Sometimes I like talking about science and where we are headed in the future. I've spoken about the growth in wireless technology, a topic that is improving every week. This week, Google is talking about streaming live television shows to smart phones and pads.
However, even more important will be the changes in technology that come as the result of using new materials. Changing materials creates greater innovation than you can imagine. There has been ongoing innovation in replacing metals with plastic. Engines made from iron and steel soon became engines made from aluminum and will soon be made from carbon fibers and resins.
A University of North Carolina researcher is experimenting with replacing ordinary lumber with a material made from recycled plastic bottles and hemp. Eventually, she predicts that buildings will be constructed with this tougher material. There's one hitch. The hemp contains a small level of TCP, the active ingredient in marijuana. Theoretically, if a building made from this material were to catch fire, the firemen could get a contact high while trying to extinguish it.
Someone in Utah created a very strong bicycle frame that weighs less than two pounds out of carbon fibers and Kevlar. You can add a few ounces worth of electroluminescent panels made at the University of Florida to have your entire bike glow in the dark. You can also add a new clothing material that projects the scene behind you to the front of the cloth to make you invisible. This isn't science fiction. These are real products that exist today.
Eventually, you will be able to change your car's color as many times as you want by pushing a button. Cars will become rolling works of art, and end up as tattooed as Kat Von D.
Engineers at MIT are stitching together carbon nanotubes that are billionths of an inch thick to create airplane wings that are ten times stronger than currently available. Nanocomposite technology is replacing solid plastics with plastic foams that are environmentally safer and stronger.
Artificial body parts are increasingly being made from tougher materials. Billions are being spent in the search for artificial silk, since natural silk is stronger than steel, ounce for ounce.
New materials can mean new types of batteries and energy storage technologies. Paper is being replaced by Kindle e-reader machines.
All this technology is still in its infancy. The first laser appeared in 1960 - now they are everywhere. No one can predict where this will all end up. They are even talking about replacing silicon transistors with carbon based ones, which would make computers smaller and lighter. Another compound developed in San Francisco named bismuth telluride functions almost as a superconductor at room temperature, permitting faster chips.
What next? Biomaterial substitutes - forming new organs, sometimes out of new materials. There is artificial blood, artificial bone, artificial eardrums, etc. Some of the replacement parts will last longer than the natural ones.
Why is this important? Because someone will have to manufacture these materials, and someone will have to assemble them into products. In a word - jobs. The states that develop these materials will create new jobs. New Jersey is working on some composite ceramic materials, but not much more beyond that. If we want jobs, we will have to do the scientific research necessary to create them. Thomas Edison did not do too badly for New Jersey jobs with his inventions, right? Who is our next Thomas Edison? If the state continues to reduce support for higher education, maybe we won't have one. Governor Christie cut state aid for education by $820 million. Somewhere, somehow and somewhen, that will translate into fewer jobs - not just now, but in the future.
Maybe someday, someone will find a way to make a politician out of sterner stuff.
Marvin Wolf is a Newark consumer and bankruptcy law attorney who is a regular contributor to Local Talk. This article sometimes provides legal information and individual smart-ass opinion, but not legal advice. Mr. Wolf can be contacted through his office at (973) 735-2740 or his website www.wolfprotect.com.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
written by David Tobias, August 20, 2010
-
- +0
-
-
