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The Century's Top Engineering Challenges
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Feb 20, 2008 11:15 PM
from the I-want-talking-fruit dept.
from the I-want-talking-fruit dept.
coondoggie writes "The National Science Foundation announced today 14 grand engineering challenges for the 21st century that, if met, would greatly improve how we live. The final choices fall into four themes that are essential for humanity to flourish — sustainability, health, reducing vulnerability, and joy of living. The committee did not attempt to include every important challenge, nor did it endorse particular approaches to meeting those selected. Rather than focusing on predictions or gee-whiz gadgets, the goal was to identify what needs to be done to help people and the planet thrive, the group said. A diverse committee of engineers and scientists — including Larry Page, Robert Langer, and Robert Socolow — came up with the list but did not rank the challenges. Rather, the National Academy of Engineering is offering the public an opportunity to vote on which one they think is most important."
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"Prevent nuclear terror" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Prevent nuclear terror" (Score:5, Interesting)
Ever heard of social engineering?
Seriously, what is securing cyberspace if not a people problem? The machines don't cause the problems, people do.
Securing cyberspace is easy, building systems to secure cyberspace that users can actually use is the hard part. People have been telling me to get a Mac as the solution to all my usability problems for years. So today I bought one.
OK so the Mac is nicer in many respects, but mostly as far as I am concerned on the hardware package side than the software. But the security usability is no better. None of the assistants in the shop were able to solve the simple security tasks I proposed. Which is good for me I suppose since there would be no point in trying to solve an already solved problem.
Now securing the fifty year old banking IT system, now that is much harder than securing the Internet, and that is the system the criminals are attacking because that is where the money is.
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Re:"Prevent nuclear terror" - also (Score:5, Insightful)
The declared nuclear states (and Israel with it's undeclared undeclared weapons) and their delivery systems and willingness to invade other non-nuclear states is just fine, it's the people with no weapons and little realistic hope of getting them.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:"Prevent nuclear terror" - also (Score:4, Insightful)
Known nuclear states are not much of a threat as they leave a trail back to them that ensures their own destruction.
It is the fringe groups that only need a single weapon that you have to worry about... because they WILL use them!
Parent
more generally... (Score:4, Informative)
Proliferation of any means of provoking large scale mayhem is an increasing problem because of the number of players alone. If every country(or any organisation that's big enough) had an array of such weapons, chances of things going very wrong increase, in part because of things getting out of control in tit-for-tat reactions. Imagine 1962 with 10 players instead of 2.
There's also a point in distinguishing "terrorists" from "sane people", but here I would agree that the point is overestimated and it places an insane trust in the power of sanity. Uh. Also, terrorists blowing up a big city isn't the end of the world. It's only one city. Humanity will survive
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Re:"Prevent nuclear terror" - also (Score:5, Interesting)
Declared nuclear states (and states like Israel that are unofficially declared) are just fine. If the Israelis lob a nuke at the Russians, they know they have only twenty minutes or so to make peace with whomever they worship. India and Pakistan, both nuclear armed countries that have, what, seven wars under their collective belt haven't nuked each other. Fear is a wonderful demotivator.
But terrorism is different. Let's say Al Queda gets ahold of a nuclear bomb. What, exactly, is their downside to actually using it? Who would we retaliate against if they used it to blow up New York? Hell, they might not care if we went on a big bombing spree, since all the dead Muslims are gonna get their virgins.
And why are you so sanguine about their chances of actually acquiring one? The technology is over sixty years old - you can get plans off the internet. People have been caught selling stolen Russian fissionables now on more than one occasion. And terrorist groups don't seem to have a big problem attracting engineers. Sure, they probably couldn't build a fusion bomb, and a crude fission bomb might be large and have a yield of "only" 50kt or so. That would be enough to kill millions.
Personally, I don't think nuclear terrorism is an "if" question. It's a "when" question. But short of a verifyable, complete international ban on all nuclear devices, including power stations, I don't see how it can be prevented.
Parent
Re:"Prevent nuclear terror" (Score:5, Insightful)
> Provide energy from fusion
Shouldn't a list of the greatest engineering challenges be written by someone who understands the issues?
