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Major research breakthroughs in the last 10-15 years

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Major research breakthroughs in the last 10-15 years

#11

Post by randallsquared »

axiom wrote: post #8
nreece wrote: post #5

1. Internet 2. Human Genome 3. Nano-technology

Nano-technology is one of these buzz words that's been applied to everything from MEMS to car polish creams. It's so amorphous and vague that the only definition I can think of is "anything that's pretty damn small." I'm really not sure if it's a useful term at all anymore, or if it just obscures whatever it's used to describe. One of my good friends is doing his PhD on MEMS micro-manipulators. But his work falls und…

Yeah, nanotechnology was coined to mean molecular manufacturing -- mechanical chemistry. Unfortunately, it's been applied too widely, and so we now have to use these clumsier terms to describe Drexler's idea.

Re: Major research breakthroughs in the last 10-15 years

#12

Post by jfoutz »

plinkplonk wrote: post #9

Probabilistic Robotics (think the Darpa Car Races)

This is the one.

No more big rigs, ups drivers, fed ex drivers, taxi drivers, pizza drivers.

The tech seems extensible to store shelf stocking, so a pretty big chunk of all transportation of goods should be automated.

It's easy to envision a retailer that has automated delivery from the factory floor to the store shelf.

This will be huge.

Re: Major research breakthroughs in the last 10-15 years

#16

Post by greendestiny »

Machine translation of language. In 10-15 years time, given improvement and dissemination of the technology, we might massively open up the world's communication. This could be significant as we massively increase the marketplace of ideas and communication.

Re: Major research breakthroughs in the last 10-15 years

#17

Post by npk »

1) Measuring the age of the universe to a few percent ~14 billion years. 2) Determining the dark energy (70%) / dark matter (25%) / regular matter (5%) breakdown of the universe to a few percent. 3) The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Hubble Space Telescope and Wilkinson Probe

I'm purposely being biased :)

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