Smart Economy

Researchers Propose New Theory To Explain Seeds of Life in Asteroids

Rensselaer Researchers Propose New Theory To Explain Seeds of Life in Asteroids

 

September 30, 2013

A new look at the early solar system introduces an alternative to a long-taught, but largely discredited, theory that seeks to explain how biomolecules were once able to form inside of asteroids. In place of the outdated theory, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute propose a new theory — based on a richer, more accurate image of magnetic fields and solar winds in the early solar system, and a mechanism known as multi-fluid magneto-hydrodynamics — to explain the ancient heating of the asteroid belt.

Although today the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is cold and dry, scientists have long known that warm, wet conditions, suitable to formation of some biomolecules, the building blocks of life, once prevailed. Traces of bio-molecules found inside meteorites – which originated in the asteroid belt –could only have formed in the presence of warmth and moisture. One theory of the origin of life proposes that some of the biomolecules that formed on asteroids may have reached the surfaces of planets, and contributed to the origin of life as we know it.

“The early sun was actually dimmer than the sun today, so in terms of sunlight, the asteroid belt would have been even colder than it is now. And yet we know that some asteroids were heated to the temperature of liquid water, the ‘goldilocks zone,’ which enabled some of these interesting biomolecules to form,” said Wayne Roberge, a professor of physics within the School of Science at Rensselaer, and member of the New York Center for Astrobiology, who co-authored a paper on the subject with Ray Menzel, a graduate student in physics. “Here’s the question: How could that have happened? How could that environment have existed inside an asteroid?”

In the paper, titled “Reexamination of Induction Heating of Primitive Bodies in Protoplanetary Disks” and published today in The Astrophysical Journal, Menzel and Roberge revisit and refute one of two theories proposed decades ago to explain how asteroids could have been heated in the early solar system. Both of the established theories — one involving the same radioactive process that heats the interior of Earth, and the other involving the interaction of plasma (super-heated gases that behave somewhat like fluids) and a magnetic field — are still taught to students of astrobiology.  Although radioactive heating of asteroids was undoubtedly important, current models of radioactive heating make some predictions about temperatures in the asteroid belt that are inconsistent with observations. 

Motivated by this, Roberge and Menzel reviewed the second of the two theories, which is based on an early assessment of the young sun and the premise that an object moving through a magnetic field will experience an electric field. According to this theory, as an asteroid moves through the magnetic field of the solar system, it will experience an electric field, which will in turn push electrical currents through the asteroid, heating the asteroid in the same way that electrical currents heat the wires in a toaster.

“It’s a very clever idea, and the mechanism is viable, but the problem is that they made a subtle error in how it should be applied, and that’s what we correct in this paper,” said Roberge. “In our work, we correct the physics, and also apply it to a more modern understanding of the young solar system.”

Menzel said the researchers have now definitively refuted the established theory.

“The mechanism requires some extreme assumptions about the young solar system,” Menzel said. “They assumed some things about what the young sun was doing which are just not believed to be true today. For example, the young sun would have had to produce a powerful solar wind which blew past the asteroids, and that’s just no longer believed to be true.”

The solar wind, and the plasma stream it produced, was not as powerful as early theorists assumed, and the researchers have corrected those calculations based on the current understanding of the young sun. Roberge said the early theorists also incorrectly calculated the position of the electric field asteroids would have experienced. Roberge said that, in reality, an electric field would have permeated the asteroid and the space around it, a mistake very few researchers would have realized.

“We’ve calculated the electric field everywhere, including the interior of the asteroid,” Roberge said. “How that electric field comes about is a very specialized thing; about 10 people in the world study that kind of physics. Fortunately, two of them are here at RPI working together.”

What emerges, Menzel and Roberge said, is a new possibility, based on the corrected understanding of the electric fields the asteroids would have experienced, the solar wind and plasma conditions that would have prevailed, and a mechanism known as multi-fluid magneto-hydrodynamics.

Magneto-hydrodynamics is the study of how charged fluids – including plasmas – interact with magnetic fields. The magnetic fields can influence the motion of the charged fluid, or plasma, and vice versa. Magneto-hydrodynamics had a moment of fame as the propulsion system for an experimental nuclear submarine in the 1990 movie The Hunt for Red October.

Multi-fluid magneto-hydrodynamics are an even more specialized variation of the mechanism that apply in situations where the plasma is very weakly ionized, and the neutral particles behave distinctly from the charged particles.

