Limits on Technology

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I wouldn't be surprised if we suddenly found a new fountain of energy just in time...
Considering how business works those are questions you answer by thinking about the long game.

The fact that so many scientist who claimed to have solved the combustion energy problem, perished under questionable circumstances, sort of tells me there is no actual need for energy crisis.

Energy the strongest leverage to cripple technological civilizations...

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Ultimately, the source of all terrestrial power generation comes from stellar processes.

And we may (or may not) crack nuclear fusion as a terrestrial power source, but the thing is, there is already an enormous fusion reactor up and running, which we have barely tapped.

The Sun produces energy that radiates in (at least) 3 dimensions, but the Earth is 52 million miles away and so only the tiniest fraction of that actually falls on the Earth.

To capture more solar energy, a satellite, orbiting closer to the Sun, (but far enough away so that it would not be damaged by the radiation) could capture many times the footprint of the Earth's received energy.

A constellation of orbiting satellites could ensure that there is direct line of sight to at least one of the solar receiver satellites at any one time, and as they fail (because they still would degrade in the solar wind), they can be de-orbited to burn up harmlessly in the Sun.

This would be a natural progression as we transition to a Type I civilization on the Kardashev scale.

a reply to: chr0naut

Okay, yes the Sun is an enormous fusion reaction, but the Sun requires beyond-Biblical gravitational forces (pressure) to maintain that fusion reaction. When you say there are enormous fusion reactors working today, you are not talking about here on Earth, because we cannot reproduce those forces.

Lawrence-Livermore has just developed a process which yields more energy than the input, but the requirements to induce this fusion reaction are not sustainable, nor are the byproducts capable of sustaining a continued reaction. What this means is, the reaction is not sustainable without massive power inputs. Another way of saying this, in simpler terms, is the byproducts of the reaction are not "radioactive' isotopes. The Holy Grail of fusion is Hydrogen-Oxygen fusion where water is a byproduct, but that is not where we are in research today.

If the democrats would get their head's out of their asses, there might be some scientific gains with magnetic research, but right now all that dev-test money is going to EV's and other (silly un-sustainable) "green" stuff. Super-cooling is a thing, and atomics at near zero lend themselves to some interesting fusion opportunities. CERN has made some interesting discoveries, but the gasses, cooling and power requirements make future discoveries hard. (plus, some of these guys get 'out there' on God particle physics). I digress.

If we we really wanted to find solutions for mankind then we have to get politics out of scientific research. Let's stop figuring out how to make better weapons to kill everyone and start making things to save humanity. Windmills and solar panels ain't gonna cut it. Sorry.

a reply to: chr0naut

Are you talking about a dyson sphere type of thing?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

mankind then we have to get politics out of scientific research.

The real problem with scientific progress is money not politics. You need to get full transparency between money and politics, if you want to actually solve a problem...

Politics was invented to protect the people from the ruling classes abuse, politics is not the ruling class per default. The real power is still held among those with the means. If you let economy influence politics trough lobbying with no oversight, it's a bit shortsighted to blame politics. Especially when many of the more damaging decisions are clearly financially motivated.

An economy that has exponential growth at it's core will never stop making profit and do everything to maximize it.
Politics should put roadblocks or it's citizens will be milked harder at every corner.

We all get to sleep in the bed we made...

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk

My main point in the OP was to illustrate that Moore's law may not be as linear as previously thought, and may in fact be logarithmic. In other words, it won't be long before the sheer amount of electrical power required to advance technology will simply not be available.

I think we've been seeing the limits of Moore's Law for a little while now, but it's now becoming much more clear, because we are simply reaching the limits of how small things can be made before quantum noise starts interfering with the tiny components. We have developed many tricks to avoid the limits of Moore's Law so far, like multi-cores and multi-threading, more efficient architecture with things like branch prediction and speculative execution, stacking 2D designs into 3D layouts, etc.

However there are only so many tricks in the bag, processor technology wont improve at the extreme pace it has in the past. But I don't really think electricity will be the limiting factor, manufacturing techniques always become more efficient as they are adopted, and if they don't, well we simply wont be using them because they will be too expensive to be commercially viable. That could potentially lead to a situation where only large businesses and institutions have access to the most premium processors.

originally posted by: Terpene
a reply to: chr0naut

Are you talking about a dyson sphere type of thing?

No.

It seems ludicrous to me to capture solar energy from a distant 52 million miles away, if we can just get closer.

Since we are now able to get into space, there's no reason for us to avoid putting solar collectors closer to the 'heat'. Just point them at orbital insertion and give them a 'kick' (I know, an oversimplification, but you get my point. It's doable).

At present, we don't even capture and utilize all the energy that hits the Earth, i.e: we aren't even at a type I civilization, yet. So that would be our first milestone (which we have not reached yet).

The next stage would be a Type II civilization that captures 100% of all the energy of the nearest star, (like with a Dyson sphere), but at present, that is far beyond us to construct.

If we had enough solar orbiting collector satellites, which each subtend a degree of arc greater than that of the Earth at 52 million miles away, we could, with existing engineering and science, capture more energy that shines on the Earth.

If we captured more energy that just naturally falls on the Earth, it would mean that we have bypassed the type I milestone.

No doubt, power would become cheaper and we would have so much that losses are no longer a critical issue, so we could engineer for lower maintenance systems that are also less efficient, because we would have so much more power that we could arbitrarily waste it (like we do now) without consequence.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: rickymouse

... Technology is putting us at more risk of a disaster.

