Is there room for really pushing the boundaries in engineering? There's a reason I think there might be. I mean : new materials and/or new power sources. Even new methods of propulsion. And how to make things cheaper. Resulting in : great new machines, at little expense. Science fiction today.
We need first to understand that most of what was discovered is by chance. Few predicted something would work. Esp. in materials. So mix things, see what combination works.
Notice anything strange, no matter how small. Look at electricity. Just a small spark was produced at first, this could have been ignored.
The question is: have all combinations been tried? All leads followed up?
I'm thinking of going back to Edison's method of mass experimentation. This time taking it way further. Machines that automate the mixing process, to try and create new materials. On a massive, production line scale. A factory as big as a modern car plant. All for trying new combinations, as cheaply and efficiently as possible.
Bang things, shake things, mix things, heat things, etc. etc. all in different order, and repeating some of them. Then automatically measuring the properties. How hard, how strong, how elastic, how heavy, etc. etc.
Perhaps some kind of algorithm, so the computer can try to produce half intelligent guesses. But for sure a factory, doing massive numbers of experiments on a scale not seen before.
Uses: super conductors, strong materials, materials that can withstand heat etc. Can also search for logic gates this way, the building blocks of new computers.
Don't forget: Edison already had an idea that a light may work, as one existed, but burnt out quickly, and so he did thousands of experiments to see what worked. This is similar to superconductors as they are now, they work, but only at very cold temperatures. It's just that now we have the possibility of doing not thousands - but millions - of experiments.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it is possible to use knowledge of physics to guide some of the guesses. Look to what has worked before in some kind of way and see if it can apply in a new area. If you have reason to think a certain type of molecule may work, then give it a go, try all possible configurations of it, and combinations of it with other materials.
And don't forget the passion part. You can fire this up in you by looking at the genuine way that materials science pushes technology and progress forwards. For example rail ways were not initially practical until someone noticed that running iron as it came out of the furnace through rollers made it a lot stronger. And of course there were many mixtures to try and make iron stronger, which later lead to steel. Again this made many more machines possible, that were not possible before. Not just improving them by making them lighter etc, but possible! Big leaps indeed.
ReplyDeleteIf can pay to look for something that really needs a solution, and even better if you have clues as to what may work. Even here with this targeted thinking, it may pay to check your results for other properties. You may create something unexpected, useful in another area. So any extra tests that are not too expensive may well be worth adding into the automation system! Even keep your failed samples somewhere if small enough, rather than binning them. They may come in useful for something else when you get another idea later. Depends on the application, but be open minded. Many an idea was created by accident.
ReplyDeleteIt can pay to look for something that really needs a solution, and even better if you have clues as to what may work. Even here with this targeted thinking, it may pay to check your results for other properties. You may create something unexpected, useful in another area. So any extra tests that are not too expensive may well be worth adding into the automation system! Even keep your failed samples somewhere if small enough, rather than binning them. They may come in useful for something else when you get another idea later. Depends on the application, but be open minded. Many a great idea was created by accident.
ReplyDelete