Science

Science, the word comes from the Latin “scientia” which means knowledge. Webster's defines science as, "knowledge attained through study or practice," or "knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world." When we look at science, we can't help but notice that it is made up of many different fields and these fields are not all advancing at the same rate. I say this without having any knowledge of secret projects who's results are being kept secret from us and which might, if made public, advance a particular scientific field even further. People usually like to talk about the fields of science that are advancing the quickest. That means that by definition there have to be some parts of the scientific endeavor that are advancing the slowest.

Da Vinci Self Portrait
Graphic Source: Public Domain

Some people believe that artificial intelligence is the slowest developing field. They point to the fact that we have yet to develop a truly human like robot that one could feel was an equal even though people have been trying to do this for hundreds of years. It is said that Da Vinci built a robot that was in the shape of a lion. Many of Da Vinci's designs were programmable and represented the very beginning of robotic work and AI (Artificial Intelligence), in that they would be able to maneuver in a known space by replacing certain cams. Moving forward about 500 years brings us to today. We have certainly progressed in creating robots that are more human like and have a rudimentary intelligence, but when we consider what has happened in other scientific disciplines, have we progressed nearly as far as some of the others? Some would even go back to the ancient Greeks and cite the work of Hero of Alexandria as being the earliest work on artificial intelligence.

Rocket
Photo Source: Stock.xching

If I were asked what field of science has progressed the least, I would have to say that it is the old standby rocket science, after all look at how long rockets have been around. The history of rocketry can be traced back to at least the 13th century, when the Chinese used them as weapons and also for recreational displays. We are now in the 21st century, that is about 8 centuries later and yet in all that time we have not really improved the rocket very much. Sure we made them bigger and use better fuels, but the basic principle is still the same. The real question is why haven't we found something better in all this time? Rockets are not very efficient, they need to use most of their fuel just to escape the Earth's gravity. We talk about other forms of propulsion such as ion engines, but they are only good in space and don't have the power on earth for a launch. Anti gravity engines have been mentioned a lot, but as they say, show me the money. Where are they, do we have them and are they secret? Until we see them, we have to say that they don't exist.

Nuclear energy seems to also be a field that hasn't advanced fast enough to suit most of us. The first continuous operation nuclear reactor was constructed in 1943 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. That was about 67 years ago. In all that time we have been wrestling with the problem of trying to figure out what to do with and where to store all our nuclear waste. There are now vast swimming pools all over the world that contain spent fuel rods. This stuff will remain dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years and even if we bury it, as is planned, the dynamics of the Earth itself may either expose the rods, or allow radioactivity to leak into our water and air. It does seem that this is a problem that could have been solved by now, but I certainly am not a nuclear scientist and don't have any specific answers. From time to time we hear about solutions to this problem of storage, but they are always fleeting. I have been hearing for years about a process that would render the rods non-radioactive, but I haven't seen anything to indicate that this is more than a rumor.

Doctor
Photo Source: Stock.xching

Some people are screaming for better medical diagnosis and they claim that with all the tools at our disposal, we should have been able to build a database of symptoms and this should have been made available to every doctor's office. The idea would be that the doctor would punch your symptoms into the data base and all the different aliments that could be the cause would pop up. This is rather a simplistic view I guess, but there is no doubt that something like this would be at least be a help. Right now you can find a book that is in every doctor's office that comes out annually and suggests which drugs to prescribe for what illnesses. It is called the Physician's Desk Reference. It has also gone electronic and is published in CD form and can also be accessed on the web for a fee. While not quite the same as the medical database that is being proposed, it is a help.

Another area of science that some people say is lagging, is the development of power sources. They cite the fact that only relatively recently have batteries begun to really improve from the Baghdad battery of ancient times. Lead acid batteries ruled for a very long time. The principle of the fuel cell had been discovered in 1838, but we continued with batteries for the most part. The fuel cell wasn't modified for over 100 years from that point in time. In 1955 a scientist at GE was put to work on a project to develop a fuel cell for NASA. Batteries are another story. They just went their merry lead acid way, more or less, until the invention of the nickel hydrogen battery in the early 1970s. In the late 1980s the nickel metal-hydride battery came out. In between, in the 1970s the first lithium-ion battery appeared, but not known to most people is the fact that it had been experimented with as early as 1912. In 1996 the lithium ion polymer battery was released. There have been all sorts of experimentation with different types of batteries lately including those made of a thin plastic material that can be piled one upon the other to increase power. In this field it does seem that we are picking up momentum

Science can progress very fast in some areas, such as biotechnology. Gene research has really sped along. It could have probably progressed a lot faster in the development of drug cures, but is being held back by the profit factor. As I have said in the past, no company wants to put out a pill that cures cancer when they can get all the money for pills that you have to take for maintenance or to prolong your life for a few years. Is science in general developing in more fields faster than before? Without knowing the secrets that are being withheld from us I have only the public knowledge to go by as I said above, but it does seem that the more we learn, the faster we learn more.