I´m curious if i will notice a breakthrough in science something that changes the lives of everybody. I dont know if i should expect something in the first place it feels like developments are focused on capitalim. More pixels in the newest Monitor is not Progress its just one more argument in advertising. I believe that we have more People that work in research but are these people following there own projekts or do they have higher ups that decide for them. The higher ups are probly focused on Money and not actual Progres or maybe they are because i dont really know.

I appreciate any form of explanation thx

Edited August 19Aug 19 by Nexus

5 minutes ago, Nexus said:

I´m curious if i will notice a breakthrough in science something that changes the lives of everybody. I dont know if i should expect something in the first place it feels like developments are focused on capitalim. More pixels in the newest Monitor is not Progress its just one more argument in advertising. I believe that we have more People that work in research but are these people following there own projekts or do they have higher ups that decide for them. The higher ups are probly focused on Money and not actual Progres or maybe they are because i dont really know.

I appreciate any form of explanation thx

You haven’t noticed the changes in the last decade then? Renewable power generation? Electric vehicles? The switch to almost all domestic admin done on your mobile phone? m-RNA vaccines? Anti-obesity drugs?

Sometimes changes can occur under your nose without you even realising.

10 minutes ago, Nexus said:

feels like developments are focused on capitalim

I do not think Ligo, JWST, Euclid and the LHC had that in mind but the great thing with science is you never know what will come out of it at the end.

CERN gave us the internet, diagnostic techs and there are also projects on cleaner fuel if you look on the website.

Faraday had no idea his discoveries and later Maxwell would change the face of modern civilization with electricity.

Quantum mechanics did the same but Dirac and co just wanted to know how the universe operated at the fundamental level.

The guys on the Manhattan project had different things to consider, capitalism was not one of them (probably)

18 minutes ago, Nexus said:

The higher ups are probly focused on Money

John Butterworth published a book called, "Smashing physics," there is a chapter on this very question.

Should science have a tech or application in mind? I do not think the guys doing it, do it because of that.

They apply for a program after their UG that ties in with their interests.

The PhD guys on here may disagree.

30 minutes ago, Nexus said:

The higher ups are probly focused on Money and not actual Progres or maybe they are because i dont really know.

In academia that is clearly not the case. There are always researchers working on fundamental science vs applied (including in medicine or engineering). The big breakthroughs folks experience and you see in the media are often in the latter, but they often need first work in the former, which mostly only makes scientists really excited, but often largely passes by the general public.

And in the area of fundamental science, it depends on the time frame. If you compare progress that a single person could do to add to the knowledge 100 years ago vs now, it is clear that things have slowed down- as it should. As we accumulate knowledge, the easier bits will be understood first, but more complex questions require more technologies (which is often fed by applied research) and more work. There is the very recent tendency to publish very low-level papers, but that is more of a structural issue, in part with an increasing number of folks getting higher degrees who are less able to do independent research.

1 hour ago, Nexus said:

I´m curious if i will notice a breakthrough in science something that changes the lives of everybody. I dont know if i should expect something in the first place it feels like developments are focused on capitalim.

What previous ones changed the life of everyone? I think the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine being available in a one-year time frame was life-changing.

What constitutes a breakthrough? Would Nobel prizes count? We could discuss the impact of various Nobels.

1 hour ago, Nexus said:

More pixels in the newest Monitor is not Progress its just one more argument in advertising.

Are you talking about science or technology? “More pixels” is more the latter. Technology is usually the combination of a lot of scientific elements so it’s not likely you’ll see all of them being discovered at once. There can be one enabling discovery that allows for a significant advance — all of the other parts were there — but most of the time progress is incremental, like with more pixels.

1 hour ago, Nexus said:

I believe that we have more People that work in research but are these people following there own projekts or do they have higher ups that decide for them. The higher ups are probly focused on Money and not actual Progres or maybe they are because i dont really know.

Depends. I did government R&D, and the project was assigned (it existed and the team members were hired to work on it) and we cared about progress/results because that’s how continued funding was justified. In commercial research there is a focus on money because that’s how you stay in business, but of course they care about progress because you have to make a product to sell. Academic research has no profit. Quality research increases the chances for grants.

1 hour ago, pinball1970 said:

CERN gave us the internet, diagnostic techs and there are also projects on cleaner fuel if you look on the website.

CERN gave us the Web. The United States DoD gave us the Net, specifically through their Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), later DARPA. Sorry, bit of a nitpick.

It is unfortunate that one of the biggest breakthroughs ( as numerous others have mentioned ), mRNA vaccine tech, which can be 'built up' to target various specific infections and has the potential to save so many lives around the world, is seen by many people as dangerous and an attack on their 'freedoms'. It is seen as an 'opinion' not as factual.
We may be entering an age in which science and technology ( like Religion and Nationhood previously ) is used to control people, and like the internet/social media is already doing.

1 minute ago, MigL said:

We may be entering an age in which science and technology ( like Religion and Nationhood previously ) is used to control people, and like the internet/social media is already doing.

I don't think that science is well suited for that, but their application and technology are a very real risk factor.

3 minutes ago, MigL said:

mRNA vaccine tech, which can be 'built up' to target various specific infections and has the potential to save so many lives around the world,

And to add to that, we have not yet seen the full potential, COVID-19 was basically just a very successful test case. Its ability to lower the difficulty in implementation in areas including cancer has a huge potential for immunotherapies. The US made a huge investment in that area which and has been pulling back now.

4 hours ago, Nexus said:

I´m curious if i will notice a breakthrough in science something that changes the lives of everybody. I dont know if i should expect something in the first place it feels like developments are focused on capitalim. More pixels in the newest Monitor is not Progress its just one more argument in advertising. I believe that we have more People that work in research but are these people following there own projekts or do they have higher ups that decide for them. The higher ups are probly focused on Money and not actual Progres or maybe they are because i dont really know.

I appreciate any form of explanation thx

Hello Nexus and welcome.

Hopefully you will stay long enough to read all the responses on your next vist. internet forums do not always provide instant replies like social media.

How well do you understand graphs ?

If you look back over history you will find the pace of scientific (and other) change varies.
In some periods of time it goes fast and there is a lot of innovation.
But in others there does not appear to be much change at all.
In reality this is a distorted picture because these quieter periods are often periods of consolidation because new ideas rarely have an immediate effect.
They take time to replace older ones that people already have significant investment in.

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

CERN gave us the Web. The United States DoD gave us the Net, specifically through their Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), later DARPA. Sorry, bit of a nitpick.

Nitpick is details and details matter

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