Has progress in science and technology come to a halt? (1 Viewer)

[Toller]

The golden quarter
Some of our greatest cultural and technological achievements took place between 1945 and 1971. Why has progress stalled?

We live in a golden age of technological, medical, scientific and social progress. Look at our computers! Look at our phones! Twenty years ago, the internet was a creaky machine for geeks. Now we can’t imagine life without it. We are on the verge of medical breakthroughs that would have seemed like magic only half a century ago: cloned organs, stem-cell therapies to repair our very DNA. Even now, life expectancy in some rich countries is improving by five hours a day. A day! Surely immortality, or something very like it, is just around the corner.
The notion that our 21st-century world is one of accelerating advances is so dominant that it seems churlish to challenge it. Almost every week we read about ‘new hopes’ for cancer sufferers, developments in the lab that might lead to new cures, talk of a new era of space tourism and super-jets that can fly round the world in a few hours. Yet a moment’s thought tells us that this vision of unparalleled innovation can’t be right, that many of these breathless reports of progress are in fact mere hype, speculation – even fantasy.
Yet there once was an age when speculation matched reality. It spluttered to a halt more than 40 years ago. Most of what has happened since has been merely incremental improvements upon what came before. That true age of innovation – I’ll call it the Golden Quarter – ran from approximately 1945 to 1971. Just about everything that defines the modern world either came about, or had its seeds sown, during this time. The Pill. Electronics. Computers and the birth of the internet. Nuclear power. Television. Antibiotics. Space travel. Civil rights.

From an essay by Michael Hanlon https://aeon.co/essays/has-progress-in-science-and-technology-come-to-a-halt

 

[Pucksterguy]

Maybe we've wrung out all we could from the old inventions or ways of doing things and suppressed new technologies to protect the old ways of doing things. I'm thinking new technologies can't be hidden anymore and will burst out soon. We need a quantum jump...

 

[Toller]

In the earlier 20th century, the discoveries of the likes of Nikola Tesla and Royal Rife were generally suppressed. Since the end of the second world war, I think technology has kept going, it just hasnt' been released since about the mid 1970's.

It seems to be all about corporate greed and profit.

 

[Sinera]

Things we already had in some form are just getting (1) smaller and (2) faster. And in some cases probably (3) unhealthier (just see the 5G EMF and cancer discussion). So the article is very true. Nothing is that 'new'. Most really world-changing developments are kept secret by TPTB anyway.

 

[thesmileyone]

I don't think it has.

But the USA made a law that any kind of innovation or invention that could in any way affect their defense capability, cannot be patented by the inventor, and has to basically be forfeited so the big companies get it instead (Boeing etc), and it cannot be reported in the media.

This means that new stuff does not see the light of day and it also means there is no motivation for individuals to bother looking for new stuff in the first place.

Invention Secrecy Act. ... ch. 17) is a body of United States federal law designed to prevent disclosure of new inventions and technologies that, in the opinion of selected federal agencies, present a possible threat to the national security of the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_Secrecy_Act

 

[Alain]

well how to formulate it right

breaking the walls down that they flee and the progress takes the good volume it should already have

 

[Snowmelt]

I don't really care about my smartphone. It's a phone and it does its job. It gets turned off at night so I can get my wunder-sleep.

And that reminds me about something this article didn't touch on - the other half of our lives.... the significant proportion we spend revelling in our own subconscious and visiting the structural arcades of our own divine plan. The drivers for the blossoming of the "Golden Quarter" (of a century) were well outlined in the article. But what is missing is that motivation/manifestation is all about the state of our consciousness. Something we have the potential to increase by being more aware lucidly of what we spend our time doing during sleep.

So, whilst we now live in an Orwellian nightmare, it is oftentimes better than slugging it the hard way in Cockney London with barely a crust of bread and cobblestones for pillows. The article got that part right - in terms of standards of living, we have come very, very far.

Yes, there has been far more than incremental change that has been suppressed, and so the great unwashed of the population live in a "blip" which is not really real.

But when we marry our own ability to manifest with the confidence of our untested powers, we might suddenly find the up-curve of the trend once again rises rapidly from the plateau. After every achievement, there is a plateau, and we've been sitting on that for 40 years or more. But at the same time, the adventurous ones have been imagining how things could be through a consciousness revolution. And now the time for that to manifest into reality is here, and there are some who will not be surprised at all, and many who will be very surprised. It is all about what you let your imagination reveal.