“The neutral particles interact with the charged particles by friction,” Menzel said. “So this creates a complex problem of treating the dynamics of the neutral gas and allowing for the presence of the small number of charged particles interacting with the magnetic field.”

Menzel and Roberge said their new theory is promising, but it raises many questions that merit further exploration.

“We’re just at the beginning of this. It would be wrong to assert that we’ve solved this problem,” Roberge said. “What we’ve done is to introduce a new idea. But through observations and theoretical work, we know have a pretty good paradigm.”

And much as Menzel and Roberge benefited from recent progress in understanding the physical conditions in an emerging planetary system, they hope their own work will advance the field of astrophysics.

“There are a lot of byproducts of this work because, in the course of doing this, we had to really zero in on how an asteroid interacts with the plasma of the young solar system,” said Roberge. “There are a lot of physical processes that we had to consider that have not been considered in this context before.”

 

- See more at: http://news.rpi.edu/content/2013/09/30/rensselaer-researchers-propose-new-theory-explain-seeds-life-asteroids#sthash.9CnWWpVj.dpuf 

Do we live in a computer simulation? UW researchers say idea can be tested

Is this supported by the fact the Voyager 1 found an unexpected band of magnetic energy at the edge of the solar system?  Voyager  1 finds a surprise at the edge of the solar system..NASA's  Voyager 1, which is headed for interstellar space, runs into an unexpected
'magnetic highway.'

Do we live in a computer simulation? UW researchers say idea can be tested

By Vince
Stricherz

News and Information

Posted under: News Releases, Research, Science

A decade ago, a British philosopher put forth the notion that the universe we live in might in fact be a computer simulation run by our descendants. While that seems far-fetched, perhaps even
incomprehensible, a team of physicists at the University of Washington has come up with a potential test to see if the idea holds water.

The concept that current humanity could possibly be living in a computer simulation comes from a 2003 paper published in Philosophical Quarterly by Nick Bostrom, a philosophy professor at
the University of Oxford. In the paper, he
argued that at least one of three possibilities is true:

• The human species is likely to go
  extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage.
• Any posthuman civilization is very
  unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of its evolutionary
  history.
• We are almost certainly living in a
  computer simulation.

He also held that “the belief that there is a significant chance that we
will one day become posthumans who run ancestor simulations is false, unless we
are currently living in a simulation.”

The conical (red) surface shows the relationship between energy and momentum in special relativity, a fundamental theory concerning space and time developed by Albert Einstein, and is the
expected result if our universe is not a simulation. The flat (blue) surface
illustrates the relationship between energy and momentum that would be expected
if the universe is a simulation with an underlying cubic lattice

With current limitations and trends in computing, it will be decades
before researchers will be able to run even primitive simulations of the
universe. But the UW team has suggested tests that can be performed now, or in
the near future, that are sensitive to constraints imposed on future
simulations by limited resources.

Currently, supercomputers using a technique called lattice quantum
chromodynamics and starting from the fundamental physical laws that govern the
universe can simulate only a very small portion of the universe, on the scale
of one 100-trillionth of a meter, a little larger than the nucleus of an atom,
said Martin Savage,
a UW physics professor.

Eventually, more powerful simulations will be able to model on the scale
of a molecule, then a cell and even a human being. But it will take many
generations of growth in computing power to be able to simulate a large enough
chunk of the universe to understand the constraints on physical processes that
would indicate we are living in a computer model.

However, Savage said, there are signatures of resource constraints in
present-day simulations that are likely to exist as well in simulations in the
distant future, including the imprint of an underlying lattice if one is used
to model the space-time continuum.

The supercomputers performing lattice quantum chromodynamics
calculations essentially divide space-time into a four-dimensional grid. That
allows researchers to examine what is called the strong force, one of the four
fundamental forces of nature and the one that binds subatomic particles called
quarks and gluons together into neutrons and protons at the core of atoms.

“If you make the simulations big enough, something like our universe
should emerge,” Savage said. Then it would be a matter of looking for a
“signature” in our universe that has an analog in the current small-scale
simulations.

Savage and colleagues Silas
Beane of the University
of New Hampshire, who
collaborated while at the UW’s Institute
for Nuclear Theory, and Zohreh Davoudi, a UW physics graduate student,
suggest that the signature could show up as a limitation in the energy of
cosmic rays.

In a paper they have posted on arXiv, an online archive for preprints of scientific papers in a number of fields, including physics, they say that the highest-energy cosmic rays would
not travel along the edges of the lattice in the model but would travel
diagonally, and they would not interact equally in all directions as they
otherwise would be expected to do.

