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1-Page Summary of Physics of the Future
Overview
When meteorologists tell us that it will rain tomorrow, they are making a prediction based on today’s weather patterns.
We can also look at trends in technology to predict the future.
Some technologies have a distinct pattern of development. For example, the computing power has doubled every 18 months since the invention of microchips. This is called Moore’s Law and it was discovered by scientists.
Due to the exponential growth of computer power, production costs have declined as manufacturers are able to simply tinker with their processes. Computer chips are so cheap that they’re even disposable.
If you think about it, the technology we have today is so much more advanced than what we had before. For example, a computer on your desk has as much computing power as the entire Allied Forces during World War II. This trend will continue and make computers even more powerful in the future. We can use this information to predict when certain technologies will be available or possible.
If we want to know when a universal translator would be possible, we must first break it down into its component technologies. We can use Moore’s Law to predict the future based on technological trends of today.
Big Idea #1: Social values will determine what technologies are successful in the future.
Humans have barely evolved in the last 200,000 years. If you dressed a caveman up in modern clothing, he would be indistinguishable from other humans. His brain and psychology wouldn’t be much different either; they are still driven by the same psychological motivations as our caveman ancestors were.
Throughout history, humans have always had the same goal: to reproduce and pass on their DNA.
Humans are social creatures and have a desire to be popular. This desire has an effect on the products they buy because people want others to think they’re wealthy.
Humans use consumer goods to show off their social status. They do this because they want to attract mates who are successful and have high social value.
As a result, smarter developers will try to make their products more socially valuable so that consumers will buy them. The fact that human desires remain the same helps us predict what future technologies will be successful in the market and which ones won’t be.
Big Idea #2: Computers can revolutionize even the most mundane of products. They will transform our lives in ways we can’t imagine.
As technology becomes more popular, it usually goes from being a scarce luxury to an easily available household item. For example, paper is one of the oldest technologies and started out as something only rich people could afford.
When paper was first invented, it wasn’t popular. It was scarce and hard to find. After the invention of the printing press, however, books became very popular and could be found in libraries as well as homes. Eventually mass production made books available to everyone for a variety of uses.
Computer chips are like paper in that they were once considered a technological marvel, but now they’re more common and cheaper to produce. They will continue to become even more ubiquitous as time goes on.
In the future, computer chips will spread across everything. This includes your phone and personal computers. This trend will lead to a world where anything can be smart.
For example, we could have a computerized wall that would adjust the temperature automatically when you walk into a room. We could also have smart washing machines that we can start with voice commands.
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Because there will be so many smart devices in the future, we need a standard way to interact with them. One example could be a contact lens that allows you to control your computerized glasses and other devices.
