Structure of knowledge

Must-read papers for anyone
who practices, manages, or thinks
about systems engineering

June 6, 2013

Larger pipes, smaller motors, surprising improvements While in Baku, I met with Amory Lovins, a remarkable physicist / engineer / policy analyst who has changed the world’s understanding of energy systems, how they work, and how they can be radically improved. Amory’s decades of experience and thought have led to deep insights regarding not only [...]

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Mining the seabed
for resources that won’t be scarce

May 21, 2013

The BBC describes an unprecedented surge of interest from state-owned and private mining companies in scraping the Pacific seabed to recover manganese nodules, mineral-rich lumps that grow at rates on the order of 1 cm per million years: Millions of years in the making The chemical composition of nodules varies… Those of greatest economic interest [...]

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Daniel Kahneman makes us smarter (again)

March 10, 2013

Edge asks: What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody’s Cognitive Toolkit? Daniel Kahneman offers the first answer: Daniel Kahneman Recipient, Nobel Prize in Economics, 2002; Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology; Author, Thinking Fast and Slow Focusing Illusion “Nothing In Life Is As Important As You Think It Is, While You Are Thinking About It” Education is [...]

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Beilstein Symposium 2012:
Molecular Engineering and Control

May 23, 2012

Last week I gave the opening talk at the 10th Beilstein Symposium in Prien, Germany, a meeting focused on molecular engineering and control. This is a small, invitational meeting series — the kind where about half the participants are also speakers. What makes the Beilstein Symposiums unusual is their cross-disciplinary orientation. At this year’s meeting, [...]

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Video of my Oxford nanotechnology lecture

December 7, 2011

I recently gave the Inaugural Lecture for the Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology at the Oxford Martin School, and the lecture video is now available.* The talk describes the application of physical law and exploratory engineering to studies of the future potential of nanotechnology. Summary here: News & Research Highlights. * With thanks [...]

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I’ve moved to Oxford

October 22, 2011

Rosa and I now work at Oxford’s Martin School in the new Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology. (My Oxford Martin School bio here; Rosa’s here.) We plan to be at Oxford while I finish work on my new book, Radical Abundance, to be published by PublicAffairs. On November 10th I will deliver the [...]

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My next book: Radical Abundance, 2013

July 21, 2011

I’m now working on a new book, Radical Abundance, scheduled for publication in 2013 by PublicAffairs. The book has a wide scope in both its content and intended audience, addressing scientists, a general reading audience, and thought leaders in the policy arena. Radical Abundance will integrate and extend several themes that I’ve touched on in [...]

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Science and engineering at NIH

May 10, 2011

In response to (yet another) proposal to reorganize and redirect the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Russ Altman writes in Nature that …it is crucial to separate the engine of discovery from the engine of application. Discovery is stochastic and opportunistic; application is the stuff of engineers. That is why attempts to over-engineer discovery fail [...]

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The Quantum Information Science
and Technology Roadmap
(for example…)

April 24, 2011

Roadmaps are crucial in developing new technology platforms — in other words, for the coordinated development of complete sets of compatible technologies that, taken together, support system-level technologies at a new level. Whether formal or informal, roadmaps address a fundamental problem of risk and mutual expectations in technology development: the problem of giving all necessary [...]

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Good and popular

January 20, 2011

  I’ll get back to posting more regularly, but meanwhile, here are a few of the most popular posts to date: How to Learn About Everything …the title above isn’t “how to learn everything”, but “how to learn about everything”. The distinction I have in mind is between knowing the inside of a topic in [...]

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Nano drug carrier (!!!)

December 8, 2010

This news just in: A ‘buckyball’ — a spherical molecule made up of 60 carbon atoms — has been turned into a vial just big enough to hold a single water molecule…. The authors say that uses for the vial could include acting as a carrier for drugs in the body. (News item) As The [...]

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A meta-meta-analysis from the CDC

November 30, 2010

As a meta-oriented post, Metamodern is pleased to report a meta-meta-analysis. In this month’s issue of the CDC-sponsored journal Preventing Chronic Disease, we find, published as a “Systematic Review”: Quality of Systematic Reviews of Observational Nontherapeutic Studies …Of the 145 systematic reviews we found, fewer than half met each quality criterion; 49% reported study flow, [...]

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