“This is the first testable signature of such an idea,” Savage said.

If such a concept turned out to be reality, it would raise other
possibilities as well. For example, Davoudi suggests that if our universe is a
simulation, then those running it could be running other simulations as well,
essentially creating other universes parallel to our own.

“Then the question is, ‘Can you communicate with those other universes
if they are running on the same platform?’” she said.

###

For more information, contact Savage at 206-543-7481 or [email protected]; or Davoudi at 206-543-9310 or [email protected].

 

Sergei Korolev: the Ukrainian rocket genius behind Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin

50 years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. But the unsung hero of the Soviet Union's triumph was a brilliant Ukrainian  scientist who survived Stalin's purges

Robin McKie

[ . . . ]

The man who would lead the world into the space age, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, was born on 12 January 1907, in Zhitomir, in modern-day Ukraine. His mother Maria left her husband Pavel while Sergei was young and remarried – though Korolev went on to have a good relationship with his stepfather. Like Gagarin, he was besotted with flying and aeronautics and studied in Moscow under Andrei Tupolev, the distinguished Soviet aircraft designer. Tupolev described his young student "as a man with unlimited devotion to his job and his ideas".

Korolev qualified as a pilot and began designing gliders to which he added rocket engines. In 1933, he successfully launched the first liquid-fuelled rocket in the USSR. He prospered for he was hard-working and loyal to the Soviet system. It was not enough. On 27 June 1938, four secret service agents broke into his apartment and arrested him as a spy. Korolev was beaten. He asked for a glass of water and a jailer smashed the jug in his face. In the end, Korolev was forced to admit to crimes of treason and sabotage and was sentenced to 10 years' hard labour at the Kolyma gold mine, the most notorious of all Gulag prison camps. Korolev never found out why he had been picked out.

 [ . . . ]

The V2's guidance systems, turbo-pumps and engines were of startling sophistication, Korolev realised. However, the rocket's designer, Werner von Braun, and his team had defected to the Americans, with several complete V2s. This gave the US a huge advantage in the race to develop missiles from the Nazis' technology. But Korolev was a gifted engineer and designer – and an obsessive worker. "I can never forget, on going home, if there is something wrong with a technique," he told a colleague. He slept for only a few hours a night, lived frugally and on 21 August 1957 launched the Soviet R-7 rocket, the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile, on a 4,000-mile journey from Baikonur cosmodrome, in modern-day Kazakhstan, to the Kamchatka peninsula. He had beaten the USA by 15 months.

"His ability to inspire large teams, as well as individuals, is proverbial," says Harford in Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon. "He had a roaring temper, was prone to shout and use expletives, but was quick to forgive and forget. His consuming passion was work, work, work for space exploration and for the defence of his country. One wonders how he maintained such an unswerving loyalty to a system that had treated him so cruelly."

Von Braun may have built the V2 and later the Saturn V rocket that took Armstrong and Aldrin to the moon, but his achievements were dwarfed by those of Korolev. The chief designer – he was never named in state communiqués because of official disapproval of "the cult of personalities" – developed the first intercontinental missile and then launched the world's first satellite, Sputnik 1. He also put into space the first dog, the first two-man crew, the first woman, the first three-man crew; directed the first walk in space; created the first Soviet spy satellite and communication satellite; built mighty launch vehicles and flew spacecraft towards the moon, Venus and Mars – and all on a shoestring budget.

However, it was the launch of the first man into space that truly marked out Korolev – and Gagarin – for greatness.

[ . . . . ]

Korolev – who had already stunned the world with the launch of Sputnik 1, the first satellite – was now preparing for his ultimate achievement: putting a human in space.

[ . . . ]

Gagarin squirmed into his capsule and waited. There was no countdown – a silly, American affectation according to Korolev who, at 9.06am, simply pressed an ignition key and the R-7 rose slowly from the pad. Gagarin shouted: "Poyekhali!" ("Let's go!")

 

"After the launch, there was complete silence in mission control apart from an operator repeating, every 30 seconds, that 'the flight is normal'," recalls Mikhail Marov, one of Korolev's research engineers. "Then he announced the ship had reached orbit and there was huge shout of joy." Marov – a fellow of the Russian Academy of Science who subsequently headed several space missions – today remembers Gagarin's talking quietly and calmly. "I can see clouds. I can see everything. It's beautiful," he told mission control. Around 9.50 Vostok began its sweep over America. Half an hour later its engine was retrofired and the capsule began its descent. Every manoeuvre had been controlled by Korolev from the ground.

