I want to point out something I think is really neat about progress today. There is a story on CNN (and many other places) about the latest exoplanet discovered:
http://www.cnn.com/2...nomy/index.html
The primary news is about the exoplanet. The amount of data we have about the universe is increasing and adding to our knowledge about reality. But there is a secondary story here that is often overlooked by the media, which is the progress in the technology used to gather that data. In this case, micro-lensing has been added to the variety of techniques used to date to detect exoplanets. As our scientific knowledge increases, so does the number of techniques we use to gather that data.
But there is also a third story here, even less obvious. Micro-lensing has been used before, but the technique has improved exponentially to allow this detection. It will continue to improve. Not only do we have new techniques being used to gather new data, but those techniques are improving rapidly.
Then it gets even more interesting when these improved techniques get used to gather different kinds of data. For example, the same technology that is being used by the most powerful ground-based telescopes to delete the affects of the atmosphere from the final image are also being used to significantly improve optical microscopes.
You can follow the thread of a new technique to scientific discovery. You can follow the thread tracing the improvements on that technique. You can then observe how various techniques combine for new techniques. Using this same approach, it should become clear why there appears to be a rapid acceleration of progress and how it will work in all fields of study. I am fascinated by the not so obvious changes that are occuring, those changes that seem small when pointed out but contain their own complicated histories and rapid acceleration.
The exoplanet is as fascinating as the technique used to discover it is as fascinating as the combination of different technologies that went into that technique. And don't get me started about the distribution of the scientists' work and the technologies behind that distribution. Or this forum and all the technology that goes into letting me comment on their work. Or the resulting discussion and the changing social trends that are shaping it...
I better stop there before my brain explodes.
