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Posted by: Alex Apr 18 2009, 04:52 AM

Top 10 List for the next developments in the world news.

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/Features/Lists/?article=FuturePredictions&GT1=27004

I found 1, 3, 5, 7 & 8 interesting as they relate indirectly to SR.

Posted by: hobgoblin Apr 18 2009, 11:03 AM

6 sounds like a singularity by another word...

Posted by: Draco18s Apr 18 2009, 02:32 PM

6 is already true. Engineers in college today: anything they learn in their freshman year is obsolete by the time they graduate.

Posted by: BlueMax Apr 18 2009, 02:46 PM

Really? At my school they taught principles and math in the first two years. Both of which, as far as this old timer is concerned, never go out of style.

Again, from first principles!


BlueMax
/finished in physics, so the first principle thing is kinda first nature
//so it beating my head against a wall

Posted by: Draco18s Apr 18 2009, 02:53 PM

Given that I'm not an engineer and don't have any engineering friends to pose the question to, it may have been the stuff after that (2nd year of a 5 year degree) and the percentage was probable less than 100%

Still, I left college with a degree in Digital Media Arts and design (good for such things as making websites) only to find that there were at least a dozen web programing languages I wasn't introduced to (php I at least knew of, and java I'd had some experience with over at Computer Science, but Ruby on Rails?).

Posted by: MJBurrage Apr 18 2009, 05:42 PM

As somebody with two degrees, working on a third, I can confirm that 6 is already true for many fields.

As noted above, almost everything you learn at the beginning of a course of study (i.e. freshman year) is foundational, and will still be applicable long after you die. As you knowledge gets more advanced, its "correctness" or usefulness also gets shorter lived.

It has actually always been true, that post-graduate researchers can never stop keeping up with changes in their field.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 18 2009, 07:07 PM

Very Interesting Reading... I too would say that 6 is already a fact, though the basics, as some have said, will never go out of style... Though I do have to think that the ability to read will continue to dwindle as the decades advance...

Posted by: Heath Robinson Apr 18 2009, 11:53 PM

I'm British, and number 1 horrifies me no end.

I really need to get out of this place.


Thankfully, it ain't going to happen. Too many complexities.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 19 2009, 01:24 AM

1, 2, 5, 7, 8... Al pretty horrifying in there own way... not sure that I want to see any of them come to pass...

9 ... has great potential I would think.

Posted by: DoomFrog Apr 19 2009, 04:32 AM

Yeah I have to agree with Blue on this one. I learned Statics my first year as an ME student. I really can't see that becoming obsolete, unless someone disproves Newton's Three Laws..... though with the stuff coming out of quantum physics that might happen.

Though even then engineers will still use Newtonian physics..... its close enough.

Posted by: Method Apr 19 2009, 04:52 AM

RE:6

In medical school they have a saying "The answers change, but the questions stay the same." They basically teach us to understand the underlying principles because by the time we get out to practice the detail will have mostly been rewritten.

Posted by: Dhaise Apr 19 2009, 05:58 AM

I wish 'you fancy college people' would stop trying to convince me the earth is round.

There was big talk about a year or so ago about some of the First Nation in the US attempting to develop their own independent country, complete with currency and tax free citizenship provided one was willing to abdicate their current citizenship. The first thing I immediately thought of was 'shadowrun'.

Posted by: Alex Apr 22 2009, 04:49 AM

More predictions I found.

http://tech.msn.com/products/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=18821223&imageindex=1

Posted by: nezumi Apr 22 2009, 10:28 PM

In my experience, #6 was half right. Studying Computer Science, they taught us data structures, with lesser focus on languages. The result was when I graduated, I knew how to really program in only two languages, but had the understanding of the concept to learn most any other. Education will shift from 'this is how you do X' to 'these are the underlying concepts you must know in order to understand Y so you can do X'.

#8 is self-contradictory, insofar that people in cities have a smaller carbon footprint compared to people in rural areas and, even moreso, suburban areas. They use more mass transit, food takes less fuel to get to them (since it's one big truck instead of a bunch of little trucks), they take up less living space, cost less to heat, cut down fewer trees (a building with 8 apartments cuts down far fewer trees than 8 town houses or 8 farm houses) etc. Cities are GOOD for the global environment.

As for the second one... Most of those are literally aroudn the corner or already here. I mean biofuels? I'm saving up to build a biodiesel generator in my garage. Not rocket science.