20-30m range - information theft- see this pdf document; http://applied-math.org/optical_tempest.pdf - it's research paper).

 

I would guess discoveries are being made probably on a daily basis, most of them kept secret because everybody wants a prize, but eventually one or two surface out

 

I actually thought about this as well - that most of the stuff would soon only be discovered in multimillion dollar labs, but then I hit google and looked for things, and it seems, to my surprise, that the situation is quite the contrary.

 

You see, in multi-million dollar labs the workforce is usually concentrated upon improving existing technology so that they can earn more money from their improvements/patents. New things almost always start off with individuals and ideas, and in a lot of cases from accidents or careful observation - after that, further research/improvement is carried in high-tech labs. That's at least the impression I get based on the stuff I read - research papers etc.

 

By the way YT2095, if you discover something any time soon make sure you post it here

[YT2095]

I have got a few Inventions yes, in fact I did post one of them but had to remove it for legal reasons to do with my patenting it.

it`s received accolades from the Police and also Court Magistrates

the other is for NASA, and it`s freebie from me, I`ve not had a reply though?!

 

and NO, it`s not something Crazy/cooky it actualy Works, and much better than their existing tech!

[Skye]

I think inventions aren't a problem, they are using existing knowledge. The have a show here called The New Inventors which has three people bring in their invention each episode. So there's no end of inventions out there.

 

You can discover new things, there are endless species to catalog and things like supernovae to spot.

 

I think that the difficulty is with the more theoretical aspects of science. This relies on alot of money these days, and often alot of manpower.

[Ndi]

Every time there's a brakethrough in a field, that ability sheds light on everything we had. Each step is a deeper understanding. We have no clue what the next one will be. Look at X-Ray, MRI, DNA, and how they kicked everything in motion. A single discovery (DNA) revolutionized crimefighting, disease fighting, engineering of new lifeforms, cloning, Human Genome Project, revival of extinct species, this discovery alone allows us to build better humans, thus invalidating whatever limits we had before we hit them.

 

How can you worry?

[Comandante]

I have got a few Inventions yes, in fact I did post one of them but had to remove it for legal reasons to do with my patenting it.

it`s received accolades from the Police and also Court Magistrates

the other is for NASA, and it`s freebie from me, I`ve not had a reply though?!

 

and NO, it`s not something Crazy/cooky it actualy Works, and much better than their existing tech!

 

Really? That's awesome! Is your patent in the online patent database to have a look at?

 

Grrr you did it for free?? Did you at least try to sell it? Well done either way

[YT2095]

nope, I decided to let that idea be a freebie also after being messed about by the large companies to whom it would be worth millions, and I couldn`t afford lawyers and stuff so it for Anyone now, in fact the more people that have and use this device the better!

 

I`ll see about digging up that old thread about it, and re-posting it on here again

[Ragib]

I dont want to think of it this way, but deep down I think the gloryious days of science are gone, when the recluse in his shed, or the small time amatuer can make a decent contribution. In mathematics its still possible, with some genius, but these days with physics you need at least 3 now.

[fredrik]

I am not worried about running out of questions. I think answers generate new questions, but the questions focus may shift. I don't feel depressed because the same questions aren't asked again, in the spirit of the big masters we continoue the same journey they started, and it will obviously bring us to new things.

 

Obviously the home thinker can not expect to provide experimental evidence for the existence the higgs particle because some fields, in particular the experimental fields, are so expensive that it takes global investments to pull off, and in such a case I guess any discovery is kind of considered teamwork rather than a single mans discovery/creation?

 

But there are still plenty of problems for the individual to think about. Also, regarding heavy computing tasks, computers are commong these days, and the programming has become easier. Anyone with basic computer skills and sufficient curiousity can easily use a computer to solve relatively complex computational tasks in a short time. Also, as intelligent processing is coming along I think more and more is reduced to "computing", and the edge is in the creation.

 

I also think that since the body of science is increasing, noone can be an expert in all fields, so there is more and more specialisation, which seems risky. Sometimes revising the massive body of existing ideas, sometimes (not always!) takes longer than rethinking it yourself. So unless you are not to get stuck in old ideas, I think one has to be more selective to not get stuck. I think it's very easy to get captured in a proven successfull wat of thinking until the point when we have no clue howto get out of there. I think some of the great discoveries in the past is people who has broken this barrier. When you look back, some of them doesn't seem that awfully complicated after all. So the trick as it seems, is probably not that new ideas have been so horribly complicated, it's probably more the difficulty to really come up with such radical ideas in a time were the general body of though did not contain it.

 

/Fredrik

[bob000555]

Perhaps in ancient Babylon they where having the same conversation as us: “We’ve already discovered the horse drawn cart, irrigation, and metal casting. What else is left to discover?” Perhaps during the industrial revolution people said “We already have steam power and that Ford fellow’s invented the horseless carriage. What’s left to discover.” Years ago no one could imagine the computer thus they could not imagine it could be invented; We can’t imagine the next big thing being invented yet because we cant yet imagine it. Though after someone invents it it will be painfully obvious: case in point the “Pasta Pot” duh just drill some holes in the top so they can drain their pasta with out a colander.