Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 (64 page)

9
The question—
When will Moore’s law collapse?
—
sends shudders: Electronic News,
September 18, 2007,
www.edn.com/article/CA647968
.

10
“We see that for at least the next fifteen to twenty”: Electronic News,
July 13, 2004. See also Kurzweil, p. 112, and
www.nanotech-now.com/news.cgi?story_id=04803
.

11
“From the point of view of physics”:
Alexis Madrigal, “Scientist Builds World’s Smallest Transistor, Gordon Moore Sighs with Relief,”
Wired,
www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/04/scientists-buil/
.

12
“It’s about the smallest”:
Ibid.

13
“By 2050, we will surely have found ways to achieve”:
Vint Cerf, “One Is Glad to Be of Service,” in Denning, p. 229.

14
“Think of a mobile device”:
Sharon Gaudin, “Intel Sees Future with Shape-shifting Robots, Wireless Power,”
Computerworld,
August 22, 2008,
www.computerworld.com/s/article/9113301/Intel_sees_future_with_shape_shifting_robots_wireless_power?taxonomyId=12&pageNumber=2
.

15
“Sometime over the next forty years”:
Ibid.

16
“Why not?”:
Ibid.

17
“Much like you can’t make a boy and a girl fall in love”:
Rudy Baum, “Nanotechnology: Drexler and Smalley Make the Case for and Against ‘Molecular Assemblers,’ ”
Chemical & Engineering New
s 81, December 1, 2003, pp. 37–42,
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/8148/8148counterpoint.html
.

18
“If a self-assembler ever does become possible”:
BBC/Discovery Channel,
Visions of the Future,
Part II, 2007.

19
“Nanotechnology will thrive, much as photolithography thrives”:
Rodney A. Brooks, “Flesh and Machines,” in Denning, p. 63.

5. FUTURE OF ENERGY: ENERGY FROM THE STARS

1
the world consumes about 14 trillion watts of power:
Kurzweil, p. 242.

2
U.S. oil reserves were being depleted so rapidly:
www.mkinghubbert.com/speech/prediction
.

3
“Food and pollution are not”:
Sheffield, p. 179.

4
China will soon surpass the United States in wind power:
www.gwec.net/index.php?id=125
.

5
“All the geniuses here at General Motors”:
Tad Friend, “Plugged In,”
The New Yorker,
August 24, 2009, pp. 50–59.

6
“You put your hand over the exhaust pipe”:
“GM Convinced the Future Is in Fuel Cells,” CBS News, September 11, 2009,
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/11/tech/main5302610.shtml?tag=mncol;lst;6
.

7
The plant will occupy 200 acres:
Business Wire,
www.businesswire.com/portal/ge/index
. See also
www.swampfox.ws/node/26502
.

8
Greenland’s ice shelves shrank by twenty-four square miles:
Brown, p. 63.

9
Large chunks of Antarctica’s ice, which have been stable:
Brown, p. 64.

10
According to scientists at the University of Colorado:
Brown, p. 65

11
In 1900, the world consumed 150 million:
Brown, pp. 56–57.

12
“Envision Pakistan, India, and China”:
Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security,” Global Business Network, October 2003, p. 18. PDF available at
www.gbn.com/search.php?topnavSearch=envision+pakistan%2C+india&x=0&y=0
.

13
countries bound by the London Convention:
Cornelia Dean, “Experts Ponder the Hazards of Using Technology to Save the Planet,”
New York Times,
August 12, 2008, p. F4,
www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/health/12iht-ethics.3.15212327.html?_r=1&scp
=10&sq=planktos&st=cse
.

14
The liquefied gas will be injected:
Matthew L. Wald, “Refitted to Bury Emissions, Plant Draws Attention,”
New York Times,
September 29, 2009, p. A19,
www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/science/earth/22coal.html?ref=american_electric_power_company
.

15
“We view the genome as the software … There are already thousands … We think this field”:
J. Craig Venter, quoted in
Oil and the Future of Energy: Climate Repair, Hydrogen, Nuclear Fuel, Renewable and Green Sources, Energy Efficiency,
editors of Scientific American (Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2007), pp. 220–21. From Venter’s presentation “Synthetic Genomics” at the Conference on Synthetic Biology (SB2.0), Berkeley, California, May 20, 2006. Audio available at
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=15766
.

16
“carbon bank”:
Freeman J. Dyson, “Can We Control the Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere?”
Energy
2 (1977): pp. 287–91.

17
An 8-ounce glass of water is equal to:
Sheffield, p. 158.

18
“I know what the other material is”:
Ralph Lapp, quoted in “Perón’s Atom,”
Time,
April 2, 1951,
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,814503,00.html
.

19
“Less than that”:
Seife, p. 76.

20
“Even if the plant were flattened”:
W. Wayt Gibbs, “Plan B for Energy: 8 Revolutionary Energy Sources,”
Scientific American,
September 2006; reprinted April 2, 2009,
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=plan-b-for-energy-8-ideas
.

21
“A decade ago”:
Ibid.

