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The ancient origins of stars, planets and life may be viewed as a sequence of emergent events, each of which added to the chemical complexity of the cosmos. Stars, which formed from the primordial hydrogen of the Big Bang, underwent nucleosynthesis to produce all the elements of the Periodic Table. Those elements were…
One cluster looks, for example, for new ways of representing and understanding complex systems. A second cluster aims for more access to knowledge by undoing contemporary media’s restrictions (such as the restriction of the screen, which produces, with its peek-a-boo access to complexity, impenetrable forms of…
Nowadays when someone speaks of "art" you probably think first of "fine arts" such as painting and sculpture, but before the twentieth century the word was generally used in quite a different sense. Since this older meaning of "art" still survives in many idioms, especially when we are contrasting art with science, I…
Fifty years ago, the philosopher Olaf Stapledon published a novel, Sirius, which explores some of the depths of loneliness and alienation to which genetic engineering might lead. Stapledon knew nothing of DNA and molecular biology, but he foresaw the possibility of genetic engineering and saw that it would give rise…
At first glance, one could say that the domain of the human sciences is covered by three 'sciences' - or rather by three epistemological regions, all subdivided within themselves, and all interlocking with one another; these regions are defined by the triple relation of the human sciences in general to biology…
It is difficult to speak of specific examples of things genetic engineering may do for us. Specific examples always sound like stories out of Astounding Science Fiction magazine. Here are three long-range possibilities. First, the energy tree, programmed to convert the products of photosynthesis into conveniently…
Matrioshka Brains (MB)1 are megascale computers constructed out of microelectronic and/or nanoscale components. MB may be constructed as shells around a star (internally powered Matrioshka Brains: IPMB) or may be constructed independently of a star if large amounts of power are harvested from stars in other locations…
What if someone who had the potential to discover a formula to unlock the mysteries of the universe wanted to become a pulp fiction writer? What if someone who had the potential to create unparalleled gastronomic delicacies had his heart set on civil engineering? There is what we desire to do, and what we are able to…
I agree that a dreary comprehensive litany of who made what suggestion and which project official rejected it would be tedious (although me fact that the same idea arose in the minds of many different people - both in the science and the engineering teams - is worth noting), while at least some indication of the…
It is called a tokamak—old Soviet shorthand for a more precise and geometrical name, toroidalnaya kamera s aksialnym magnitnym polem, or “toroidal chamber with an axial magnetic field.” Sakharov’s rough sketch depicted a doughnut-shaped vacuum chamber, or torus, ringed with electromagnets, and that is how iter’s core…
The circulation of the blood was long since known; but the disposition of the vessels which conveyed the chyle to mix with it, and repair its losses; the existence of a gastric fluid which disposes the elements to the decomposition necessary to separate from organised matter, that portion which is proper to become…
An egg is a chemical process, but it is not a mere chemical process. It is one that is going places—even when, in our world of chance and contingency, it ends up in an omelet and not in a chicken. Though it surely be a chemical process, we cannot understand it adequately without knowing the kind of chicken it has the…
[To] mechanical progress there is apparently no end: for as in the past so in the future, each step in any direction will remove limits and bring in past barriers which have till then blocked the way in other directions; and so what for the time may appear to be a visible or practical limit will turn out to be but a…
Engineering is quite different from science. Scientists try to understand nature. Engineers try to make things that do not exist in nature. Engineers stress invention. To embody an invention the engineer must put his idea in concrete terms, and design something that people can use. That something can be a device, a…
The story of civilization is, in a sense, the story of engineering—that long and arduous struggle to make the forces of nature work for man's good.
Renegade scientists and totalitarian loonies are not the folks most likely to abuse genetic engineering. You and I are--not because we are bad but because we want to do good. In a world dominated by competition, parents understandably want to give their kids every advantage. ... The most likely way for eugenics to…
What's the difference between evolution and engineering? Engineering is the designing of a whole out of parts suited to their individual purposes. Evolution is the process of tiny incremental changes, each making some small or large improvement in the ability of the thing to survive and reproduce. A good engineer…
I have a little bit of a rant about computer science also. I could make a pretty strong case that the word science should not be applied to computing. I think essentially all of what's called computer science is some combination of engineering and applied mathematics. I think very little of it is science in terms oft…
Creating a permanent record of our civilization may not be as difficult as we imagine. What we need is a primer on science, clearly written and unambiguous in its meaning—a primer for anyone interested in the state of the Earth and how to survive and live well on it. One that would serve also as a primary school…