Section 1.4.1.1. What can we expect to see in the future of science and technology in general?

Just as few were successful in predicting the ubiquitous impact of the internet, it is difficult to predict which specific technologies will accomplish the transition into the culture of the future. It is possible to envision instantaneous telecommunication and videoconferencing with colleagues and friends throughout the world – anytime, anywhere – using small, portable devices. Access to computer-based information via media such as the internet will become continually more facile and powerful. This will permit access to the storehouse of human knowledge in unprecedented ways, catalysing more rapid development of new ideas.

Experimental tests of new ideas will continue to play a crucial role in the guidance of scientific knowledge and reasoning. However, more powerful computing resources may change paradigms in which ever more powerful simulation techniques can bootstrap from primitive ideas to full-blown theories. I still expect that experiment will be necessary for the foreseeable future, since nearly every well designed experiment yields unexpected results, often at a number of levels.

In the realm of biology, greater understanding of the structure and mechanism of living processes will permit unprecedented advances in health and medicine. Even those scientists most sceptical of molecular-design possibilities would be likely to admit that revolutionary advances have been achieved. In the area of drug design, for example, structure-based approaches have yielded some of the most important new molecules currently being introduced worldwide for the treatment of human diseases ranging from AIDS and influenza to cancer and heart disease. This is a relatively young and very rapidly changing area, and it is reasonable to expect that we have witnessed only the tip of the iceberg. Dream drugs to control growth and form, aging, intelligence, and other physiologically linked aspects of health and well-being may be developed in our lifetime. As greater understanding of the structural basis of immunogenicity emerges, we should also expect to benefit from structure-based approaches to vaccine design.

Other areas where molecular design will play revolutionary roles include the broad field of material sciences. Traditionally, `materials science' referred to the development of materials with desired physical properties – strength, flexibility, and resistance to damage by physical and chemical agents. Now, materials science includes key foci in development of new biomaterials and in the burgeoning field of nanotechnology. The acrobatics of new smart materials could include computation at speeds that may be much faster than can be accomplished with silicon-based materials.