FFR: Breakthrough Ideas for 2009, Part 3

By | March 15, 2009
4 Comments

Phil Bowermaster, Stephen Gordon, and Michael Darling presented their own breakthrough ideas for 2009. What innovations today will make a difference tomorrow?

Listening Options:

Stream our latest shows:


Or:

add_to_itunes.gif

Or download MP3′s for all the archived shows at:

Listen to FastForward Radio... on Blog Talk Radio

Click “Continue Reading” for the show notes:

  • http://discovermagazine.com/2009/mar/06-world.s-hardest-working-telescope Sally Morem

    Really cool future astronomy

    I put this in under another posting before I saw this posting, a much more appropriate one for this:

    “Located 9,200 feet above sea level, atop the Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey telescope cannot match the incredibly sharp vision of the Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits above Earth’s blurring atmosphere. And, at a modest 2.5 meters (8 feet) across, the Sloan telescope’s main mirror cannot see the incredibly dim objects that the 10-meter (33-foot) Keck telescopes in Hawaii can. What the Sloan telescope does have in spades is a voracious appetite for sky–an appetite that is producing some of the most amazing discoveries in astronomy.

    “With its giant set of light-sensitive imaging sensors, the Sloan telescope has a field of view so wide it can image 36 full moons’ worth of sky at once (Hubble, in contrast, is limited to a view less than one-tenth of a moon across). Night after night it scans vast swaths of the heavens and downloads its observations into a 73-terabyte (and growing) digital database that covers almost half the night sky as seen from Apache Point. Swept up in the Sloan’s relentless gaze are stars, galaxies, supernovas, nebulas, and more, over 350 million celestial objects in total, adding up to the most complete census of the universe ever conducted.”

    Can you imagine how cool it would be to have an advanced version of this telescope sweeping the skies while in Earth orbit, like the Hubble. Even better, if the aperture was much MUCH larger. Even better than that, built out of nanobots and run by AI software. Oooooooo!

    All the things we could know. All the places we could see.

  • Dave Coles

    As far as using evolutionary development modeling to identify whether “middle ground” issues are best handled by markets or governments, how about this idea: Testable Legislation. By that I mean (1) a law is passed which identifies two statistically similar areas of the country and implements a Market Solution in area A and a Government solution in area B (2) accomplishment benchmarks pre-set in the legislation are carefully tracked and (3) the better solution is proved experimentally and (4) the better solution is automatically implemented as previously agreed to in the legislation and by all the parties who passed and signed the law.

  • Harvey

    I have some praise, and a suggestion. The praise is for the sound effect intro and exito to the “Astounding Science Facts” segment of the program, and the ones for “Tales of the Paranormal”. I love them. Uh, and my suggestion is a little more of that, with more Theremin and cowbell.

  • Phil Bowermaster

    I’ve got a fever. And the prescription is more cowbell.