I'd like to see the reasoning behind why they are promoting theoretical fusion designs over working, proven fission designs. It better not be based on the fallacy that fusion doesn't result in radioactive waste.
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Re:"Prevent nuclear terror" (Score:5, Informative)
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The biggest challenge, by far (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The biggest challenge, by far (Score:5, Insightful)
Well that is the point of the exercise here, NSF trying to get money from Congress. But its more of an aspirational list of goals and the real problem is that the feedback system is out of whack.
You might imagine that either industry or academia would care about stopping Internet Crime, but what Industry actually cares about is making the numbers at the end of the quarter and the best way to do that is to make your bank, business or other crime target a less attractive target than the business next door.
Academia is meant to do basic research, but the measurement of production is minimum publishable units, publish or perish. And to get a paper published it has to be novel rather than important or useful. So we know how to do secure email in principle but nobody uses it in practice - across the Internet at least. The academics never quite finished the job and the incentives are not quite right for industry to be bothered.
Often an academic will solve a problem long before it is understood to be a problem. By the time the problem is recognized and the time is right to finish the job and make it useful the field has moved on. Nobody is going to get the credit for pointing out that Fred proposed a solution for a problem twenty years ago.
Most academic papers in info security are describing solutions to boutique cryptographic puzzles. Real world constraints are irrelevant. So at FC this year there was a paper that started with the idea of stopping counterfeiting of currency by printing barcodes on the notes. Good, interesting. The scheme then involved people scanning them with their cell phone camera. WTF ???? Wrong problem, the challenge the fed is trying to solve is to spot the introduction of fake notes quickly, they can do that with scanners in banks. The banks can be persuaded to install scanners but no consumer is going to spend time scanning their change at the convenience store with a cell phone.
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Re:The biggest challenge, by far (Score:5, Funny)
Well, it wouldn't be such a challenge if, you know, all the goals weren't so incredibly LAME. "Health informatics"? Bo-ring! Here's *my* list of challenges:
(1) Flying car.
(2) Cure for the hangover.
(3) Sex robot. As kinky as Madonna with the flexibility of a contortionist.
(4) Plug-in memory expansions so you can learn useful skills, equations, etc. without sitting through boring lectures and tests.
(5) Baldness cure.
(6) Beer that makes you skinnier instead of fatter.
(7) Dog-cat hybrid. Like a cat, it doesn't need your attention constantly, but it pays attention when you want it to, like a dog. It's comes when you call it like a dog, but it's clean like a cat. Plus, it barks AND purrs.
(8) Teleporter. I'm sick of commuting.
(9) Perpetual youth.
(10) Ballpoint pen that doesn't run out of ink just when you need it most.
(11) Formulas that make you grow bigger or smaller, just like Alice in Wonderland.
(12) Television remote with built in homing device and tiny little robot legs. So even if you misplace it, it always finds its way back to where it should be.
(13) A version of Microsoft Office that doesn't, you know, suck so much.
(14) Slashdot editors who are genetically engineered so that they can actually spell and are familiar with basic punctuation and grammar.
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Re:The biggest challenge, by far (Score:5, Funny)
1) a nerd
2) a drunk
3) virginal
4) ignorant
5) bald
6) overweight
7) lonely
8) lazy
9) middle-aged
10) a stained-shirt wearer
11) have an inferiority complex
12) TV obsessed
13) a nerd (did I say that already?)
14) somewhat OCD
but hey! it's just a list
(ps. I'm just taking the piss - please take this in the spirit in which it is intended.)
Parent
what about DARPA's list? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:what about DARPA's list? (Score:5, Insightful)
Turning the clean water issue into an engineering challenge means you can bypass all that crap & distribute the solution directly to the villagers who need it.
I caught this on the news the other day. [playpumps.org]
The idea is to dig a well, strap a playground whirl to a mechanical pump & have kids pump the water up into a big holding tank. It'll only be useful in villages where there's a school or a large number of children to keep the thing spinning, but it's a perfect engineering solution that means villagers don't have to use river water that people & animals have used as a toilet, trough & clothes/dish washer.
