Dorky Poll: Scientific Hopes

A little while ago, the Corporate Masters asked us to answer a couple of questions for possible inclusion in the first ’08 issue of Seed. I originally posted this back in November, but got asked to take it down because the issue was hush-hush. The street date for the magazine in question was this week, though, and I busted up my wrist playing basketball yesterday, so I’m dragging it back out because typing hurts.

The question is:

What scientific development do you hope to be blogging or reading about in 2008?

The original question was more general, asking us just what we’d like to be blogging about in the coming year, but I restricted my answer (below the fold) to science stuff, and for the sake of general sanity, I’m going to restrict this post to scientific issues. I’ll put up a second post for political hopes.

But for this post, what would you like to be blogging about (if you’re a blogger) or reading about (if you’re not a blogger) in the coming year? It could be a physics breakthrough, a math theorem, a new medical technique, or anything else in the realm of science. It should ideally be something that might plausibly happen in 2008, but that’s your call to make. It should also be brief, Jonathan Vos Post.

My answer, from the world of physics:

On a personal level, I’d like to be blogging about the upcoming release of my book. Or, better yet, the better-than-expected sales of my book… My deadline for handing the manuscript in is August 1, though, so unless I hand it in very early, I doubt that it’ll come out before early 2009. We’ll see, though.

In terms of science, I’d like to be blogging about new and exciting results from the AMO/ Quantum Optics physics community. There are a few experiments out there with the potential to do really exciting things in the near future, such as the molecule-based searches for an electric dipole moment (EDM) of the electron. These are table-top experiments that have the potential to rule out large classes of beyond-the-Standard-Model physics without using any multi-billion-dollar accelerators, and I think that’s extremely cool.

There’s also always a chance that somebody will make a dramatic step forward in the quantum computing/ quantum information field. A demonstration of a real system (DWave’s thing doesn’t count) for running quantum algorithms with error correction using several
entangled qbits would be an amazing development, and I’d love to be spending time blogging about that.

Tomorrow: Fear!

12 comments

  1. Is the vacuum demonstrably chiral in the mass sector? Do single crystals of crystallographic space group P3(1)21 and P3(2)21 benzil have identical enthalpies of fusion throughout the day? Results are expected by the New Year awakening, as has gone before in a similarly unwelcome manner.

  5. I’d personally like to be blogging about a resurgence of “amateur” science, along the lines of the basement labs of famous historical scientists, in addition to “professional” science. (It should be noted that by “amateur” I mean “done for the love of it”, not “unskilled”.)

    I don’t think anything would demonstrate the usefulness and importance of science to people who aren’t professional scientists more than actually seeing more science outside of specialized and expensive laboratories.

  6. I’d like to read about how you understand that condensed matter physics and particle physics are good for each other and help each other by driving changes in technology (advanced detectors, as well as the theoretical analogues between the two) as well as the fact that funding is clearly _positively_ correlated between the two. As well as your knowledge that tabletop experiments are critical for large classes of fundamental measurements, but the big ones are necessary for the others (including many critically important ones like #4 above). There’s enough love for physics in all of its diversity, isn’t there?

  8. # 5 | Epicanis | January 24, 2008 1:12 PM

    I’d personally like to be blogging about a resurgence of “amateur” science, along the lines of the basement labs of famous historical scientists, in addition to “professional” science. (It should be noted that by “amateur” I mean “done for the love of it”, not “unskilled”.)

    I don’t think anything would demonstrate the usefulness and importance of science to people who aren’t professional scientists more than actually seeing more science outside of specialized and expensive laboratories.

    I like this answer! The more you think about how the modern world got to be modern them more you realize it was mainly someone in a lab or workshop spending 100s of hours for the betterment of themselves and mankind!
    Dave Briggs :~)

  10. Duplicated results of a cold fusion experiment. Not alot of return on investment, just a bit would be nice. Heck even normal hot fusion would be nice.

    Hey, dream big right?

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