breakneck

Jack Ma.

Some giant enterprises were started without academic sanctions or massive financing. Apple. Facebook. PayPal. Amazon. Intel. TI. Pratt&Whitney. Electronic television. Ford. Many others.

The US is still a place where someone can start a small business that gets big.

I was thinking about scientific discoveries that had serious economic impact. The only good ones, in the last 50 years or so, seem to have been medical.

The last important physical-science thing was probably the laser.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

I read maybe 2 books per week. I'm curently reading "1491", about civilization in the Americas before the europeans arrived.

Another book that you don't want to read is

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

Am 17.06.26 um 18:27 schrieb john larkin:

Yes, the first Indian to see Columbus made a horrific discovery.

BTW, Columbus was not the first. The Vikings such as Leif Ericson were nearly 500 years earlier. There is even archeologic evidence.

Gerhard

I doubt it China is all that much worse than the rest of the world. We see reports of what goes wrong in China, because America has a vested interest in publicising this. American and Europe are less interested in publicising their own defects, and China hasn't got the access to let them do it to Europe and Amercia.

Sure. Politicians run everything.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

1. Generative AI and Transformer ArchitecturesThe rise of large language models (LLMs) and foundation models—sparked by the breakthrough of transformer neural networks—has fundamentally altered the global economic landscape.Economic Scale: McKinsey Global Institute estimates AI could add trillion to the global economy by 2030.Labor Productivity: Automates code generation, content creation, and administrative pipelines, drastically shifting white-collar labor structures.Industrial R&D: Reshaping scientific workflows. For instance, Google DeepMind's AlphaFold models have transformed structural biology by accurately mapping protein structures, compressing pharmaceutical discovery timelines from years to mere days.

1. Commercial mRNA Vaccine PlatformsWhile mRNA research existed for decades, its deployment during the COVID-19 pandemic marked the first successful commercialization of a flexible, rapid-response medical platform.Immediate GDP Protection: By eliminating the need to grow weakened viruses inside cells, mRNA technology cut vaccine development timelines from four years down to two months. This speed prevented prolonged global economic lockdowns and saved tens of millions of lives.New Biotechnology Pipelines: The success of the platform has catalyzed billions of dollars in new biotech R&D, with clinical trials rapidly advancing toward tailored mRNA cancer therapeutics and universal flu vaccines

2. CRISPR-Cas9 Gene Editing MarketizationThe transition of CRISPR gene editing from a Nobel Prize-winning laboratory discovery to a regulated commercial therapy represents a massive economic shift in healthcare.Curative Medicine Business Models: With the historic FDA approvals of CRISPR treatments like Casgevy for sickle-cell disease, healthcare has shifted from chronic disease management to multi-million-dollar, one-time curative procedures.Agricultural Breakthroughs: CRISPR has disrupted the global agricultural economy. Genome editing has unlocked high-yield, drought-tolerant, and fungus-resistant crop variations (such as modified rice strains), safeguarding food supply chains against volatile climate shifts.

1. Advanced Energy Storage and Solid-State BatteriesDriven by the mass adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and grid-scale renewable storage, battery chemistry has advanced significantly beyond standard lithium-ion limits.Automotive Sector Overhaul: Breakthroughs in silicon-anode and sodium-ion cells—alongside modern milestones in structural battery composites—have slashed battery costs while maximizing energy density.New Aviation Markets: These advancements have laid the economic foundations for fully electric short-haul aviation and commercial electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) logistics networks.

2. GLP-1 Receptor Agonists (Obesity Therapeutics)The clinical adaptation of GLP-1 receptor agonists (such as semaglutide and tirzepatide) has triggered one of the largest pharmaceutical market booms in history.

1. Perovskite-Silicon Hybrid Solar CellsTraditional silicon solar cells have long faced a hard physical efficiency limit of roughly 27%. The integration of perovskite thin-film materials onto traditional silicon wafers has revolutionized the clean energy market.Disrupting the Energy Grid: Hybrid tandem cells have pushed solar conversion efficiencies beyond 34% in recent testing.Manufacturing Economics: Perovskites can be processed at much lower temperatures than pure silicon. This greatly reduces industrial manufacturing energy costs and accelerates the commercial viability of localized, decentralized solar grids.

2. Rapidly Reusable Orbital RocketryUntil recently, every rocket launched into space was entirely discarded after a single use, treating aerospace logistics like flying a commercial airliner once and throwing it away. The realization of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) booster recovery completely disrupted this paradigm.Collapsing Launch Costs: According to data tracked by ARK Invest's Big Ideas, reusable rocketry has slashed the cost of launching payloads to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) by roughly 95%—dropping from over ,000 per kilogram to under ,000 per kilogram.Catalyzing the Starlink & Satellite Economy: These lower costs unlocked hyper-dense satellite constellations, turning global satellite internet into a highly profitable sector. The total space economy reached 6 billion and is driving toward a trillion market as megaconstellations alter rural telecommunications, agricultural tracking, and defense logistics.