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Re:what about DARPA's list? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the engineering solution involves something that has any monetary, government corruption will make it infeasible. If it involves anything but extremely small scale and localised cooperation then lax/nonexistent oversight will make it infeasible. If the solution involves taking water in its current state from the environment in any way then pollution and contamination of water supplies will make it infeasible. If it involves anything that is possible to destroy to impoverish its users then tribal divisions will make it infeasible. I guarantee that any possible solution for any engineering problem is either stealable, destroyable, polluteable or can be distroyed by arguing.
Engineering HAS a solution for this problem, have a clean government to provide strong oversight, manage pollution and contamination and overcome divisions to retain the harmony that lead to this. We can build pipes, wells and treatment plants very effectively, even servicing huge countries like Canada and countries with massive populations like the United States. Development is easy, it's just a natural product of peace and desire to improve the lives of one's people. I have a strong feeling that India's growing middle class will lead the way for that country to become mostly clean and healthy in a few decades time, the Chinese government is somewhat working on fixing the problems with its basic services to poor rural areas and is furiously trying to clean up the worst of the pollution in time for the Olympic games. The poorer nations of South America seem to be creating public services like fresh water, unfortunately sometimes it's a little rocky like in Bolivia but they're getting there. Soon the only nations on earth without these services will be the nations (predominantly African) torn by civil and ethnic strife and that's the problem. That's the only problem since even if the water wasn't killing people, people would be. That's why people problems must be addressed first.
Parent
I would add: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I would add: (Score:5, Informative)
See the section in the linked article entitled "Patent Encumbrance" and then go to Cobasys and try and buy a rack of Ovonic NiMH batteries to build your own plug-in electric vehicle. Let me know how that works out for you.
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Re:I would add: (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I would rephrase this as "create a better-than-nature method of using solar power to convert CO2 + H20 into gasoline + O2."
The way I see it, the only problem with the carbon we burn is that we're taking it out of the ground instead of out of the air. Gasoline is a already a pretty good battery - it just happens to be one that for now we can find lying around in the ground.
Re:I would add: (Score:5, Interesting)
But, yes hopefully we can approach "comparable".
Parent
Re:I would add: (Score:4, Interesting)
Ever since I learned about antimatter I've been dreaming of a battery powered of a small amount of the stuff. Yeah, I know about the problems with avoiding uhm, "spectacular" failure-modes. But the energy-density is gargantuan.
Cars that need to swap a tiny battery once-a-year ? Check ! Passenger-jets that emit zero pollution, and that replace tons and tons of jet-fuel with a small, easily swappable battery ? Check !
Okay, so I know this is totally unrealistic. It would however be very cool.
e = mc^2
0.5 gram of antimatter in a battery, reacts with 0.5g of normal matter, releases 0.001 * 300000000 * 300000000 J = gargantuan number. More energy than you could spend in a lifetime. All in a handy AA-cell.
Building a safe antimatter confinement-cell that size is left an engineering-challenge for the reader.
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let's see (Score:5, Insightful)
how exactly should we do this, hmmm? get rid of all the nuclear weapons on earth, destroy all knowledge relating to the atom, and shoot all nuclear waste into space? Better extinguish the sun while we're at it, and ignore that goal of fusion power since it is "nuclear" fusion. Why not just pick a less ambiguous goal like "end uphappiness."
* Secure cyberspace
* Enhance virtual reality
1996 just filed a lawsuit for trademark infringement.
* Advance personalized learning
* Engineer the tools for scientific discovery
W00t! Buzzword bingo!
There are some decent goals in there, but like so many projects laid out for engineers, they are engineering projects laid out entirely by non-engineers. There's no thought to implementation here, just feel good "hey we oughta" crap.
Re:let's see (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Carbon sequestration (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Carbon sequestration (Score:5, Insightful)
Hah. ok, the obvious problem with this is that turning CO2 into coal is the opposite of what we have been doing for the past 200 years. How do you accomplish that? Put the energy back into the coal! But if we could do that, the first thing we'd do is use all of that energy to replace the energy we still obtain by burning coal (and other hydrocarbons) in the first place.