 

[Snowmelt]

Please read David Topi's latest article "End of Stage, Start of a New Process" to see where great steps have been recently made. This understanding cannot be seen through a mere overview of the technological age.

 

[Linda]

I was thinking about working at the farm in relation to this subject. We take the children on tours, showing them how food grows, that eggs come from the chickens that are running around us, and so on. It is astounding to see how many kiddos have not been around fruit trees or picked strawberries from a plant. The other noticeable reaction is the pure joy in their faces. They are so happy to be there and walking around.

I feel that we are hitting a big reset button - showing that a whole other world exists beyond tv, computers, and the like. Maybe it is similar to Topi's point in his latest article that HM mentions above.

 

[therium]

I try to keep up with news on battery technology. Since the invention of the lithium batteries, battery technology has not come that far. Steps forward WITHIN the lithium battery group have been decent over the past 20 years, but small over the past 5-8 years or so. Despite the marketing hype, graphite batteries (which are only part graphite) do not provide more performance than lithium batteries of various kinds. In fact, if you look at the ads closely, they are very vague about the performance of graphite batteries for a reason.

Battery performance can be measured in a variety of ways:

1. Amp hours per kg at a certain voltage.
2. Watt hours per kg. (This takes into account voltage the battery can provide and amp hours.)
3. Max current they can provide without exploding or causing harm.
4. How long they can retain a charge without being recharged.
5. How many times they can be recharged.
6. Price per watt hour.
7. How resistant they are to "catastrophic failure" when they are damaged.

Super capacitors can hold a lot of power but also tend to self-discharge over time so they have some applications, but not as batteries to hold a charge for days or weeks.

Transmittable energy has a range of about 1 inch currently but some prototypes of other devices work as far away as 10 ft. One tech that is on the market is called "inductive charging" where the device sits on a plate but makes no electrical contacts, to charge the battery. In fact these are not hard for a beginner to make at home.

The solid state device to change waste heat directly to electrical energy (not a peltier element) is effectively dead. It might have been too expensive to make. There are lots of sources of waste heat in a house and this would have been great if it had gotten to market. Examples of waste heat sources: black roof on a summer day, hot water heater, car engine, stove when it is on, cooling coils for any compressor like a fridge or air conditioner.

Ping me if you want to more about rechargeable batteries. I also have my own small photovoltaic system (solar power).

The Bloom power cell works well, and is in testing with several major companies in the US. It turns natural gas and oxygen (from the air) into electricity without combustion. Whether it makes more electricity than a natural gas power plant per cubic feet of NG, I don't know.

 

[Pod]

I don't think it has.

But the USA made a law that any kind of innovation or invention that could in any way affect their defense capability, cannot be patented by the inventor, and has to basically be forfeited so the big companies get it instead (Boeing etc), and it cannot be reported in the media.

This means that new stuff does not see the light of day and it also means there is no motivation for individuals to bother looking for new stuff in the first place.

You said it Smiler. The best inventions are being stolen before we even see them.

 

[thesmileyone]

I try to keep up with news on battery technology. Since the invention of the lithium batteries, battery technology has not come that far. Steps forward WITHIN the lithium battery group have been decent over the past 20 years, but small over the past 5-8 years or so. Despite the marketing hype, graphite batteries (which are only part graphite) do not provide more performance than lithium batteries of various kinds. In fact, if you look at the ads closely, they are very vague about the performance of graphite batteries for a reason.

Battery performance can be measured in a variety of ways:

1. Amp hours per kg at a certain voltage.
2. Watt hours per kg. (This takes into account voltage the battery can provide and amp hours.)
3. Max current they can provide without exploding or causing harm.
4. How long they can retain a charge without being recharged.
5. How many times they can be recharged.
6. Price per watt hour.
7. How resistant they are to "catastrophic failure" when they are damaged.

Super capacitors can hold a lot of power but also tend to self-discharge over time so they have some applications, but not as batteries to hold a charge for days or weeks.

