Future Inventions

A non-profit futurist think tank called the DaVinci Institute, located in Colorado (USA), "has set its sights on creating a museum of future inventions."

Published plans include an area honoring "the eight most important future inventions of all times", although they do not specify what those might be. The proposed museum would include at least eleven pavilions, with specific information on:

1. Robotics
2. Energy
3. Space Commerce
4. Smart Technologies
5. Entertainment
6. Transportation
7. Communications
8. Nanotechnology
9. Genetic Engineering
10. Life Sciences
11. Environmental

In describing nanotechnology, they say...

Making the invisible visible will be one of the challenges in giving visitors a feel for the ultra-tiny world of nanotechnology. Exhibits will explain how we will be able to control of the structure of matter based on molecule-by-molecule control of products and byproducts; the products and processes of molecular manufacturing, including molecular machinery. Electron and scanning tunneling microscopes will be used to make the nano world come to life.

The Institute is also preparing a Roadmap Project as part of the museum...

All future invention exhibits will include a roadmap of the developments that have to happen for the idea exhibited to become achievable. Roadmaps will illustrate the progression of scientific discoveries that will need to be made along the way.

Unfortunately, the Institute's website does not provide a roadmap or timetable for when the musum might be built. But if and when it is, it looks like it would be worth a visit.

Comments

[Dalibor SRAMEK]

If you like future timelines I would recommend BTexact Technology Timeline created by Ian Pearson. The last version is from 2001 and the next one may be published soon. Except other things the timeline contains a few predictions about nanotechnology.

[Janessa Ravenwood]

Dead link and dead site. Do they have a mirror somewhere?

[Mike Treder, CRN]

Janessa, which link(s) do you mean? They are all working for me.

[Janessa Ravenwood]

OK, working now. Wasn't earlier.

[Tom Craver]

I read through that some years back, and thought it was way over-optimistic on most points, even if you take the most limited possible implementation as satisfying it. Possibly in the longer term it'll get more on target, since people tend to over-estimate near term change and under-estimate long term change.

The approach appears to have been to make long lists of interesting developments, order them roughly by perceived difficulty, and slam them into dates. It doesn't appear to try to guess how the impact of one development might advance or delay other developments.

Still, it's an interesting list of possibilities.

[michael vassar]

Wow. What fantastically stupifyingly bad predictions accross the board. I wonder who buys this sort of stuff. Actually, that would be very worth knowing. Whoever does needs some new futurist advisors. I'm on the market for such work.

[todd]

As to the impact of future technologies on the society as a whole as stated earlier the a cumulative impact from one technology on another is an important variable.

As to their placement on the list and to their importance I would just like to say I believe the importance of medical advances in the area of aging far outweigh any importance in comparison to material goods and services. That is to say if we extend life beyond what is currently considered reasonable all other possibilities become probable. If I can live for 10,000 plus years I will have the time to develop and implement all other existing technologies taken from the list.

todd

[Paint Branch High School]

i hate school

[TOad]

DOes anyone know about nanotechnology?!

[fnnnnmmm]

oke..