Ask HN: How fast can we truly advance science?

1 points by trifit ↗ HN
Is it just a matter of educating more scientists and funding research or is there something fundamental blocking it that I’m not seeing?

3 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 18.9 ms ] thread
WWII had a massive impact on advancing science. Funding and fear of extinction is a good combo to advance science.
You'd be surprised what can be accomplished without funding, and with the goal of recovering from complete disasters which have already been devastating.

It would help having new institutions grown from seed completely outside the current academic paradigm. Which train those having the highest aptitude to focus way more of their valuable time on the science rather than eminence or politics.

You've got to be willing to do 100% of the work to realize 10% of the progress. Indefinitely.

That's why it's called a laboratory. Everything else other than labor is secondary and you need the most brilliant people at the bench. Indefinitely.

There’s some major issues resisting solution now: fusion, room temp superconductors, battery tech and recycling, bio/pharmaceuticals, …. New topics can appear from serendipity or from theoretical advances that suggest possibilities (which can help the superconductors and pharma). If you argue that “electronics” was a major product of wwii, we’re using it to read HN. Todays smartphones are pretty f’ckin amazing.

Perhaps the largest problem in the current 1-3 month event horizon in business… some of these things will take time and might not yield amazing returns. Better to invest in social media companies.