Does technological progress have natural limits?

[Venusian Broon]

I'm not sure what a Quantum revolution is supposed to be.

You're typing on one of the fruits of it, as I am with my PC. But I do think there are some game-changing techs and ingenious ideas still to come from manipulation of the micro. It's not just about cramming ever smaller transistors into the same space. I do get your point about the programmer, but again that's one aspect - a result of the overwhelming success of computing to be applied to ever increasingly harder real problems. To some that's limits, to others it's just teething problems

Anyway, I do think it is dangerous to focus so narrowly on 'progress' on just one aspect, i,e. when in reality something like technology develops because of a broad range of different factors, one of which is sometimes physical limits, but a lot of the time you have to look at societal, environmental, economical and culturally drivers.

The Romans have come up a lot in this discussion for failing to exploit something like the steam engine. But the reason they left it as a novelty was that they didn't need it. A large part of their economy was slave driven and they were, for many hundreds of years, very efficient at generating slaves to keep this economy going.

Anyway, I've made progress this morning and I look to make even more this afternoon, adieu good sir.

 

[Mirannan]

There are limits, imposed by natural law, on technological progress - but they are very loose limits, in the main. Two examples: The limit of information density is given by the Bekenstein bound (roughly, one bit for each square Planck length) and that is more-than-astronomically higher than we are going to get to for a very long time. And there is approximately 400 yottawatts of power available in the Solar System if we can build collectors - and there is easily enough material.

Secondly, saying that natural law limits technology implies that we already know all of natural law - which we plainly don't.

 

[Dave]

The Romans have come up a lot in this discussion for failing to exploit something like the steam engine.

I've said this before, but if the Romans were so advanced, how come they didn't invent buttons on clothing?

This thread just looks at technological progress. Deciding what constitutes true progress for humanity is another separate and vast topic in itself.

In that case, there is no argument. It is a no brainer of a question. As others have already said, there are natural constraints that limit the top speed, power and fuel-efficiency of machines beyond values which it is neither economical or practical to try further. You have set a very narrow definition of technological progress if merely measured by such factors. That wasn't the question I was arguing against earlier at all.

 

[Justin Swanton]

The Romans have come up a lot in this discussion for failing to exploit something like the steam engine. But the reason they left it as a novelty was that they didn't need it. A large part of their economy was slave driven and they were, for many hundreds of years, very efficient at generating slaves to keep this economy going.

Actually - not quite. Slavery was common in the late Republic and early Empire when Rome was expanding its conquests and picking up a slew of prisoners to put on the slave market. But after that there wasn't much slavery, and it didn't run the economy. The economy was built on agriculture and arable land was organised into huge estates called latifunda, farmed by tenants who were free men but obliged to pay a percentage of their produce to their landlord.

Anyway, I've made progress this morning and I look to make even more this afternoon, adieu good sir.

Adieu, adieu, a la prochaine!

 

[Justin Swanton]

I've said this before, but if the Romans were so advanced, how come they didn't invent buttons on clothing?

Because they didn't need them?

In that case, there is no argument. It is a no brainer of a question. As others have already said, there are natural constraints that limit the top speed, power and fuel-efficiency of machines beyond values which it is neither economical or practical to try further. You have set a very narrow definition of technological progress if merely measured by such factors. That wasn't the question I was arguing against earlier at all.

OK, I'm listening. What are we talking about?

 

[hej]

The economy was built on agriculture and arable land was organised into huge estates called latifunda, farmed by tenants who were free men but obliged to pay a percentage of their produce to their landlord.

Latifundia

I'm not trying to be pedantic. I'd forgotten my Roman history and had to look up the word. Thanks much for reminding me!

On a different note, I recall that the latifundium did involve slavery. Am I wrong?