Transmittable energy has a range of about 1 inch currently but some prototypes of other devices work as far away as 10 ft. One tech that is on the market is called "inductive charging" where the device sits on a plate but makes no electrical contacts, to charge the battery. In fact these are not hard for a beginner to make at home.

The solid state device to change waste heat directly to electrical energy (not a peltier element) is effectively dead. It might have been too expensive to make. There are lots of sources of waste heat in a house and this would have been great if it had gotten to market. Examples of waste heat sources: black roof on a summer day, hot water heater, car engine, stove when it is on, cooling coils for any compressor like a fridge or air conditioner.

Ping me if you want to more about rechargeable batteries. I also have my own small photovoltaic system (solar power).

The Bloom power cell works well, and is in testing with several major companies in the US. It turns natural gas and oxygen (from the air) into electricity without combustion. Whether it makes more electricity than a natural gas power plant per cubic feet of NG, I don't know.

I was thinking, rather than putting solar cells in car roofs would it not be more efficient to make the road they drive on, power them? Via wireless transfer. Or the barriers that sit next to roads.

You wouldn't need them on downhill stretches due to regenerative engine braking.

 

[Alain]

I try to keep up with news on battery technology. Since the invention of the lithium batteries, battery technology has not come that far. Steps forward WITHIN the lithium battery group have been decent over the past 20 years, but small over the past 5-8 years or so. Despite the marketing hype, graphite batteries (which are only part graphite) do not provide more performance than lithium batteries of various kinds. In fact, if you look at the ads closely, they are very vague about the performance of graphite batteries for a reason.

Battery performance can be measured in a variety of ways:

1. Amp hours per kg at a certain voltage.
2. Watt hours per kg. (This takes into account voltage the battery can provide and amp hours.)
3. Max current they can provide without exploding or causing harm.
4. How long they can retain a charge without being recharged.
5. How many times they can be recharged.
6. Price per watt hour.
7. How resistant they are to "catastrophic failure" when they are damaged.

Super capacitors can hold a lot of power but also tend to self-discharge over time so they have some applications, but not as batteries to hold a charge for days or weeks.

Transmittable energy has a range of about 1 inch currently but some prototypes of other devices work as far away as 10 ft. One tech that is on the market is called "inductive charging" where the device sits on a plate but makes no electrical contacts, to charge the battery. In fact these are not hard for a beginner to make at home.

The solid state device to change waste heat directly to electrical energy (not a peltier element) is effectively dead. It might have been too expensive to make. There are lots of sources of waste heat in a house and this would have been great if it had gotten to market. Examples of waste heat sources: black roof on a summer day, hot water heater, car engine, stove when it is on, cooling coils for any compressor like a fridge or air conditioner.

Ping me if you want to more about rechargeable batteries. I also have my own small photovoltaic system (solar power).

The Bloom power cell works well, and is in testing with several major companies in the US. It turns natural gas and oxygen (from the air) into electricity without combustion. Whether it makes more electricity than a natural gas power plant per cubic feet of NG, I don't know.

one thing that is also quite mean is that the bateries have a rather short life wanted surely

 

[Snowmelt]

one thing that is also quite mean is that the bateries have a rather short life wanted surely

What about the ones you buy and leave in your drawer for a couple of months - and then they don't perform at all!

 

[Alain]

Haven t thought of them totally true

 

[thesmileyone]

The problem with batteries is, look at the damage it causes the planet digging up the lithium required (and also you can see why the USA invaded Afghanistan... lithium everywhere there).

What we need is electric cars that don't have batteries.

 

[Pucksterguy]

Build Tesla towers everywhere. With that grid working right free unlimited power for whatever you want. Personal crafts ala Jetsons would be feasable. Little or no need for batteries. etc. possibilities are endless...

 

[therium]

I was thinking, rather than putting solar cells in car roofs would it not be more efficient to make the road they drive on, power them?

No, there was already a trial on this called Solar Roadways and they installed a 10ft x 10ft group of panels in a park where people walk. Each panel was a 1 ft hexagon. They had all kinds of problems. They had these hexagonal modules that had to all connect together, and many of them stopped working after a few days. Each panel had lights in them to show they were working. Also, they did their trial in winter so all the panels did not get much light because they were covered with snow. There are also many problems with cars travelling over the roads and breaking the connection between panels, not to mention fricton on the panels which would dull the glass (or other) cover, causing less light to reach the panels. Mud and dirt would also tend to cover the panels causing lowered efficiency.

