Physics of the Future summary

Since the dawn of humanity nearly 200,000 years ago, humans have undergone very little evolutionary change. If you were to dress up a caveman in a suit and tie, he would be indistinguishable from other modern human beings. His brain, and therefore his psychology, wouldn’t be much different either; modern humans have the same psychological motivations as our caveman ancestors. 

We call this similarity between the desires of modern humans and our cave-dwelling ancestors the Cave Man Principle. It arises from the fact that our primary goal has always been and will always be to reproduce and pass on our DNA. 

As technologies gain popularity, they usually go from being scarce luxury goods to cheap and ubiquitous household items. A great historical example of this is paper, one of the most ancient technologies.

When paper was first invented, it was closely guarded due to its scarcity. After the invention of the printing press, however, books became increasingly popular and could be found not only in libraries but also in homes. Books began to be mass-produced, and eventually paper became a universal consumer product, used for such things as packaging and wallpaper.

How do we know which products to buy when we go shopping? We have two choices: either buy based on our own impulse or buy based on the wisdom of other shoppers.

One hundred years ago, the only way to judge a product was to buy blindly and try it yourself, or read a product review in the paper. In contrast, during this Information Age, the internet gives us the ability to crowd-source reviews through sites like Amazon and Yelp. These reviews come from many different sources, meaning you no longer need to trust the opinion of only one reviewer before making a purchase or visiting a restaurant. You can instead rely on the collective wisdom of a crowd.

Today, cancer is among the greatest threats to human life. It remains the third highest killer among high-income nations, and most people know at least one other person who has been affected by it. Thankfully, science is coming closer to discovering how to eliminate cancer for good.

Cancer is essentially a disease of the genes, and over half of the known cancers are related to genetic mutations in the gene P53.

The falling cost and the increasingly widespread application of computer chips will lead to novel changes in the way that we receive health care. 

Currently, we rely on our body’s own messages, such as discomfort or pain, to determine our health. Yet in the future, sensors that constantly monitor our health will detect illnesses before they even affect us. 

The aging process can be best viewed as a snowballing process of cell decay.

As you age, random mutations in your genes, along with other damaging environmental factors such as smoking or a poor diet, cause cells to be deficient. As your body accumulates these deficient cells, it becomes harder for it to function properly. Eventually, the growing failure of the body’s systems leads to death. 

Life on Earth is made possible by a delicate balance of interconnected biological and environmental systems. Unfortunately, our inability to use Earth’s resources without disrupting this balance poses a serious threat to our survival as a species.

Perhaps the greatest strain on our environment is an inability to manage our finite resources, such as oil or wildlife.

It is an unfortunate reality that the Earth’s supply of oil is limited. We have, or soon will have, passed peak oil, the point from which the world’s access to oil will steadily decrease until the oil is completely gone. By most accounts, we are approaching the end of the era of oil.

The natural consequence of a constantly diminishing supply of oil will be a supply shortage: scarcity and demand will drive up prices and rock the world’s economies. 

Self-aware robots like R2-D2 or the Terminator have long been a pop-culture fantasy, and the quest to create them is just as old. As we continue working to produce artificial intelligence (AI), we have discovered that the major hurdle is not how fast computers process information but how they go about it.

At the moment, computers can process information extremely quickly – much faster than the human brain – but they can process only a single calculation at a time. This makes it very difficult for them to cope with new environments without assistance. A consequence of this limitation is that we can only program them to excel at specific tasks.

Telekinesis – the power to move things with the mind – has long been part of the sci-fi tradition and of daydreaming fantasies. However, current advances in neuroscience are turning this fantasy into a reality.

By drawing on a continually improving understanding of how the brain functions, scientists have now laid the groundwork for future telekinetic machines. They have created programs that can measure the neural impulses of a person’s brain and translate those signals into motor movement.

Today, the thought of creating fully conscious robots, or true AI, seems like the stuff of science fiction. However, some of the leading minds in science believe that the question is not whether we will create true AI but when?

This is because both computing technology and the scientific understanding of the human brain are evolving so rapidly. Together, these developments will enable us to create computers that can think and learn independently, just like humans.

Before the turn of the next century, our lives will already be so immersed in technology that the distinction between “artificial” realities and “real life” will no longer make sense. In fact, in many ways, this process has already begun.

For example, social networks allow us to connect with people exclusively over the internet. For many, the virtual profiles they create and the online communities they interact with feel no less “real” than their interactions with people in physical “real life.” All aspects of human interaction, from business to romance, are rapidly migrating to these online platforms.

The main message in this book:

Although we cannot know the future with 100 percent accuracy, there are tools we can use to at least make educated guesses about what sorts of technologies await us as we progress through the 21st century. The rapid acceleration of developments in computing, genetics, physics and biology promise technological advancements that were once thought of as mere science fiction.