[ . . . ]

Powers wasn't far wrong, of course. At the time, Nasa was preparing its own manned Mercury missions but had got no further than a 17-minute test-flight with a chimp called Ham. Korolev had beaten the USA easily. "He seemed to be able to play these little games with his adversaries at will," says Tom Wolfe in The Right Stuff. "There was the eerie feeling that he would continue to let Nasa struggle furiously to catch up – and then launch some startling new demonstration of how just how far ahead he really was." One newspaper cartoon even showed a chimpanzee telling another: "We are a little behind the Russians and a little ahead of the Americans."

 

Hugo Young, writing in the Times, was more straightforward. "Gagarin's triumph pitilessly mocked the image of dynamism which President Kennedy had offered the American people. It had to be avenged almost as much for his sake as for the nation's." So Kennedy wrote a memo demanding that a space programme be found that promised dramatic results and that the United States could win. The crucial words were "dramatic" and "win". Only a manned lunar landing filled those criteria.

[ . . . ]

Few observers gave America much chance of victory. The Soviet programme looked unbeatable with Gagarin and Korolev

[ . . . ]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/mar/13/yuri-gagarin-first-space-korolev

Guardian

13Mar2011

When will the recession end? Part 27 The Sun could create a double dip depression

New Solar Cycle 24 Prediction: Fewer Sunspots, But Severe Mass Coronal Ejection (MCE) Activity possible.

 

In the past, human populations have survived 7 climate change-related mass extinction events...James Lovelock reminds us...but are we more vulnerable now and less resilient as a society?

 

Now privately, some scientists are quietly predicting two imminant wild card possibilities-a mini ice age, that could punctuate global warming,  if sun spots do not pick up in the next solar spot cycle and the distinct possibility of severe solar storms. At the extreme, both events could cause billions of deaths in a worst case scenario that we looked at last month.

 

Publically, an  international panel of experts has released a new prediction for the next solar cycle, stating that Solar Cycle 24 will peak in May 2013with a below-average number of sunspots. Led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and sponsored by NASA, the panel includes a dozen members from nine different government and academic institutions. Their forecast sets the stage for at least another year of mostly quiet conditions before solar activity resumes in earnest [..they hope].

 

 

This plot of sunspot numbers shows the measured peak of the last solar cycle (Solar Cycle 23) in blue and the predicted peak of the next solar cycle (24) in red. Credit: NOAA/Space Weather Prediction Center.

 

"If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928 when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78," says panel chairman Doug Biesecker of the NOAA Space Prediction Center, Boulder, Colo.

 It is tempting to describe such a cycle as "weak" or "mild," but that could give the wrong impression. "Even a below-average cycle is capable of producing severe space weather,"says Biesecker. "The great geomagnetic storm of 1859, for instance, occurred during a solar cycle of about the same size we’re predicting for 2013."

The 1859 storm -- named the "Carrington Event" after astronomer Richard Carrington who witnessed the instigating solar flare -- electrified transmission cables, set fires in telegraph offices, and produced Northern Lights so bright that people could read newspapers by their red and green glow. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause $1 to 2 trillion in damages to society’s high-tech infrastructure and require four to ten years for complete recovery. For comparison, Hurricane Katrina caused $80 to 125 billion in damage.

 

 

The latest forecast revises a prediction issued in 2007, when a sharply divided panel believed solar minimum would come in March 2008 and would be followed by either a strong solar maximum in 2011 or a weak solar maximum in 2012. Competing models of the solar cycle produced different forecasts, and researchers were eager for the sun to reveal which was correct.

"It turns out that none of the models were really correct,"says Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. NASA’s lead representative on the panel. "The sun is behaving in an unexpected and very interesting way."

Yearly-averaged sunspot numbers from 1610 to 2000. Researchers believe upcoming Solar Cycle 24 will be similar to the cycle that peaked in 1928, marked in red. Credit: NASA/MSFC

Astronomers first noted the solar cycle in the mid-1800s. Graphs of sunspot numbers resemble a roller coaster, going up and down with an approximately 11-year period. Predicting the peaks and valleys has proven troublesome because cycles vary in length from 9 to 14 years. Some peaks are high, others low. The valleys are usually brief, lasting only a couple of years, but sometimes they stretch much longer. In the 17th century, the sun plunged into a 70-year period of spotless quiet known as the Maunder Minimum (mini ice age) that still baffles scientists.

