h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is there anything left to be invented that will completely change our lives or will we just see improvements and variations to established ideas?

Long gone are the days of inventing the wheel, motor car and aeroplane. Innovations, such as the computer and the internet can hardly be deemed recent, so what is left that hasn't yet been invented?

Admittedly we don't, as yet, have a cure for cancer, but I would argue that a cure would be a 'discovery' rather than a new invention. Either way, it would surely be an improvement to current drugs technology or a variation of surgical techniques.

What have we got to look forward too?

- The quantum computer - capable of performing 128 times as fast as the fastest supercomputers today. Certainly possible in theory: not yet in practice.

- The hydrogen-powered car. Effectively runs on water. Prototypes in existence; should be a reality before petrol runs out. Presumably personal flying vehicles would be the next step, which will hopefully lift road tax.

- Knowledge implants. No need to go to school. Just zap it into your brain, a la The Matrix. Admittedly, this puts me out of a job, so I'm hoping it won't turn up any time soon.

- Genetically determinable animals. Programme your own living thing. Requires about 10 more years DNA research and a few less wet liberals complaining about 'playing God'.

- Total immersion video games, as featured on Red Dwarf ("You only play 'Wimbledon' because you're having it off with that jailbait ball-girl").

B

OK, hear what you are saying, but surely these are improvements to and variations on what we already have invented. Quantam computer, for example, is surely an improvement on electronics technology. Likewise total immersion video games.

A hydrogen car is surely a variation of fuels and engineering knowledge and at very least an improvement to the already invented car.

Genetically determinable animals, as you say, should be possible with a little more research, but is it a totally new invention, or the logical result from years of scientific development?

You seem to be setting rather a high bar for something counting as an 'invention' here. A wheel is a log you can put things on; a car is a cart which doesn't need a horse; even an aeroplane is only a better, quicker form of transport.

A form of total immersion video game where you're unable to tell the difference between, say, going to Hawaii for real and going to Hawaii while never leaving your front room - seems to me that that would be a greater leap than any of the forms of transportation you name.

And a talking pig with wings? Sounds pretty new to me

Isn't everything.

Isn't the computer an evolution from the adding machine or the typewriter, which are evolutions of the abacus and printing press?

Isn't the CD an evolution of the gramaphone record?

Isn't the wheel an evolution of the log roller?

B

Isn't that a simulpost?

B

Yep - and quite an uncanny one

*Worries about a log fixation*

Interestingly, my thoughts had gone along similar lines, which is why I asked the question. If current innovations are a result of evolution, does that mean that there is nothing left to invent?

Is it that man invented all there was to be invented in his early stages of development, leaving us only with improvements and variations of his original ideas?

I think it's more of a question of new words, which give the illusion of originality.

Forget all that stuff, I'm waiting for a self cleaning house!

One where I don't have to run a vacuum, mop, dust, scrub, wash dishes, or lug laundry to the washer. Matter of fact, I don't want to have to push a button for those things to be done either, I just want it to be totally automatic. No muss, no fuss, and no dirt at all. Just spic and span all the time.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention.

Whatever we need will be invented shortly by some bright spark.

If it's not exactly necessary then you can invent all you want but it wouldn't necessarily qualify as an invention if noone has any need of it.

i just invented something (well, about 18 months ago) something tremendously useful, helpful and to a lot of people absolutely necessary. It has taken 18 months to perfect it and get it into a form where it is possible to produce it en masse and gives consistent results. Then there are the little refinements like a low battery alarm, making it rechargable instead of having to change batteries, software that enables your lapwarmer to display results, and having a custom box injection moulded to put it all in.

i haven't even thought about packaging or a users manual yet.
Don't even ask me what colour it is.

But it is patented.

However it is dead simple and contains nothing new, it uses a transducer, and electronic circuits, all of which existed already.

Does this mean that i haven't invented anything?

alec.

I think it's worth remembering that we don't know what we don't know. I'm sure in 100 years time we'll look at 2005 and laugh at how naive and backward we are.

In the first episode of Hitch-Hikers Guide, just before the world is obliterated, a young woman in a coffee shop suddenly has a thought that would have changed the world forever, perhaps the next great step will come like that, totally from left-field and not relating to the physical world at all.

What about a genetically engineered Llama they're only about ten centimetres long, so you can keep them as pets!!!

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." -Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.

I think that gives us a roadsign for the future.

The people who set about inventing computers at this time were only able to think in terms of mechanical gears and steam power. Fifty years later they were thinking in terms of electronic valves and mechanical circuit breakers. We are continuously limited to the ideas and technologies that are available to us at any time.

I would love to own socks that issue a call home message when they get separated from each other (unless you believe in sock heaven of course), or a viewer that would enable us to see things that happened on Earth in the distant past, or a backup drive for our conscious mind, or an affordable way to go into orbit or down to the deepest canyons on the sea floor, but I still acknowledge that these ideas have a lot to do with the way I think today.

If you look at "Star Trek", the biggest take-away is that it tells you much more about the attitudes and ideas of the 1960's and 1990's than it does about the 2400's.

Well now. I have learned something today. This oft-quoted piece by Mr. Duell is a myth. A fabrication. There is no authoritative source for this statement whatsoever.

http://www.quotationspage.com/weblog/2005-08-26-239/
http://www.myoutbox.net/posass.htm

Light speed travel

>> a young woman in a coffee shop suddenly has a thought that would have changed the world forever <<

Didn't she go on to write the Harry Potter books?

Useful invention not yet invented: a way to keep idiots off the internet.

RF

I'm getting deja vu here.

I'm waiting for invention of the BC interface (brain-computer) a nice USB or simular port in teh back of the head, and you can link into the PC to exchange information, video, audio etc (in both directions hopefully)