Innovation and changing paradigms for science and technology. © H.M. Thomas.

There seems to be no rectilinear path for scientific knowledge going straight to the top. We argued that scientific knowledge and technological skills develop along platforms. Just to mention a few: there are levels of mechanization, scale enlargements, new energy exploring techniques, information handling technology and miniaturization. All developments of a plateau and what directly follows from it, are framed within the boundaries of their paradigm as Thomas Kuhn sketched in his book “The Structure of Scientific Revolution “ And also becomes clear that a paradigm has boundaries as a grey transition area. But every specific technology and point of view comes to an end somewhere. For instance methods for miniaturizing lithographical elements or the using of a scientific idea of classical mechanics, are one day found impossible to be explored further. A new  paradigm has to come into being. Our question now is can we speculate when and how to get the into the next paradigm? Or stays everything in the dark till we stumble by accident on something really new? The physicist Max Planck did. He introduced the quantum of action in his work for mathematical reason only. He did not foresee in 1900 his work preluded the era of quantum mechanics. How can we discover our next paradigm? The Dutch professor Albert Polman from the University of Amsterdam, who pioneered at the field of nano- photonics, stated that one cannot place an order at some company for getting an innovative idea. It works the other way around. Companies ask research institutions to do fundamental research on a subject from a wide non- specific perspective. Afterwards they look if there is something new utilizable for them in all the research done for them                                                         . History tells us: it is a new point of view that does it.                                                                                 Nassim Taleb author of” The black swan” said to an audience discussing an “anti- library”, that read books could be far less valuable than unread books. Why? Because what you do not know may lead the way to new knowledge. This because it can make you change your point of view and open doors to new opportunities. Look at the picture. Do you see the point of view written in green?   

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Progress for Science and Technology

                                                                                                  

           What is Progress for science and technology.                            

                        © H.M. Thomas.

Progress in science and technology.is the topic we want to look at now. How is progress for science and technology in general to be judged? Looking at nano- technology one noticed atoms and molecules can be arranged to build materials with special properties we like to use.  Technical feasibilities as self-assembling consumers products, faster computers, pharmaceuticals, materials to clean pollution were stretched out. Faster cars, faster computers. Smaller, faster,  more efficiemt and easy handling seems keywords for designing and constructing consumers products . And there is more. Technical possibilities seems endlessly Our journeys reach to the space- station and planets with machinery, robots and humans.                                                                                                                                .                                                                                                      

 

What do we see here at the left?                                                 A robot holding a cell phone standing on a plate of wood for an old camera. Further some camera lens figure like technical object. Progress is made. The cell phone has a camera, is digitalized. Everything has become  easier handling. Mass production makes it  often cheaper than long time ago. We call it progress. Products somehow more and more are farther away from the people that  produced.them. Globalization took place.

Because all of this we tend to think science and technology to develop along a straight line towards the top of a mountain of knowledge. But is it? There are levels of skills, knowledge, technical feasibilities and perhaps most of all of money to make wishes come true. Some levels in history stretches out from the invention of the wheel, developing tools for the artisan, the first industrial revolution with its steam engine and the second industrial revolution with assembly lines, cars and vast factories. A third revolution followed with integrated circuits, fast computers and the internet. Perhaps a biological revolution is waiting with applications like sensors to be built in everywhere, also into the human body. Maybe all this  is waiting for us in this century. No doubt human society will be transformed to a society for everywhere communicating information to manipulate and use. But all those revolutionary times are leveled in a sort of plateaus. A level for mechanization, scale enlargements, electronics and communication, energy source developing and so on. Other levels for information handling, technology for the human body and  the brain, and so on are areas of interest.All work according to their own paradigm. And as Thomas Kuhn explained in his work: “The Structure of Scientific Revolution “all paradigms one day has to come to  an end. All technicians scientists and artisans have done all they could, given the tools they could use. The paradigm has become worn out. As squeezing fruit have to stop if all the juice is gone. Another paradigm has to be invented and will follow. Will science and technology develop in a straight line with the sky as the limit? The answer seems definitely not.

                                                                                                                                                                         

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The author takes no responsibilities for using the text above or any actions based on the text above.

                                                                                             

Some other general questions we like to look at in the future are:                                                   - What about the mathematizing of our theories? Are there any boundaries of physics?                                                                                                                      -Does a theory of everything exists for physics as an ultimate goal we have to accomplish at all costs?                                                                                                                                                      Short general commentaries will be given to get a glance at contemporary developments in science and technology, especially physics. Where do we come from, where can we go? We combine some present developments with a historical context to elucidate fundamentals