There are many technical hurdles to putting solar panels on the ground where people walk or cars drive. All wires connecting to a central battery have to be easily accessible, that usually means a trough on the side of the road. How do we keep water out of there from shorting wires? Using waterproof connections increases the cost. What happens when there is a car accident on the road? Do the troughs or solar panels get damaged? How much does it cost for repairs? How much does it cost for maintenance? Involving roads with electronics embedded there is often a very expensive proposition and not workable for most municipal governments.

Solar Roadways ad.
More info on Solar Roadways.

However there is a long walkway in Asia somewhere that is covered, and they put solar panels on top of the roof of this walkway. Wires then go from the panels to a battery and charging station every so often. I don't have details on the charging station, sorry.

Same idea but not the actual walkway I saw.
The article I saw. Walkway is in Korea.

Consumer's Power in Michigan has some solar farms. For another $10 per month you can use the solar power in your grid electricity and help fund this project.

Lithium is not dug, according to this video, it's pumped out of the ground as lithium salts in solution. The solution is dried in the sun (not using electricity) which leaves a powder. However mining and processing lead for lead batteries is really polluting, puts toxic tailings everywhere which are conveyed downstream, and uses a LOT of power for smelting. There are usually other very toxic compounds and elements in the lead ore and those are just thrown to the side of the mine and then, with rain, drain into local streams and aquifers, and then into your well water.

Video on lithium extraction.

 

[therium]

one thing that is also quite mean is that the batteries have a rather short life wanted surely

Primary batteries are the ones that cannot be recharged. Primary lithium batteries can last years in a drawer without losing their charge, if you don't put them in a device, and they are specifically used in survival gear, but rechargeable lithium batteries slowly lose their charge over about a year. If a cheapo battery pack has a high "quiescent current" (which I call "resting current") then the battery will drain faster. A quiescent current is current that is used by a circuit even if it does nothing else at all. That is not a battery problem, that is a cheap Chinese circuit problem.

A quiescent current of 1 milliamp (which is high) will drain a 5000mah battery in 5000 hours, or 208.33 days. Acceptable quiescent currents are in the micro amp (ua) range.

You might be thinking of the NiMH rechargeable batteries, they lose their charge over just a few months, or less, depending on the quiescent current of the circuit. Some batteries don't need to drain via a "resting current" from a poorly designed circuit, they self-drain by themselves. NiCad batteries are an example of this. And NiMH do this too. When in doubt, don't hook the battery to the device or circuit, leave them unattached.

My PV panels are inside my house in a south facing window. Thus I have minimal maintenance because they are not exposed to the weather. They are hooked to a charge controller which hooks to a car battery. The charge controller also has 2 USB ports for charging devices but they put out only 500ma combined (0.5 amps) so I added a 12v car socket to the battery, and put in my own car socket USB charger which can output 2.1amps. Weee!

*The more you know!* (deedly doo)

A small PV kit with battery and charge controller and 4 bulbs, $153usd.
Folding solar panel with USB ports, $50usd. Good for beginners. Very simple.
2 Small solar panels, charge controller, 2 light bulbs, lithium battery, $63usd.
Beginner kit: 2 light bulbs, one solar panel, one 2AH battery with charge controller, $28usd out the door.
Beginner kit: 1 bulb with internal battery, one solar panel and charge controller. $11usd out the door.

 

[thesmileyone]

No, there was already a trial on this called Solar Roadways and they installed a 10ft x 10ft group of panels in a park where people walk. Each panel was a 1 ft hexagon. They had all kinds of problems. They had these hexagonal modules that had to all connect together, and many of them stopped working after a few days. Each panel had lights in them to show they were working. Also, they did their trial in winter so all the panels did not get much light because they were covered with snow. There are also many problems with cars travelling over the roads and breaking the connection between panels, not to mention fricton on the panels which would dull the glass (or other) cover, causing less light to reach the panels. Mud and dirt would also tend to cover the panels causing lowered efficiency.

