Technology in 2050

INTRODUCTION

The age we live in a world that surrounds uswith vast quantities of information that is cessible by the tips of our fingers. But in the year 2050 there will be more information that will be accessed in a more efficient way. One wil only have to think store and see the information they , and large computing devices will no longer be necessary. Unlike technology today, laptops, smart phones, and cameras, the technology of the future will allow humans to access and process information through their eyes and store it in their brain. This technology is more efficient and faster. Information that looses relevance is stored in an iCloud like device that is accessible by the human brain when needed. This advancement will use the functions that our brains complete on a daily basis and will further the memory process and storage system. Ultimately, in the future, information will be retrievable at a blink of an eye.

INFORMATION

That is approximately thirty years from now. We might consider what things were like thirty years ago - 1990 - and how we have advanced since then. Or we might look at 1950 and how things progressed to 1980. Or we might look at 1920 and see how things advanced to 1950.

Taking the 1920 - 1950 period first, that was an era of rapid scientific and technological advancement. Obviously, the development of atomic and quantum theory culminating in the development of the atomic bomb was the most significant development. There was also the development of aeronautics from biplanes to monoplanes, the first jet engines, and the development of rocketry. The basic technology for television was invented, and also the earliest computers. The first antibiotics were invented. These are just the major things, there was much else besides.

Looking at 1950 - 1980: There were so many things. The continued development of rocketry led first to Sputnik, then to manned space flight, culminated in the Apollo moon landings, and continued with the first interplanetary probes. we also discovered cosmic background radiation and verified the Big Bang theory. Jet aircraft became first feasible, then dominant and commonplace. The transistor shrunk computers, radios, and televisions down to sizes that enabled them to proliferate. The development of the polio vaccine and the discovery of the structure of DNA were just the most notable of a long list of medical developments. The list goes on and on.

Finally, there has been 1990 - 2020: Personal computers improved and transformed from being little more than hobbyists toys and glorified typewriters into essential tools at work, at home, and even carried with us everywhere. The internet evolved from an obscure university and defense network nobody outside of those worlds had ever heard about into an essential infrastructure that we all use all the time, including right now. We’ve explored most of our solar system in increasing detail and have begun to catalog exoplanets by the hundreds. We have mapped the human genome (and those of increasing numbers of other species) and have begun to manipulate DNA at the individual gene level. Again, the list goes on and on.

The lesson we can learn from these three periods is that thirty years is long enough for some very significant scientific discoveries and some substantial technological advances. What might they be? No one can know for sure, but there is a lot of intensive work being done in theoretical physics. Might the “holy grail” of a unifid theory finally be found? As for technology, might we finally see commercially-viable fusion power? Sentient, self-aware artificial intelligence? And where might genetic engineering lead us?

The other lesson, though, is that in spite of all of these advances through each period, the vast majority of people’s lives didn’t really change all that much. Even in the most technologically advanced societies, there were plenty of people who were living at the end of those thirty years very similarly to the way they were living at the beginning. Even though science and technology advanced very fast, the impacts were very slow in filtering down to ordinary people. Thus, I can predict that a lot of people in 2050 will still be living very similarly to how they are living right now.