So, it seems like the only way to do that is to solve the "energy problem" that is putting so much CO2 into our atmosphere already. Once we fix that, then the surplus energy can be used to remove all the CO2 we have already put into the atmosphere...
I understand that's a total oversimplification, but the point is: cure the disease, not the symptoms!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Carbon sequestration (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, we already have the technology to create diamonds in a lab. See the wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] on the subject. (At this point, I should mention that De Beers also tightly controls the diamond cutter workforce -- any diamond cutter who cuts for a company other than De Beers is immediately cut off from doing any De Beers work)
Parent
Diamond-cutting guilds (Score:5, Funny)
"Hmmmm... I've got all these diamonds; now who can I hire that has experience in precision cutting work where any mistake has grave consequences...
"I've got it!"
Parent
Holy funding program Batman (Score:5, Funny)
* Make solar energy affordable
- Just wait till oil goes to 120/barrel
* Provide energy from fusion
- isn't that solar energy?
* Develop carbon sequestration methods
- I thought the atmosphere of Earth was doing a good job already?
* Manage the nitrogen cycle
- Fat chance with corn farmers working over time
* Provide access to clean water
- That would just ruin the coke/pepsi wars... not happening
* Restore and improve urban infrastructure
- Isn't this program already underway? I understand NYC has had some renovations. (yeah, that's low)
* Advance health informatics
- subcutaneous ID chips?
* Engineer better medicines
- Yeah, big pharma has been doing good at this one lately - check Chantix
* Reverse-engineer the brain
- Ok, this is a new idea, lets get behind this one guys, what do you say?
* Prevent nuclear terror
- GW has this one covered, right, he's the decider guy.
* Secure cyberspace
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA here's your sign
* Enhance virtual reality
- Why not worry about first life a bit more for a while?
* Advance personalized learning
- Yes, All those free or lowered tuition costs, online resources, open course materials... those are great ideas, hope someone does that soon.
* Engineer the tools for scientific discovery
- This will obviously become reality and really simple once the brain has been reverse engineered??? WTF
Ok, seriously, is it just me or does everyone else think perhaps not smoke so much weed should be on the list?
Who are these idiots? (Score:5, Insightful)
No thanks, I'd prefer real alternative energy solutions.
* Restore and improve urban infrastructure
Could you be any more vague?
* Prevent nuclear terror
I thought these were engineering challenges.
* Advance personalized learning
Give me a break.
Re:Who are these idiots? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've often wondered why we don't see alternative energy startups these days. Of course, 10 to 15 years ago (and of course further back), we could assume that any serious capital that was capable of such a startup was already in the hands of people who did not desire such a thing. But these days, we have Warren Buffet, Mike Bloomberg, Bill Gates - these people have some some serious cash, and the "green" philosophy to perhaps make a go of it. Why don't we see a serious attempt at generating wind, solar, or tidal power?
Parent
Missing option: holes. (Score:5, Interesting)
To summarize, what we need is a better way to dig cheap holes.
Think of it: with a cheap way to drill a hole we can drill down close to the mantle of the earth for cheap geothermal. With a cheap way to dig a tunnel we can expand our freeway infrastructure by placing new roads below ground. Infrastructure can be run underground more cheaply--if we have a cheap hole to run them through.
Holes are the future.
Re:Missing option: holes. (Score:5, Funny)
To summarize, what we need is a better way to dig cheap holes.
Think of it: with a cheap way to drill a hole we can drill down close to the mantle of the earth for cheap geothermal. With a cheap way to dig a tunnel we can expand our freeway infrastructure by placing new roads below ground. Infrastructure can be run underground more cheaply--if we have a cheap hole to run them through.
Holes are the future."
I'd like to submit a proposal for genetically engineering gophers the size of a bus. They'd be a cheap source for tunneling and could be bred instead of expensive manufacturing. So long as they don't start digging up lawns or develop a taste for human flesh they could be a major resource and not use any fossil fuels.
