Imagine what it would be like to travel through the Qing people more than 100 years ago. Do you feel that the present world is incomprehensible everywhere, as if it were a dream? Will he think that the development of human civilization and technology is the limit of his cognition? (or has exceeded its cognitive limit)
In fact, as early as the second half of the19th century, there was a misconception that "science and technology have reached the limit"-the famous German physicist Planck told his teacher that he would devote himself to theoretical physics when he was young. The teacher thought that physics at that time was already a complete science, and it would not develop much, because the discovery of Neptune at that time showed the unparalleled theoretical strength of Newtonian mechanics, and the unity of electromagnetism and mechanics made physics present a form. In people's minds, classical physics has reached the point of near perfection.
Later, with the advent of the electrical age, the development of electric lights, telephones, radios, movies and other technologies once made people mistakenly think that life was perfect enough and technology had reached its limit, which seemed impossible to develop further. From 65438 to 0899, Charles Toure, director of the US Patent Office, said: Everything that can be invented has been invented.
Looking back at these "limit theories" now, we may laugh them off, but is it nonsense to discuss the development limits of human civilization and scientific and technological development today? Not really. Discussing the limits of human civilization and scientific and technological development is actually a kind of prospect and imagination for the future. We may not know the future, but we can still stand up and look to the future. A reasonable and scientific analysis of the future limits of human development may help people today avoid some avoidable problems.
The author believes that there should be a limit to the development of science and technology. Of course, the limit here does not mean that technology is completely stagnant, but that there will be no major breakthroughs and innovations in the development of science and technology, and there will be an unattainable "ceiling". So why is there such a "limit"? The author tries to analyze it from the following angles:
Brain capacity: After millions of years of evolution, the human brain is now close to the limit. Due to the limitation of birth size and nutritional balance, it is difficult for the brain to evolve to a larger capacity for a long time. In fact, the limitation of brain capacity has also cast a spell on the development of human science and technology. The scientific knowledge that everyone can accept and master will eventually be limited by the brain capacity and the number of brain cells. By the way, the underdeveloped human brain 10% is just a widely circulated rumor. If a person is like this, a group of people will have their limits, even if they specialize in art, they will eventually reach the limit of knowledge acceptance. However, the current scientific and technological development is far from reaching this limit.
Years of education and life limit: With the development of human civilization and science and technology, people's years of education are getting longer and longer-at first, people may say that they have "read all the books in the world" after only a few years of education, and then they may need to "study hard for ten years" or even longer before they can participate in scientific research. Later, nine-year compulsory education was only a foundation, and high schools, technical secondary schools, junior colleges, undergraduate courses, master's degrees, doctors, postdoctoral students and so on followed. Today, maybe a man in his thirties just walked out of the campus. Although people's life expectancy is getting longer and longer, the time to take part in practical work may not necessarily increase. With the continuous progress of science and technology, new scientific and technological workers need to learn more and more basic knowledge and professional knowledge, and the learning time will be longer and longer, which will eventually lead to the conflict between education years and working years. Moreover, human life span is limited, and the development of science and technology needs to be accumulated from generation to generation. When the knowledge to be mastered reaches a certain level, it is difficult for the next generation to master the knowledge and technology of the previous generation, and it is also difficult to achieve innovation and progress. However, the contradiction caused by years of education and limited life is difficult to be fundamentally solved. ,
Economy and energy consumption: With the development of science and technology, people will find that high-tech things are more and more expensive, and it seems that more and more energy and materials are consumed. For example, in the past, people only needed to hollow out a section of trunk to make canoes, but later the boats became bigger and consumed more wood. Later, the invention of the steam engine made ships consume coal and steel, and then all kinds of electronic equipment, weapons and ammunition became more and more expensive. Up to now, aircraft carriers and giant oil tankers with a tonnage of100000 tons or more are simply too expensive to use. However, the economic aggregate of human beings is always limited, and the resources of the earth are not endless. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States has shelved various space programs because of financial problems, and the whole human civilization and scientific and technological development may eventually become unbearable due to economic and energy consumption, thus reaching the limit.
Material limitation: materials play a vital role in the development of scientific and technological progress. The backwardness of materials such as steel and glass is one of the important reasons for the stagnant development of ancient science and technology in China. Modern science and technology require more and more materials, and various factors, such as hardness, toughness, temperature resistance, fatigue resistance, transparency and size, will affect the smooth progress of scientific research. Take the chip as an example. At present, the chip size can be made very small, but some problems such as quantum interference will make the chip not small. According to the calculation, the current chip technology may develop to the end in 18 years. There may be more advanced materials and processes to replace the current silicon technology, but the size and process problems will still affect the development limit of the chip, even if the atomic chip can be realized in the future.
Limitations of natural laws: Many natural laws limit us, for example, we can't reach absolute zero, the speed of light and so on. Human beings are limited by all kinds of natural laws, and the bondage of gravity can't let us soar freely in the universe to deeply study the principles of black holes and BIGBANG. Because of the great pressure, we even know little about the ocean, and our understanding of the earth itself is stagnant because we can't go deep into the center of the earth.
……
If every country on the earth is regarded as a planet, we will find that the civilization and technological development of some planets have reached the limit. Many small countries cannot develop their own high-tech industries like the United States because of resources, manpower, economy and other factors, and many scientific research undertakings are difficult to develop independently even in the United States, which requires the joint efforts of all countries. This phenomenon is the epitome of the whole human civilization and the limit of scientific and technological development.
At present, many scientific research fields have indicated the development limit. For example, due to the limitations of economy, materials and energy, the progress of space technology has slowed down obviously; The research units of microphysics are getting smaller and smaller, and it is very difficult to break through; In order to study macroscopic physics, billions of dollars of large-scale equipment (such as gravitational wave discovery equipment, electron collider, etc. ) are built at every turn;
Of course, in many fields, such as medicine and biological genes, even under the existing technical conditions, there is still much room for improvement. However, subject to the limitations mentioned in this paper, it seems that human beings will never be able to reach the point of omnipotence, and the development of science and technology is always limited. Just as we observe ants, it seems that no matter how hard ants try, they can't surpass their innate abilities, and so can humans.
—— Author Cang Liang copyright and business contact qq573 169379