At a recent climate change symposium at Monash University in Australia, David Archibald, an expert in solar cycles stated:

“You haven’t seen any sign of the end of Solar Cycle 23 yet and the cooling over Solar
Cycle 24 as a consequence may be as much as 2.8 degrees centigrade. We are due for a de Vries cycle cooling event every two hundred and ten years, and actually even a Bond event because the last one of those was in the Dark Ages. And severe cooling over the next twenty years is now a certainty.” 

Right now, the solar cycle is in a valley--the deepest of the past century. In 2008 and 2009, the sun set Space Age records for low sunspotcounts, weak solar wind, and low solar irradiance. The sun has gone more than two years without a significant solar flare.

"In our professional careers, we’ve never seen anything quite like it," says Pesnell. "Solar minimum has lasted far beyond what we predicted in 2007."

 

 

In recent months, however, the sun has begun to show signs of life. Small sunspots and "proto-sunspots" are popping up with increasing frequency. Enormous currents of plasma on the sun’s surface ("zonal flows") are gaining strength and slowly drifting toward the sun’s equator. Radio astronomers have detected a tiny but significant uptick in solar radio emissions. All these things are precursors of an awakening Solar Cycle 24 and form the basis for the panel’s new, almost unanimous forecast.

 

 

According to the forecast, the sun should remain generally calm for at least another year. From a research point of view, that’s good news because solar minimum has proven to be more interesting than anyone imagined. Low solar activity has a profound effect on Earth’s atmosphere, allowing it to cool and contract. Space junk accumulates in Earth orbit because there is less aerodynamic drag. The becalmed solar wind whips up fewer magnetic storms around Earth’s poles. Cosmic rays that are normally pushed back by solar wind instead intrude on the near-Earth environment. There are other side-effects, too, that can be studied only so long as the sun remains quiet.

 

Meanwhile, the sun pays little heed to human committees. There could be more surprises, panelists acknowledge, and more revisions to the forecast.

"Go ahead and mark your calendar for May 2013," says Pesnell. "But use a pencil."

Source: Marshall Space Flight Center

Walter Derzko

IBM endorses smart technology and a smarter planet

A while back when I was at the Idea Lab at the Design Exchange, I remember sitting over a coffee and exploring a thought exercise with some clients.

The question under debate was: What are  the generic elements or activities that would accelerate any new technology platform, (such as smart technologies) and overcome the initial market interia. Simply put, Is there a generic technology evolution matrix?

We came up with over 25 items. (see related Post-Do you know how to spot opportunities?)

One was having cartoonists make fun of your technology ( No, smart technologies aren't on Dilbert's radar screen yet, but any day now I hope)  Another key event would be to have some influential CEO highlight the benefits of your technology in a milestone keynote speech (act as a complimentor-in business strategy terms. )

Well for smart technologies, that breakthrough event may have happened this month on November 6^th, when IBM’s CEO, Sam Palmisano, outlined a new agenda for building a smarter planet - during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relation. (hat tip to Adam Christensen at IBM HQ)

 

 

From IBM's blog:

"In the speech, he outlines a number of the challenges faced today by people, governments, businesses and organizations. A lack of clean water for a fifth of the world’s population. Energy systems that waste more energy than they produce. Traffic in our cities that clogs roads and chokes economic growth. 

Clearly there are no simple solutions for these problems.

Technology can play a big role in helping find answers to these problems. While the Internet currently connects more than a billion people, in just a few years, it will connect more than a trillion objects. Everything from cell phones, cars, roads, buildings, and even objects in nature itself, will have embedded technology and be connected to one another, enabling tremendous advances in how we understand how the world works and make smarter decisions to make it work better. 

But technology is just part of the solution. Without the people, policies and culture to inspire and execute the change, nothing ultimately gets done."

From Sam’s speech:

[...]   These collective realizations have reminded us that we are all now connected—economically, technically and socially. But we're also learning that being connected is not sufficient. Yes, the world continues to get "flatter." And yes, it continues to get smaller and more interconnected. But something is happening that holds even greater potential. In a word, our planet is becoming smarter.

This isn't just a metaphor.I mean infusing intelligence into the way the world literally works—the systems and processes that enable physical goods to be developed, manufactured, bought and sold… services to be delivered… everything from people and money to oil, water and electrons to move… and billions of people to work and live.