22
If the pellet is irregular by more than 50 nanometers:
Seife, p. 211.

23
it will weigh 23,000 tons … ten times the amount of energy:
ITER,
www.iter.org/factsfigures
.

24
The ITER is still just a science project:
Gibbs, “Plan B,”
Scientific American,
September 2006.

25
“SSP offers a truly sustainable”:
Editors of Scientific American,
Oil and the Future of Energy,
p. 217.

26
Ben Bova, writing in the
Washington Post: Ben Bova, “To the Next President” (originally titled “An Energy Fix Written in the Stars,” guest editorial,
Washington Post,
October 12, 2008),
www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/bova.htm
.

27
“It sounds like a science fiction cartoon”: International Herald Tribune,
September 2, 2009, p. 14. Also see Shigeru Sato and Yuji Okada, “Mitsubishi, IHI to Join $21 Bln Space Solar Project,” August 31, 2009;
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aJ529lsdk9HI
.

28
“These expenses”:
Shigeru Sato and Yuji Okada, “Mitsubishi, IHI to Join $21 Bln Space Solar Project,” Bloomberg, August 31, 2009,
www.bloomberg.com/apps/
news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aJ529lsdk9HI
.

6. FUTURE OF SPACE TRAVEL: TO THE STARS

1
One possibility is the Europa Ice Clipper Mission:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1999/ast02feb99_1/
.

2
One game changer has been the discovery of ancient ice:
http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov
.

3
“This is an uncertain market”: New York Times,
September 16, 2010, p. A3.

4
Physicist Freeman Dyson has narrowed down some experimental technologies:
Dyson, pp. 88–99.

5
“
For transmission lines”:
Katherine Bourzac, “Making Carbon Nanotubes into Long Fibers,”
Technology Review,
November 10, 2009,
www.technologyreview.com/energy/23921/
.

6
Initially, the task was so difficult that no one won the prize:
BBC-TV, November 5, 2009.

7
But finally, in May 2010, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikaros
.

8
“For me, Orion … 2,000 bombs”:
Nicholas Dawidoff, “The Civil Heretic,”
New York Times,
March 25, 2009,
www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pagewanted=7&_r=1
.

9
“The exploration of the solar system”:
Vint Cerf, “One Is Glad to Be of Service,” in Denning, pp. 229–30.

10
In 2007 and 2009, the Air Force released position papers detailing:
Scott A. Dickson, “Enabling Battlespace Persistent Surveillance: The Form, Function and Future of Smart Dust,” April 2007 (Blue Horizon Paper, Center for Strategy and Technology, Air War College).

7. FUTURE OF WEALTH: WINNERS AND LOSERS

1
“The great Islamic civilization went into decline when Muslim scholars”:
Umi Hani Sharani, “Muslims Almost Totally Dependent on Others, Says Mahathir,” Muslim Institute, April 15, 2006,
www.musliminstitute.com/article.php?id=499
.

2
“Heavens, no. It will be a hundred years”:
William J. Holstein, “To Gauge the Internet, Listen to the Steam Engine,”
New York Times,
August 26, 2001,
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/business/26SVAL.html?scp=1&sq=%22to%20gauge%20the%20internet%22&st=cse
.

3
“attribute 90 percent of income growth in England and the United States”:
Virginia Postrel, “Avoiding Previous Blunders,”
New York Times,
January 1, 2004,
www.nytimes.com/2004/01/01/business/01scene.html
.

4
“A century ago, railroad companies”:
Ibid.

5
“In the 19th century”:
Thomas L. Friedman, “Green the Bailout,”
New York Times,
September 28, 2008, p. WK11,
www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/opinion/28friedman.html
.

6
From 1900 to 1925, the number of automobile startup companies:
Steve Lohr, “New Economy; Despite Its Epochal Name, the Clicks-and-Mortar Age May Be Quietly Assimilated,”
New York Times,
October 8, 2001,
www.nytimes.com/2001/10/08/business/new-economy-despite-its-epochal-name-clicks-mortar-age-may-be-quietly.html?scp=30&sq=automobile&st=nyt
.

7
“The early 21st century saw a boom”:
Ibid.

8
“The do-it-yourself model”:
Charles Gasparino, “Merrill Lynch to Offer Online Trading,” ZDNet News, June 1, 1999,
www.zdnet.com/news/merrill-lynch-to-offer-online-trading/95883
.

9
“Rarely in history has the leader in an industry”:
Ibid.

10
“In practice, the vast bulk of this ‘information’ ”:
McRae, p. 175.

11
“Today, knowledge and skills”:
Thurow, p. 68.

12
“With everything else dropping out of the competitive equation”:
Thurow, p. 74.

13
“in 1991 Britain became”:
McRae, p. 12.

14
“After correcting for general inflation”:
Thurow, p. 67.

15
“The prolonged migration”:
James Grant, “Sometimes the Economy Needs a Setback,”
New York Times,
September 9, 2001,
www.nytimes.com/2001/09/09/opinion/sometimes-the-economy-needs-a-setback.html
.