1. Neuromorphic Computing & Event-Driven ChipsAs classic Von Neumann chip architectures hit physical "memory walls" and severe power-grid constraints, researchers successfully scaled neuromorphic hardware—silicon microchips modeled explicitly on the human brain’s biological architecture.Radical Energy Efficiency: Traditional GPUs require continuous, massive power to execute matrix multiplications. Neuromorphic chips (like Intel's Loihi or IBM's TrueNorth) process data via Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs), drawing power only when data changes (event-driven). A human brain operates on roughly 20 watts; neuromorphic chips emulate this to slash electrical overhead.Edge AI Market Boom: The global neuromorphic market is scaling rapidly. It provides the exact computational framework required to run real-time, low-power AI directly inside robotics, autonomous drone fleets, and wearable sensors without constantly relaying data to a remote cloud.

1. Quantum Dot Display & Optoelectronic IntegrationThe scale-up of chemically synthesized Colloidal Quantum Dots (QDs) moved from niche physics labs into high-yield, mass-market manufacturing.Display Infrastructure Revolution: Quantum dots absorb light and re-emit it at highly precise wavelengths. This breakthrough disrupted the global electronics market, replacing traditional LEDs with QD-OLED layers that provide unprecedented brightness and energy efficiency across television, mobile, and monitor manufacturing.Next-Gen Photovoltaics & Sensors: Beyond consumer tech, quantum dots are being integrated into advanced infrared sensors for autonomous vehicles and high-efficiency hybrid solar films, providing cheap, scalable alternatives to specialized silicon manufacturing.

2. High-Temperature Superconductor (HTS) Magnetic ScalingWhile a room-temperature superconductor at standard ambient atmospheric pressure remains under active investigation in physics labs, the last decade yielded a massive engineering breakthrough: the industrial scaling of REBCO (Rare-Earth Barium Copper Oxide) tapes.Unlocking Commercial Fusion Power: REBCO tapes allow scientists to build high-temperature superconducting magnets that generate incredibly intense magnetic fields at achievable, liquid-nitrogen temperatures rather than near absolute zero.The Fusion Influx: This single engineering milestone fundamentally altered the economics of clean energy, drawing tens of billions of dollars in venture capital to private fusion startups. It compressed the expected timeline for pilot commercial fusion reactors from a distant mid-century dream to active engineering deployments slated for the 2030s.

There's no end to them.... and these are BIG ticket items.

Including which statistics are reported, which ones are not, and which are twisted to purpose.

Joe

Game-changing medical innovations aren't even that common, one or two a decade maybe. For the past 50 years my short list is 1980s was MRI and PCR. 1990s was decoding the human genome and gene therapy. 2000s was stem cells/CRISPR. 2010s was RNA vaccines. 2020s is GLP-1 diabetes/weight loss drugs.

With foundational work going on for 1-2 decades before each, and we're still kind of waiting for a payoff on stem cells, I believe there are only a couple FDA-approved treatments using stem cell technology, both for variants of leukemia.

The lithium-ion battery only became theoretically feasible around 1990 or so.

LCD screens, GPS, data compression (mp3, DVB-S, DVB-S2) LED bulbs replacing fluorescent ones, smartphones... and AI.

Those are cool, but not really scientific discoveries.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

Liquid crystal displays do depend on a bunch of scientific discoveries. The modern liquid crystals are distinctly different - and a lot more stable - than the chemicals originally used to demonstrate the effect.

Modern LED lamps do depend on the discovery of light-emitting diodes diodes, which did happen after I was born. Actual LED lamps depend on blue light emitting diodes, which were discovered in 1993

John Larkin is strangely ignorant about science.

Had lunch with Walter Brattain too.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

It is a pity that you didn't learn anything from the experience. My own visit to Bells Labs - around 1973 - wasn't life-changing either.

We got an introductory lecture on information theory. I got a lot from that.

I tell my interns that Signals And Systems is the most important college course they will take. I give them a common-sense lecture first, so they won't get lost in the math.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

I did Theory of Computation I at Melbourne University in about 1964 - a first year undergraduate course, though I was a graduate student at the time. I got to read my tutor's M.Sc. thesis on non-linear multiparameter least-squares curve fitting and it is cited in my Ph.D. thesis.

We've seen you "common sense" here. Donald Trump seems to have a severe case of it. No wonder your don't hire people who have got a Ph.D. They wouldn't be a great audience for that kind of stuff.

Well, some will disagree with that :-)

Maybe, it seems much is politically controlled

Take 'Life found on Mars' as example

But HOURS after the detection was broadcast it was DENIED I remember both TV broadcasts. So as Adam and Elvis, eeh sorry Eve MUST rule, it was, and still is, denied Even mention of that Mars mission is deliberately left out in science programs.

Brainwash little kids with byebell crap, bunch of religious fanatic idiots US is. And not only the US, is-a-hell the same. Not that there are no other religious fanatic groups.

But it demonstrates the pits human beans are in.