 What's making this possible?

• First, our world is becoming instrumented: The transistor, invented 60 years ago, is the basic building block of the digital age. Now, consider a world in which there are a billion transistors per human, each one costing one ten-millionth of a cent. We'll have that by 2010. There will likely be 4 billion mobile phone subscribers by the end of this year… and 30 billion Radio Frequency Identification tags produced globally within two years. Sensors are being embedded across entire ecosystems—supply-chains, healthcare networks, cities… even natural systems like rivers.
• Second, our world is becoming interconnected: Very soon there will be 2 billion people on the Internet. But in an instrumented world, systems and objects can now "speak" to one another, too. Think about the prospect of a trillion connected and intelligent things—cars, appliances, cameras, roadways, pipelines… even pharmaceuticals and livestock. The amount of information produced by the interaction of all those things will be unprecedented.
• Third, all things are becoming intelligent: New computing models can handle the proliferation of end-user devices, sensors and actuators and connect them with back-end systems. Combined with advanced analytics, those supercomputers can turn mountains of data into intelligence that can be translated into action, making our systems, processes and infrastructures more efficient, more productive and responsive—in a word, smarter.

What this means is that the digital and physical infrastructures of the world are converging. Computational power is being put into things we wouldn't recognize as computers. Indeed, almost anything—any person, any object, any process or any service, for any organization, large or small—can become digitally aware and networked.

With so much technology and networking abundantly available at such low cost, what wouldn't you enhance? What service wouldn't you provide a customer, citizen, student or patient? What wouldn't you connect? What information wouldn't you mine for insight?

The answer is, you or your competitor—another company, or another city or nation—will do all of that. You will do it because you can—the technology is available and affordable.

But there is another reason we will make our companies, institutions and industries smarter. Because we must. Not just at moments of widespread shock, but integrated into our day-to-day operations. These mundane processes of business, government and life—which are ultimately the source of those "surprising" crises—are not smart enough to be sustainable.

[...]

Leaders will need to hone their collaboration skills, because we will need leadership that pulls across systems. We will need to bring together stakeholders and experts from across business, government and academia, and all of them will need to move outside their traditional comfort zones.

I’m struck by the questions this raises. What investments need to be made by both public and private institutions? What policy issues need to be debated and resolved? What role can individual citizens and employees play in helping bring about meaningful change?

I’m also struck by the potential opportunities inherent in finding solutions to these problems. 

see full text of Sam Palmisano's speech

Walter Derzko

 

From IBM's blog:

"In the speech, he outlines a number of the challenges faced today by people, governments, businesses and organizations. A lack of clean water for a fifth of the world’s population. Energy systems that waste more energy than they produce. Traffic in our cities that clogs roads and chokes economic growth. 

Clearly there are no simple solutions for these problems.

Technology can play a big role in helping find answers to these problems. While the Internet currently connects more than a billion people, in just a few years, it will connect more than a trillion objects. Everything from cell phones, cars, roads, buildings, and even objects in nature itself, will have embedded technology and be connected to one another, enabling tremendous advances in how we understand how the world works and make smarter decisions to make it work better. 

But technology is just part of the solution. Without the people, policies and culture to inspire and execute the change, nothing ultimately gets done."

From Sam’s speech:

[...]   These collective realizations have reminded us that we are all now connected—economically, technically and socially. But we're also learning that being connected is not sufficient. Yes, the world continues to get "flatter." And yes, it continues to get smaller and more interconnected. But something is happening that holds even greater potential. In a word, our planet is becoming smarter.

This isn't just a metaphor.I mean infusing intelligence into the way the world literally works—the systems and processes that enable physical goods to be developed, manufactured, bought and sold… services to be delivered… everything from people and money to oil, water and electrons to move… and billions of people to work and live.

 What's making this possible?

• First, our world is becoming instrumented: The transistor, invented 60 years ago, is the basic building block of the digital age. Now, consider a world in which there are a billion transistors per human, each one costing one ten-millionth of a cent. We'll have that by 2010. There will likely be 4 billion mobile phone subscribers by the end of this year… and 30 billion Radio Frequency Identification tags produced globally within two years. Sensors are being embedded across entire ecosystems—supply-chains, healthcare networks, cities… even natural systems like rivers.
• Second, our world is becoming interconnected: Very soon there will be 2 billion people on the Internet. But in an instrumented world, systems and objects can now "speak" to one another, too. Think about the prospect of a trillion connected and intelligent things—cars, appliances, cameras, roadways, pipelines… even pharmaceuticals and livestock. The amount of information produced by the interaction of all those things will be unprecedented.
• Third, all things are becoming intelligent: New computing models can handle the proliferation of end-user devices, sensors and actuators and connect them with back-end systems. Combined with advanced analytics, those supercomputers can turn mountains of data into intelligence that can be translated into action, making our systems, processes and infrastructures more efficient, more productive and responsive—in a word, smarter.