I completely agree with you (even though I work in the technology side of aviation). The only thing I would append to your statement would be..."Our ever increasing dependence on""...at the front of your statement.

Society's dependence on technology has gone from simple convenience to outright laziness, greed and stupidity.

So, you are absolutely right!

I agree, I should have put what you said in front of my statement. My kids and grandkids are so dependent on technology it is not even funny. They have cameras everywhere and Alexa sending messages to the kids in the house instead of just yelling up the steps. They do not get enough exercise, they don't get up and walk to the steps, they do not get up to change the channel on the TV, and they don't even have to move a game piece on a chess game...just use their mouse or tell the computer to move it. They have their phone in their hands or at their side continuously, they do not have to even get up to answer it.

My youngest daughter sits in front of a screen all day doing her job at home...she does not even have to go walk to the car to go to work. She has health issues because of not getting enough movement in her day from that. At a little over forty she is on a few pills that most people did not have to take till they were almost sixty. It would be worse if she did not eat fairly healthy most of the time, but movement is important for circulation of blood in the body too. She is good at what she does, but we cannot be stuck in a chair all day long in an electromagnetic field created by three screens and routers sending signals through the house...not just one router, she has two or three of them running all the time I think. Living in a confined area with all kinds of electric signals flying all over the place is not good for anyone's health.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

I'm beat tired right now, so I don't have much more 'go juice'. I just wanted to comment on your last sentence.

Today I looked at processor prices for PC's. You can buy decent processors for $4-500 bucks, and you can buy pretty great processors for $900-1,000 bucks. But then there are next generation processors out there which are $10,000 bucks, even from places like New Egg and Micro Center. $10k for a single processor (no cooling fan, no motherboard, no case...just the CPU). So, I'd say those chips already qualify for the...'out of reach to most consumers'...category, and only available to large businesses and institutions.

Incidentally, these are the 3nm chips I talked about in the OP. They don't have (10), or even (12) cores, but rather (96) cores. I can't speak for others, but I won't be buying one of these any time soon!! Cool stuff, to be sure, but WAY out of my price range.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: chr0naut

Okay, yes the Sun is an enormous fusion reaction, but the Sun requires beyond-Biblical gravitational forces (pressure) to maintain that fusion reaction. When you say there are enormous fusion reactors working today, you are not talking about here on Earth, because we cannot reproduce those forces.

Lawrence-Livermore has just developed a process which yields more energy than the input, but the requirements to induce this fusion reaction are not sustainable, nor are the byproducts capable of sustaining a continued reaction. What this means is, the reaction is not sustainable without massive power inputs. Another way of saying this, in simpler terms, is the byproducts of the reaction are not "radioactive' isotopes. The Holy Grail of fusion is Hydrogen-Oxygen fusion where water is a byproduct, but that is not where we are in research today.

If the democrats would get their head's out of their asses, there might be some scientific gains with magnetic research, but right now all that dev-test money is going to EV's and other (silly un-sustainable) "green" stuff. Super-cooling is a thing, and atomics at near zero lend themselves to some interesting fusion opportunities. CERN has made some interesting discoveries, but the gasses, cooling and power requirements make future discoveries hard. (plus, some of these guys get 'out there' on God particle physics). I digress.

If we we really wanted to find solutions for mankind then we have to get politics out of scientific research. Let's stop figuring out how to make better weapons to kill everyone and start making things to save humanity. Windmills and solar panels ain't gonna cut it. Sorry.

I was talking about a system like this:

1, Space based near-solar collectors (perhaps just inside the orbit of Mercury) that beam (via MASER ?) their output back towards,

2. A space based 'power relay station' (in closer proximity to Earth) which retransmits towards the Earth at a frequency low enough to not cause atmospheric warming (or other HF effects), and is picked up by,

3. Giant antenna/s floating on, or between, buoys spread across 'not normally navigated areas' of open ocean/s, and from there is sent via undersea cables to,

4. A mainland based (superconducting) 'power backbone', which distributes power to existing supply networks.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: ChaoticOrder

I'm beat tired right now, so I don't have much more 'go juice'. I just wanted to comment on your last sentence.

Today I looked at processor prices for PC's. You can buy decent processors for $4-500 bucks, and you can buy pretty great processors for $900-1,000 bucks. But then there are next generation processors out there which are $10,000 bucks, even from places like New Egg and Micro Center. $10k for a single processor (no cooling fan, no motherboard, no case...just the CPU). So, I'd say those chips already qualify for the...'out of reach to most consumers'...category, and only available to large businesses and institutions.

Incidentally, these are the 3nm chips I talked about in the OP. They don't have (10), or even (12) cores, but rather (96) cores. I can't speak for others, but I won't be buying one of these any time soon!! Cool stuff, to be sure, but WAY out of my price range.

Also, you are thinking of electrically powered CPU's.

There are other options like photonics and spintronics, as well as whatever comes of quantum computing.

a reply to: chr0naut

That's something I can remember from Isaac Asimov and the cult of the machine? ...
Ain't read him for years so maybe a bit off

Very interesting discussion topic. I used to follow processor evolution back in the 90s. I remember when 25nm was a breakthrough and helped push the 1GB speeds (AMD, not Intel)

I dont think the availability of electricity/power would be the limitation on advancement. It follows many other staples required for society like food and fresh water.

The only limitation is....money.

Power generation, food, water etc are all limited by if someone can/cannot make money producing it. If there's no money to be made producing, it doesn't get done.

Sooo....the only thing that would limit technology is.....greed.

my 2c