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ZISCIENCE|2 2Ist-CENTURY TECHNOLOGIES by Lewey Gilstrap © for Pure Energy Systems News 29 March 20II scientists make discoveries that can lead to new techniques and new ways of doing things, it is usually engineers and technicians that develop the techniques and technology that exploit the scientific knowledge in the course of meeting some specified goal. A technology is problem-specific, and invariably is developed as a means to produce a good or service wanted by the public or needed to solve a problem. The existence of a comprehensive, settled, scientific theory is not a requirement for the development of a technology, however. It is not at all uncommon for technology to be developed years before science arrives at a theory. As examples, James Watt's contributions to steam technology, and his improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were made long before Nicolas Sadi Carnot developed the theory of heat engines, and Michael Faraday invented the first electric motor about 40 years before James Clerk Maxwell produced a comprehensive theory of electricity. Indeed, it was Faraday's work that guided Maxwell and enabled him to formulate the famous Maxwell equations for electromagnetism. AM artificial intelligence expert explains the lag between scientific discovery and explanation and specifies a few promising technologies of note, including Brown's Gas or hydroxy, Rossi's cold fusion, Turtur's zero-point energy and Aviso's self-running electric car. 19th & 20th Century Technologies In the 19th century, the idea of a closed system, i.e., one that does not exchange matter or energy with its environment, dominated science and technology. This idea led to the formulation of the great principles of conservation of energy and conservation of mass in closed systems. These principles were invaluable in enabling the expansion of science and technology in the 19th and 20th centuries. The only problem with these principles is that, while it is relatively easy to seal off a system so that matter cannot enter or leave, it can be difficult to impossible to prevent energy fluxes of various kinds from flowing through systems, possibly adding to or removing energy from the system. What is Technology? Science is the study of the natural world by observation and experimentation. The end product of scientific studies is knowledge of the properties of physical things and of the behaviour of systems of objects. Science is also concerned with the development of overall principles and generalisations that apply to many different types of systems. Science is an activity; it is not the knowledge that is accumulated by this activity, although the knowledge is what enables others, not necessarily scientists, to address more effectively problems such as production, transportation, communication and everyday living. Engineering is the discipline for applying scientific and practical knowledge to problems in the real world using techniques and technologies. Given a problem and resources and a clearly defined objective to be accomplished, engineers apply existing technology, sometimes developing new techniques and technologies or refining old ones, to produce goods or services to solve a problem. A technology is a set of techniques, methods, procedures, tools and materials that solve some specific problem or class of problems. While is ai \N ° Se 2 Uz 447 chi ‘ ie vi JUNE - JULY 2011 NEXUS ¢ 49 “Mummy, please, can I ride the human?" www.nexusmagazine.com