Parent
Re:Missing option: holes. (Score:5, Interesting)
The necessary advance isn't a "hole drilling robot." It's incredibly strong, heat-resistant pipes, and some kind of trick for installing them while drilling without affecting the bore diameter or preventing bit replacement.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"manage the nitrogen cycle?" (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:"manage the nitrogen cycle?" (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently you didn't look that hard - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_cycle#Human_influences_on_the_nitrogen_cycle [wikipedia.org] found that by typing "Nitrogen Cycle" in google. It was the first result.
Parent
Re:"manage the nitrogen cycle?" (Score:5, Informative)
If we don't come up with that, we'll need three or four thousand LNG tankers cruising to the middle east and back to keep the pipelines full. (Worse case admittedly, but eventually one of them is going to go boom, then the others won't be allowed to dock, and then
"No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow." (S. Ivanova, 2260)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
My top challenges (Score:5, Funny)
2. A device to selectively block out the sound of an episode of "The Golden Girls" my wife insists on putting on to fall asleep to
3. A device that detects reality tv and automatically adds a warning "This show is for morons. Watching by non-morons may lead to brain damage" across the screen
4. A filter for slashdot trolls.
5. A robot capable of doing all your arguing for you in a flame war.
6. An irrationality meter that warns you how irrational a person you're talking to is being at the time.
7. A superstition meter
8. Something to prevent assholes on public transport from touching my personal property (especially people bumping my laptop with oversized baggage and not even realizing it)
Re:My top challenges (Score:5, Funny)
1. Buy the same socks
2. Get a divorce
3. TV Guide
4. Done
5. In a flame war, you don't have to respond to the person or have an intellectual viewpoint. Just write a script for it.
6. meter is pegged already
7. no clue
8. It's called a car
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
2. No way. She rocks even if our taste in TV differs.
3. Got one. Doesn't change the wife from wanting to watch stuff. See 2.
4. Where???
5. A script that can answer as well as I can? Where?
6. where?
8. It's called a traffic jam.
The List (with annotations) (Score:5, Informative)
I am going to be fair... this is really a list of things that can be completed in the next 25 years. These are not "100 year" goals. They are simply to generalized, for the most part. A real engineer knows that goals should be Specific, Measurable, and ARTistic [wikipedia.org]. These goals don't qualify.
The first three... (Score:4, Insightful)
False problems (Score:4, Interesting)
* Make solar energy affordable
As noted elsewhere: affordable is relative. Let oil hit some arbitrarily high price, and solar power suddenly looks cheap.
* Provide energy from fusion
Also, as noted elsewhere, the sun is a stable fusion reactor, and it is safely located millions of miles away.
* Develop carbon sequestration methods
Only if we intend to continue gulping oil. Assuming it goes off the charts in expense, carbon sources (oil or coal) will cease to be economically viable and will cease being used except for Important things like medicine and materials, both of which are small carbon burners compared to the local SUV.
* Manage the nitrogen cycle
Corn, Beans, Squash.
* Provide access to clean water
Nice idea, but first you have to have enough to go around. This problem (as would many others) be solved with FEWER people shitting the place up.
* Restore and improve urban infrastructure
Mostly, TRAINS. Lots of electric TRAINS. Remember: Peak OIl == Peak Asphalt.
* Advance health informatics
Nice idea - how you will do it with out petroleum is another issue.
* Engineer better medicines
See above.
* Reverse-engineer the brain
Why? I would think reverse engineering the liver might be more useful.
* Prevent nuclear terror
Sure: Ban nuclear weapons or drive civilisation back to the 18th century. We can do the first, and the oil crash will do the second, over time.
* Secure cyberspace
Against WHAT? Phishing?
* Enhance virtual reality
Eeew- that is like SO five minutes ago.
* Advance personalized learning
Sure, so I can leverage my human resources, right? fuck off.
* Engineer the tools for scientific discovery
Like WHAT - INSIGHT? Good luck with that Butch, lemme know how it works out for ya. Moron.
RS
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I AM A FUCKING TROLL (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:One is solved! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the thing. Not everyone is playing WoW. It's natural selection at its finest.
Maybe it's a ploy to get people with addictive behaviours filtered out of the gene pool ;)
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