Latifundium - Wikipedia

"The latifundia were the closest approximation to industrialized agriculture in Antiquity, and their economics depended upon slavery."

and

"By the 2nd century AD, latifundia had replaced many small and medium-sized farms in some areas of the Roman Empire. As the small farms of the Roman peasantry were bought up by the wealthy and with their vast supply of slaves, the landless peasantry were forced to idle and squat around the city of Rome, relying greatly on handouts. [Ov]erall, the latifundia increased productivity so the moralists complained. The fact is free farmers hadn't disappeared: many had become tenants on estates that were two parts: the part directly controlled by the owner and worked by slaves and the other leased to tenants by legal contract."

So, was it more Archer-Daniels-Midland agribusiness, sharecropping, or pre-US-civil-war slavery?

Seems like a mix of the latter two from what I recall/read -- a blend that would definitely be a brake on technological progress.

 

[Justin Swanton]

Latifundia

I'm not trying to be pedantic. I'd forgotten my Roman history and had to look up the word. Thanks much for reminding me!

On a different note, I recall that the latifundium did involve slavery. Am I wrong?

Latifundium - Wikipedia

"The latifundia were the closest approximation to industrialized agriculture in Antiquity, and their economics depended upon slavery."

and

"By the 2nd century AD, latifundia had replaced many small and medium-sized farms in some areas of the Roman Empire. As the small farms of the Roman peasantry were bought up by the wealthy and with their vast supply of slaves, the landless peasantry were forced to idle and squat around the city of Rome, relying greatly on handouts. [Ov]erall, the latifundia increased productivity so the moralists complained. The fact is free farmers hadn't disappeared: many had become tenants on estates that were two parts: the part directly controlled by the owner and worked by slaves and the other leased to tenants by legal contract."

So, was it more Archer-Daniels-Midland agribusiness, sharecropping, or pre-US-civil-war slavery?

Ta for the correction.

I'll check up on exactly when slavery dropped off in the Empire. By the late Empire certainly (3rd century onwards) it was pretty much confined to the villa/domus staff of rich families. Tenant farmers were either free men or coloni, i.e. not slaves but obliged to stay on and work the land of their landlords, kind of like indentured servants.

 

[Justin Swanton]

Somewhat on the subject, a large oil refinery costs between $5 and $15 billion to build, employs about 4000 staff, and produces about 635 trillion (thousand thousand million) Btu (British Thermal Units) of energy a year. The world's largest HEP dam, the Three Gorges dam in China, cost $27.6 billion to build, employs about the same number of staff, and produces about 334 trillion Btu of energy a year. So HEP is less profitable than oil but not dramatically so. But the environmentalists have to commit hara-kiri.

 

[Mirannan]

Somewhat on the subject, a large oil refinery costs between $5 and $15 billion to build, employs about 4000 staff, and produces about 635 trillion (thousand thousand million) Btu (British Thermal Units) of energy a year. The world's largest HEP dam, the Three Gorges dam in China, cost $27.6 billion to build, employs about the same number of staff, and produces about 334 trillion Btu of energy a year. So HEP is less profitable than oil but not dramatically so. But the environmentalists have to commit hara-kiri.

On the other hand, as long as maintenance is carried out (including some things often not done, such as removing silt) the dam project will produce energy essentially forever. Without the associated external costs of the products of the refinery; even if you think that AGW is nonsense, there is still air pollution which does have all manner of costs; also the risk of fire and explosion and even the inevitable small and possible major spillages.

It's also notable that the oil refinery doesn't produce any energy at all without the oil wells to send it feedstock, or the tankers and pipelines to transport it. One really ought to add the oil wells, tankers and pipelines to the figures.

Lastly, the finished product has to be transported as well and that isn't free (or risk-free) either.

 

[Brian G Turner]

a large oil refinery

That's not a power station feeding into the national grid, though?

 

[Justin Swanton]

That's not a power station feeding into the national grid, though?

No, my figures for its energy output is a rough conversion into Bdu of the energy in the petrol, diesel and jet fuels it produces.

 

[Justin Swanton]

It's also notable that the oil refinery doesn't produce any energy at all without the oil wells to send it feedstock, or the tankers and pipelines to transport it. One really ought to add the oil wells, tankers and pipelines to the figures.