What this means is that the digital and physical infrastructures of the world are converging. Computational power is being put into things we wouldn't recognize as computers. Indeed, almost anything—any person, any object, any process or any service, for any organization, large or small—can become digitally aware and networked.

With so much technology and networking abundantly available at such low cost, what wouldn't you enhance? What service wouldn't you provide a customer, citizen, student or patient? What wouldn't you connect? What information wouldn't you mine for insight?

The answer is, you or your competitor—another company, or another city or nation—will do all of that. You will do it because you can—the technology is available and affordable.

But there is another reason we will make our companies, institutions and industries smarter. Because we must. Not just at moments of widespread shock, but integrated into our day-to-day operations. These mundane processes of business, government and life—which are ultimately the source of those "surprising" crises—are not smart enough to be sustainable.

[...]

Leaders will need to hone their collaboration skills, because we will need leadership that pulls across systems. We will need to bring together stakeholders and experts from across business, government and academia, and all of them will need to move outside their traditional comfort zones.

I’m struck by the questions this raises. What investments need to be made by both public and private institutions? What policy issues need to be debated and resolved? What role can individual citizens and employees play in helping bring about meaningful change?

I’m also struck by the potential opportunities inherent in finding solutions to these problems. 

see full text of Sam Palmisano's speech

Walter Derzko

Happy 1st Birthday to the Smart Economy Blog; Announcing a new Web site, Monthly workshops and webinars

Today marks the 1st anniversary of the Smart Economy Blog. We've received many encouraging feedback & emails from our readers over the past year and good suggestions from positive-focused critics for future improvements.

• According to Pingpoat, The Smart Economy Blog is worth  is $1011.17!  per day
• Inbound links: 1085
• Technorati rank: 34,021

So today, I'm announcing a series of new "smart" initiatives that we will be kicking off in October 2006.

The Smart Economy is growing exponentially and so are we, right along with it.

Smart Economy Learning Series-monthly workshops in Toronto

Starting in October 2006, we will be launching a monthly series of one-day workshops on topics that our blog readers say interest them. These include:

• Latest Tools for Advanced Environmental Scanning, Managing Information Overload and Sense-making ( October 12, 2006, BCE Place Toronto) email me asking for a registration form
• Lateral thinking in business  (Date TBA)
• Developing foresight in your business or industry  (Date TBA)
• Resolving conflicts and disputes using lateral thinking (Date TBA)
• The Opportunity Clinic --Scanning your business environment for Opportunities(Date TBA)
• The Idea Lab --Designing smart products and services that will drive business development forward (Date TBA)
• Introduction to Business Development --Tracking emerging technologies as threats or opportunities for your business (Date TBA)
• Technology Assessment for Investment Professionals & High Tech Startups (Date TBA)
• Building a Busines Case for Smart Devices, objects and services (Date TBA)
• Designing winning business modles for Smart Technologies (Date TBA)

Register today, since space will be limited. Past workshops have sold out quickly.

The Smart Economy Web Page

We are finally in the last stages of planning and constructing our new web site for the Smart Economy. Watch out for launch date soon.

The Smart Economy Webinar Series.

Also starting in October 2006, we will host a monthly opportunity for our blog readers to phone in and participate in a "live seminar" which will include power-point slides and a Q&A session, all from the comfort of your PC or laptop. It will be on some current topic related to the smart economy and some rising smart technology that will be coming into prominence soon. This will be a subscription based series.... We will try to keep the price reasonable so that everyone can participate. Subscription information & schedule will be out soon. Watch for announcements.

Thanks again for all your ideas and keep the feedback coming in.

© 2005-2006

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight,, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To arrange for an in house presentation on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"- old Japanese proverb

.......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to. - H. Mumford Jones

"Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  A. Einstein

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

Looking for Feedback on the Smart Economy Blog

Today is a bit of an anniversary for the Smart Economy. Since I started on this blog last Fall (Sept 15th, 2005 to be exact), I've posted 500 entries (this is # 501). We've received over 100 comments online and many more private direct emails. Our daily traffic is growing steadily month by month, as word spreads about The Smart Economy. Many other influential and popular web sites, trend syndication services and blogs now link back to us.