There are many technical hurdles to putting solar panels on the ground where people walk or cars drive. All wires connecting to a central battery have to be easily accessible, that usually means a trough on the side of the road. How do we keep water out of there from shorting wires? Using waterproof connections increases the cost. What happens when there is a car accident on the road? Do the troughs or solar panels get damaged? How much does it cost for repairs? How much does it cost for maintenance? Involving roads with electronics embedded there is often a very expensive proposition and not workable for most municipal governments.

Solar Roadways ad.
More info on Solar Roadways.

However there is a long walkway in Asia somewhere that is covered, and they put solar panels on top of the roof of this walkway. Wires then go from the panels to a battery and charging station every so often. I don't have details on the charging station, sorry.

Same idea but not the actual walkway I saw.
The article I saw. Walkway is in Korea.

Consumer's Power in Michigan has some solar farms. For another $10 per month you can use the solar power in your grid electricity and help fund this project.

Lithium is not dug, according to this video, it's pumped out of the ground as lithium salts in solution. The solution is dried in the sun (not using electricity) which leaves a powder. However mining and processing lead for lead batteries is really polluting, puts toxic tailings everywhere which are conveyed downstream, and uses a LOT of power for smelting. There are usually other very toxic compounds and elements in the lead ore and those are just thrown to the side of the mine and then, with rain, drain into local streams and aquifers, and then into your well water.

Video on lithium extraction.

Thank you for clarifying solar roadways.

Musk may be on to something with his BORING stuff but I believe the rumors about military bases and tunnel networks hidden from us are true, in which case his tech won't be applied. And I reckon that's where he got his tech from too.

I remember in one of Doloros Cannons books it mentions this tunneling machine which converts waste rock into tunnel lining which is EXACTLY word for word what conspiracist theorists say about the DUMB bases and the tunelling machines they use to link them...Dulce NM etc.

As for lithium it is incredibly toxic to the water table too. https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2014/03/14/mining-lithium-for-batteries-is-no-greener-than-mining-copper-2/

 

[Pucksterguy]

I have a working solar system powering my cottage. For day to day operations like lighting, powering a computer and wifi, water pump, even my coffee maker I'm fine. However any high load item especially something with a heating element will quickly drain the batteries. Things like ceiling fans and table top fans do drain as well but slower. I have 4-250w panels and 6-6v gel pack batteries powering the show. It takes a bright sunny day to completely charge the batteries. anything like several cloudy days in a row and I'm running the generator to top up the batteries. The weaknesses in the system are twofold. The panels are too inefficient and so are the batteries. They don't hold a big enuff charge or charge fast enuff even at 100 amps charging rate. Both ends need to be more efficient to be viable. and ya I know I can and will double the number of batteries...

 

[therium]

Lithium compounds are potentially toxic in long term ingestion, but I have no evidence they are toxic in tiny amounts (ppb) like cadmium or glyphosate is. I did find one study from the NIH about lithium in ground water (which is drunk by people). I don't have time to read it now.

Lithium in the Natural Waters of the South East of Ireland (Carlow county)

Pucksterguy : those are the same problems I found. In the winter, most days are cloudy, but that's not a big deal because I only use my PV battery for charging phones, tablets, and other battery banks. My PV battery has a capacity of about 35mah, while the batteries I charge might be 2-5mah at the most. I can use the PV battery most of the time. This winter we've had unusually warm and sunny weather so my PV battery has been topped off most of the time.

PV panels reaching 40% efficiency are in the prototype stage but will not be affordable to the average person for 10-20 years now.

Types of PV panels and their efficiency history. (Really complete graph!)

 

[therium]

Pucksterguy : Do you have an invertor to convert power to 120vac or did you run separate wires to run 12v devices around your house?

 

[Pucksterguy]

I have an inverter set up...

 

[Snowmelt]

Primary batteries are the ones that cannot be recharged. Primary lithium batteries can last years in a drawer without losing their charge, and they are specifically used in survival gear, but rechargeable lithium batteries slowly lose their charge over about a year. If a cheapo battery pack has a high "quiescent current" (which I call "resting current") then the battery will drain faster. A quiescent current is current that is used by a circuit even if it does nothing else at all. That is not a battery problem, that is a cheap Chinese circuit problem.

A quiescent current of 1 milliamp (which is high) will drain a 5000mah battery in 5000 hours, or 208.33 days. Acceptable quiescent currents are in the micro amp (ua) range.

