Today the first Kavli prizes were handed over to proud winners in the categories of Astrophysics, Nanotechnology and Neuroscience. In a way the Kavli prizes can be seen as a supplement, or a renewal, of the Nobel prizes. Astrophysics and neurology are in a way more focused versions of the Nobel prizes in physics and medicine. But you can't really blame Alfred Nobel for not including nanotechnology in his collection of prizes. Nanotechnology as a genuine area of research was defined by Richard Feynman by a speech in 1959, fully 70 years after Nobel's death.
But I don't think Fred Kavli has had any intentions to either supplement or to compete with Alfred Nobel. I think he has a very intense inner drive fueling his keen interest in scientific progress and want to put his money to work for something that fascinate him. These three areas of science evidently tops his fascination, and I can't say I blame him. If I were to personally make a list of my favourite areas of science these three would definitely be among the top five-six. In addition I would have liked to add genetics and artificial intelligence. And then I have a true reverence for mathematics in general and number theory in particular. If mathematics is the "Queen of sciences", like Gauss thought, then number theory is the Queen mother. But that is a different story. I wanted to comment on Kavli's selected areas of science...
Nanotechnology is at the core of a broad range of modern scientific and technology research. Materials technology, medicine, sensors and computer sciences are some typical examples. I'm a member of Forsight Nanotech Institute (www.foresight.org), and they have released a technology roadmap for productive nanosystems that is really interesting reading. It points the directions to be explored towards technology that will transform our world more than most people are able to imagine! The most well known area is perhaps computer science. In the next 20-25 years computers will become one million times faster than today. One million times! And materials with extreme qualities will be available. Imagine a sheet of extremely thin material. We are talking atomic size thin. Put 10 000 sheets on top of each other and you are still much thinner than a hair. Now imagine a sheet of this material stretched over a cup. Then take a pencil and place the sharpened tip on the middle of the sheet and place a *car* on top of the pencil. The sheet is so strong that it would not tear! Now, this material has been made. Only in the tiniest amounts, but it exists.
But it is in the area of medicine that I find the most exciting developments in nanotechnology taking place at the moment. For instance there has been rapid progress in the areas of nanoparticles that can detect cancer, nanoparticles that can 'tag' cancer cells and nanoparticles that can kill cancer cells. In short there are new weapons on its way in the war against cancer!
To me neuroscience is mainly brain science. In reality it is the study of all parts of the nervous system, but let's admit it: It's the brain that is most interesting. New imaging technology, partly thanks to nanotechnology, and other tools as well as an intensely increased research activity is rapidly advancing our understanding of our most precious organ. I have tried to update myself on this area as well, but... Well, it's hard! For one thing the brain is a very complex thing, and all the latin not making it any easier. And I feel so little is known and so many questions are left to answer. But there is a big prize ahead: The re engineering of the brain. Sounds like science fiction? Maybe so, but quite a few people believe it will happen. Soon. If we could do it, many of these people believe we will be able to build intelligence into our computers in the first place, and to "download" and take backups of our own brains in the long run. I'm not so sure, but I do believe that better understanding of how our brain works will help us in the quest to build intelligent machines.
Lastly there is astrophysics. This used to be my main fascination when I was a kid. Even as a young adult I remember reading "Supernova" by Isac Asimov and marvel over the fact that every atom in my body had once been part of a supernova explosion. Besides reading Hawkings (the worlds most popular unread book according to some), string theory and occasionally catching up on the Hubble news, I have slipped a bit. Until I recently watched this video on TED about the state of art in astrophysics. Seems the skies are not what they used to be. As the scientists uncover ever more information about the universe, the open questions just keep getting stranger and stranger. Now the universe is 10% matter, 15% dark matterand 75% dark energy! I know what matter is, to some extent at least. Apparently scientists have teories about dark matter as well. But dark energy is a real stranger! Now they are firing up the large hadron collider (in fact tomorrow morning) as well as a plethora of new space telescopes and other instruments. There might be exciting discoveries ahead in this field as well!
It's hard to stay tuned. And even harder to imagine what the synergies of scientific progress in different areas will be. What is not hard is to predict that we are in for a terrific ride. In a way you have to narrow in your field of interest and leave the rest until it hits the news. I think Fred Kavli has chosen his fields of interest quite well.
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