Lastly, the finished product has to be transported as well and that isn't free (or risk-free) either.

True. I don't have the figures for that. Can anyone help?

 

[Mirannan]

True. I don't have the figures for that. Can anyone help?

The only figure I can find is the one for an offshore oil field (Libra) off the coast of Brazil. This cost is $174 billion; one can assume that onshore fields in reasonable places would cost maybe a tenth of that, but I doubt that there are any of those left.

 

[LordOfWizards]

No amateurs today are even trying to invent antigravity, or homemade fusion reactors, or antimatter drives, or anything that would significantly alter the current state of macrotechnology.

Ahem... Why This 14-Year-Old Kid Built a Nuclear Reactor

 

[Justin Swanton]

Ahem... Why This 14-Year-Old Kid Built a Nuclear Reactor

I know nothing whatsoever about Taylor Wilson, but I will swear on the graves of my ancestors that he has not built a fusion reactor.

 

[LordOfWizards]

Sorry Justin. If you read the article, that's exactly what he did.
From the first paragraph:

"... a boy who had just become the youngest person on Earth to build a working nuclear fusion reactor."

 

[Mirannan]

I know nothing whatsoever about Taylor Wilson, but I will swear on the graves of my ancestors that he has not built a fusion reactor.

You would be wrong. "Built a fusion reactor" does not imply that said reactor produced more energy than was put in.

It so happens that the design this kid used (called a Farnworth fusor, I believe) is used fairly widely as a source of high-energy neutrons for various research purposes.

 

[BAYLOR]

I can’t imagine a limit on technology.

 

[Dave]

I can’t imagine a limit on technology.

By the very limited and narrow parameters set by question as posed here, there are fundamental limits imposed i.e. the speed of light in a vacuum, the Planck constant, and the gravitational constant. "We canna change the laws of physics, cap'tin!"

My argument was an entirely different one, in that further small refinements of low tech i.e. the life span of a gas light mantel, are made totally obsolete when higher tech is discovered/introduced i.e. electric light bulbs, followed by fluorescent tubes, followed by Ferengi glow globes, or whatever.

The length of time it took a candle to burn was once a fundamental problem that severely limited the amount of work that could be achieved in the evening. In the future, we will pay as much attention to how fast we can make a car go as we now do today to how long a candle will burn.

 

[Mirannan]

By the very limited and narrow parameters set by question as posed here, there are fundamental limits imposed i.e. the speed of light in a vacuum, the Planck constant, and the gravitational constant. "We canna change the laws of physics, cap'tin!"

My argument was an entirely different one, in that further small refinements of low tech i.e. the life span of a gas light mantel, are made totally obsolete when higher tech is discovered/introduced i.e. electric light bulbs, followed by fluorescent tubes, followed by Ferengi glow globes, or whatever.

The length of time it took a candle to burn was once a fundamental problem that severely limited the amount of work that could be achieved in the evening. In the future, we will pay as much attention to how fast we can make a car go as we now do today to how long a candle will burn.

But that's a different argument altogether - although what you say is true. And there are other constraints not imposed by limits of the technology itself, as well. I think it was Arthur C. Clarke who said that he had no desire to travel down Oxford Street at the velocity of sound - but he would quite like always to be able to go down that street at the speed of a stagecoach.

A second example is the real soon now (TM) introduction of flying cars - which will probably look like a giant drone. The problem here is imposed by human nature, not the technology. Cars on the ground kill thousands of people per year in the UK, but at least those killed are either in the car or on the road - local to the event, at any rate. Now let's imagine that flying cars become common and are driven in much the same state of repair as cars are now and also by people in the same state of health, sobriety and alertness as current cars. The problem here is that a flying car having an accident 2000 feet up would have rather more drastic effects than a car crash has now.

The same applies, with even more force, to space vehicles. Care to have a drunk driver in charge of an orbital shuttle? You might as well give him a nuke to play with.