You might be thinking of the NiMH rechargeable batteries, they lose their charge over just a few months, or less, depending on the quiescent current of the circuit.

My PV panels are inside my house in a south facing window. Thus I have minimal maintenance because they are not exposed to the weather. They are hooked to a charge controller which hooks to a car battery. The charge controller also has 2 USB ports for charging devices but they put out only 500ma combined (0.5 amps) so I added a 12v car socket to the battery, and put in my own car socket USB charger which can output 2.1amps. Weee!

*The more you know!* (deedly doo)

A small PV kit with battery and charge controller and 4 bulbs, $153usd.
Folding solar panel with USB ports, $50usd. Good for beginners. Very simple.
2 Small solar panels, charge controller, 2 light bulbs, lithium battery, $63usd.
Beginner kit: 2 light bulbs, one solar panel, one 2AH battery with charge controller, $28usd out the door.
Beginner kit: 1 bulb with internal battery, one solar panel and charge controller. $11usd out the door.

therium, your answer explains perfectly why my shop-bought batteries ran out of charge before even being used. They were cheap, bought at Aldi, and most likely were manufactured in China. China Circuit Problem (CCP!)

 

[Snowmelt]

The article I saw. Walkway is in Korea.

Those Koreans are extra smart. We put a railway line down the middle of our freeway. Therefore, no solar panel roofing possible. I also note they had an uninterrupted 3 lanes of traffic each direction plus an uninterrupted bus lane, as well as the hassle-free cycle lane. Our freeway is a hodgepodge of 3 lanes merging into 2 lanes merging back into 3 lanes, etc. No cyclists allowed on the freeway. But hey, the Koreans have to put up with noisy drones interrupting the peace and quiet of their rural lifestyle to the sides of their freeway!

 

[therium]

I remember in one of Doloros Cannons books it mentions this tunneling machine which converts waste rock into tunnel lining which is EXACTLY word for word what conspiracist theorists say about the DUMB bases and the tunelling machines they use to link them...Dulce NM etc.

I believe it too. Someone found the patent for this machine (#2 below) on the US patent office website. There are 2 types of machines:

1. The machine the public knows about grinds up rock and takes the rock out via a long conveyor belt to the back of the machine where trucks cart away the rubble. There is a documentary on this. One was used to make the English Channel Chunnel.
2. The secret one heats up the rock and forces the melted rock into cracks in the surrounding rock making a very smooth surface in the tunnel. I assume it cannot be used if there are not enough cracks big enough in surrounding rock to take in all the melted material.

Branton is a great source for stories about DUMBs. Let me know if you want some files he wrote. I have them in EPUB and text file format. (Branton is actually a group of people.) EPUBS are in this zip file.

One place for the Omega Files.

 

[thesmileyone]

The one I found creates a liner on the outside of the rock it tunnels through, instead of through cracks. As a result the liner is very smooth.

These patents happened in the 1950's so it's unbelievable that tech has not progressed more since then, and convieniently the late 1950's is when the Acts were introduced to stop such tech from being patented in the first place and therefore kept secret.

 

[Toller]

This tunnel boring appears to be happening all over the world, could be responsible for "The Hum" (Taos Hum).

http://amasci.com/hum/hum1.html

The Hum: What is this low frequency humming noise?

Throughout the 20th and now into the 21st century hundreds of thousands of people worldwide have reported a low frequency pulsating noise which has become known as “The Hum”.
Many have described it as sounding like a heavy diesel engine idling in the distance, but, to others, it rises through the frequency range to a higher pitched buzz.
Since the 1950s people across the globe have claimed to be plagued by an annoying, low-frequency humming, throbbing or rumbling sound. It is mostly heard indoors at rural and suburban locations. The noise can get louder during the night, though it can also cease entirely upon leaving specific locations.

http://strangesounds.org/the-hum

 

[Linda]

A few years ago, our city decided to bore a 10' diameter tunnel as an underground transmission main to move water from the lake to treatment and distribution sites. Part of the project was near us, and I did hear and feel the rumbling - most often in the early morning. It was a rumble and grinding sound, and I could feel it in my feet, as well. It is disconcerting even if you know what is going on.