• According to Pingpoat, The Smart Economy Blog is worth is $1011.17!  Per day
• Inbound links: 1085
• Technorati rank: 34,021

I'd like to hear feedback from you --- our blog readers. How can we improve this site?

• what do you enjoy reading about smart technologies?
• what else would you like to see?
• what don't you like? what annoys you?
• what suggestions do you have for future topics?
• what  would you like to see more coverage of?
• do you use RSS? would you subscribe to a Smart Economy RSS  news feed?
• would you like to hear news about the smart economy on your Mp3 player?
• would you like a one-stop-shop to purchase smart technologies?
• would you find road maps for smart technologies useful for your worK?
• would you subscribe to a monthly online seminar (webinar) on smart technology?
• would you find workshops on smart technology topics useful?
• how do you use our information? investment decisions? strategic decisions? alliance decisions? other?

Post your replies or comments in the comments box below or send me a private email

I look forward to hearing from you.

Enjoy the rest of 2006 and 2007 and I hope to see you back here on a regular basis.

All the best !!

Walter Derzko

Boost your Smart Technology IQ

Increase your Smart Technology IQ

Are you interested in the novel but quietly booming field of Smart Technology?

Are you a novice to the discipline or an old pro? Are smart technologies still under your business radar screen? Confused by all the jargon? opinions? predictions?

We are able to offer your team or organization, a tactile ‘hands-on’ presentation based on the topic and application areas that best suit your interest from our Smart Economy Blog.

We can  provide your group with a general introduction to Smart Technologies or cover a highly specialized and narrow topic area. We can cover the spectrum from Competitive Intelligence to Product Development to Technology roadmaps.

Combined with a health dose of provocative, lateral thinking, our interactive  presentation will get your team inspired and boost their Smart Technology IQ  !!

Suitable for off site or on site training sessions, monthly team or division meetings, research meetings, focus groups and conferences, our presentations can be customized to the needs of different audiences, numbers and special interest areas.

Smart Technology is a tactile subject area and by bringing the audience into physical contact with a wide range of different smart materials and products, our presentation brings to life the subject matter contained in our Smart Economy Blog 

Please contact me for further details.

Walter Derzko  [email protected]

NASA Seeks Innovative Ideas for Revolutionary Concepts

Contests to promote Science and Technology seem to be catching on.

First there was DARPA and the GRAND CHALLENGE driverless car race in the desert, next the space elevator and now NASA is jumping on the contest bandwagon looking for advanced Space concepts from the public.

.......from a NASA press release: 05-499 last week

NASA Seeks Innovative Ideas for Revolutionary Concepts 

The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts is seeking revolutionary ideas to advance the Vision for Space Exploration. Interested parties from outside the agency are invited to submit 2006 Phase 1 proposals by February 13, 2006.

The focus for solicitations is on revolutionary, advanced concepts for architectures and systems that meet NASA mission "grand visions." The institute's intention is to discover ideas that may result in beneficial changes to NASA's long-range plans.

"The institute employs a team of experts in science and technology to review proposals. Successful proposals are highly imaginative but grounded in reality," said Dr. Robert Cassanova of the Universities Space Research Association, the director of the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. The Universities Space Research Association runs the institute for NASA.

Previous winning proposals include systems or concepts for a spacecraft propelled by a magnetized beam of electrified gas for rapid interplanetary transportation; an electrostatic radiation shield for a lunar base; and the redesign of living organisms to survive on Mars.

The institute sponsors research in two phases. Proposals selected for Phase 1 awards typically receive as much as $75,000 for a six-month study that validates the viability of the concept and identifies challenges that must be overcome. Phase 1 studies are evaluated using major feasibility criteria associated with cost, performance, development time, and technology. The most promising are selected for further research, through a Phase 2 award. Phase 2 studies can be up to two years long and receive as much as $400,000.

Phase 1 awards will be announced in April or May 2006. The institute awards about one dozen Phase 1 study contracts per year. The institute encourages submission of proposals via the Internet.

More information, including detailed submission instructions and a proposal package, is available on the Web at:  http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/call/06-01.pdf

Information about the institute, including reports on previously selected proposals, is available on the Web, at:  http://www.niac.usra.edu/

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/home

 

© 2005

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"

- old Japanese proverb

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page