The questions posed in yesterday’s posts about hopes for 2008 were half of what we were asked by the Powers That Be. The other half:
What scientific development do you fear you’ll be blogging or reading about in 2008?
As with yesterday’s posts, the original question was more general, 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 fears.
But for this post, what are you afraid 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 an experimental mishap, a funding shortfall, 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: The Large Hadron Collider.
What do I fear I’ll be bloging about?
The Large Hadron Collider. Not just because I’m kind of sick of all
the talk about the future awesomeness of the LHC, but because there’s
almost no way I could end up blogging at length about the LHC in 2008
and have it be good news.Under the most optimistic schedule, they’re not expected to start
operation until June of 2008, and there have been enough glitches
reported that I’m skeptical they’ll hit that date. Even if they do
start in June, it will take months to get enough data to conclusively
detect any new particles, and I’d be very surprised if they produced
any solid results by the end of the year.If I’m blogging a lot about the LHC in 2008, then, it will most likely
be because something has gone wrong, and I don’t want to see that.
Blogging about the LHC in 2009 could be good news, but in 2008, it’s
more likely to be bad. I hope they start up smoothly in 2008, and
don’t give me much to blog about before 2009.
So, what are you afraid of this year?
Oh, this is easy.
I so totally don’t want to read that in the face of increasing human-to-human transmission of bird flu, the promising new vaccine isn’t effective.
Not gonna lie. Whenever I hear about robots getting more intelligent, my first thought is “cool” and then I shudder. Like my Mom just got one of those Roomba robots that cleans things in the house. It’s cool, and it’s a cute little robot I guess, but the smarter technology gets the more scared I get.
I might sound overly paranoid, and I probably do worry about it too much, but I do keep in mind that lots of things talked about in science fiction later come to pass, so I guess it doesn’t strike me as overly ludicrous that sometime (maybe not in my lifetime) machine AI will be a real issue. But then I usually stop worrying, because it’s not really a big enough possibility right now for me to be worrying about it.
# 1 | speedwell | January 25, 2008 2:05 PM
Oh, this is easy.
I so totally don’t want to read that in the face of increasing human-to-human transmission of bird flu, the promising new vaccine isn’t effective.
Try as I might, I don’t think I could top this one!
Thanks and have a great weekend!
Dave Briggs :~)
“Scientists believe the delayed-onset form of Ebola has already escaped the African continent and may be spreading through Europe and the Americas…”
“Artificial life form escapes laboratory as a virulent disease.”
Not for the deaths or sickness, at least not solely it causes, but the backlash against research into new (well not really new as life has been around for awhile) areas.
Scientists create artificial life that converts salt into gasoline through metabolic processes which escapes the lab and finds its way into the ocean…
I’d rather not have any stories in the mainstream press about brilliant-but-crazy mathematicians. If there’s going to be any big breakthroughs I hope they come from nice, normal, Terry Tau types.
Matt: point taken, but transform “Terry Tau” to “Terry Tao” before googling for his amazing website and blog.
What I am most afraid of is that humans will decide that they have the power to control CO2 levels and hence the weather. Once we have decided to control our own unwanted contribution, we will not be satisfied. We will set up a panel that will attempt to interfere with and prevent all future cooling or warming cycles of the planet. Giant ‘CO2-ditioning’ plants will be set up across the planet that will use the latest chemical technology in an attempt to increase or decrease CO2 levels in accordance with some concentration coming out of a ‘climate-model’. It may be necessary, before taking such a risky action, to eliminate all water vapour from the planet as this is not yet model-able. Richard Branson’s Virgin Atmosphere consortium will launch a fleet of round-the-clock atmospheric aqua-vac cleaners to remove all clouds by 2050.