Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3 Civilisations

What is a Type 1 Civilization?

A Type 1 civilization is a planetary civilization. All the light that comes from their mother star is absorbed and all sources of energy on their planet are controlled by them such as the changing weather, controlling earthquakes and volcanoes. They would have cities on the ocean. It would also be a multicultural society where everyone is equal and would probably have a lingua franca which is a language that is used to accurately make communication between people who do not share the same first language. For example, in Stars Wars their lingua franca is Basic which is commonly spoken throughout the galaxy. According to theoretical physicist Dr Michio Kaku in the year 2100 humanity will reach a type 1 civilization.

What is a Type 2 Civilization?

A Type 2 civilization is a civilization that is stellar. They are 10 billion times more powerful than a Type 1 civilization. In films such as Star Trek the Federation of Planets is an example of a type 2 civilization. All their energy on their planet has been exhausted and so they harness their energy directly from their motherstar. They absorb all energy that comes from their sun including solar flares and the power of the sun itself to power their colossal machines. This type of civilization is immortal since nothing know to science including ice ages, meteor impacts or even supernovae can destroy it. If their motherstar were to explode this civilization could travel to another star system or change the orbit of their own planet and move it. 

What is a Type 3 Civilization?
You may see a Type 3 civilization in the Galactic Empire of Star Wars or the Borg in Star Trek. This civilization is 10 billion times more powerful than a type 2 civilization and exploits the power an entire galaxy. They control billions of star systems and can utilize the energy of the black hole located at the center of their galaxy. Just like a type 2 civilization this civilization is immortal. 

A Type III Civilization

What type of civilization are we today?
Our civilization today is only Type 0 civilization where we harness the energy from unsustainable sources such as oil,coal, fossil fuels and dead plants. We only utilize a small fraction of the sun's energy that fall into the Earth. However, there are signs that we will reach a type 1 civilization. For example, we have the internet which is the start of a Type 1 Telephone system where we can communicate across the entire planet.  In addition the European Union is revealing the beginning of a Type 1 economy. Furthermore, the number 1 second language on Earth is English. This gives us signs that we are beginning to have a Type 1 language where everybody speaks it. 

We are currently in the transition from a Type 0 to a Type 1 civilization. At this point we are in the danger zone where we could end up destroying ourselves. We have many problems today such as global warming, sectarianism, racism and fundamentalism. It is not clear whether these could  stop the transition from a Type 0 to a Type 1 civilization. This transition is also one of the greatest tests that humanity will face. Can we survive on a planet without destroying it?

Robots of the Future

What is a Robot?
The term robot refers to machines that have the ability to carry out complex task automatically guided by a computer program or electronic circuitry. It can also refer to machines that are operated by remote control. The word robot was first mentioned in 1920 Czech play called RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots) where mechanical slaves rebelled against the human masters. 

A robot as depicted in the film I, Robot

A Robotic Future

Since the start of this century, humanity has made a giant leap in the field of robotics. In the coming decades around 2030, we will see a world sort of like I, Robot, where robots roam the cities alongside people and artificial intelligence is widespread across the globe. The promise of artificial intelligence is to give our machines the ability to think analytically.  In this blog we will explore the role the robots will play in our lives tomorrow, the development of  these high-tech machines using advances in computer science, robotics and mathematics and  the challenges involved.

How will robots affect our lives tomorrow?
In the movie I, Robot a super computer called VIKI (Virtual Interactice Kinectic Intelligence) the most advanced robotic system ever made is activated in the year 2035 and is designed to perfectly control the operations of the Chicago Everything in Chicago including the subway system, and the electricity grid which provides the power to thousands of household robots that are featured in the film. 

In tomorrow's world we may see many systems in our cities such as the subway and electricity grid like in I, Robot which are operated by computer's or robots.  This would transform our lives significantly and make it a lot easier. Robots will also have an impact on other aspects of lives, such as transport, medicine and perhaps even our own bodies. 

How far are we in the field of robotics currently?
Today, simple robots that can vacuum carpets in homes are owned by many people. There are also many collaborative robots being widely used in industries and in the military. In the year 2006, it was estimated that there was approximately 950,000 industrial robots and 3,540,000 robots that were working in homes and buildings. A robot currently used in the military is an unmanned aerial vehicle called the predator which is controlled by a human using a joystick. 

However, the robots we have today do not think the way we do or look like the ones in science fiction. They are not intelligent. Even  the most advanced robots such as ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) designed by Honda which can realistically walk, run, climb stairs, talk, pick up cups and trays, respond to simple commands, and even recognize some faces only has the intelligence of an insect. 

There are still signs though, that we are going towards a future full of intelligent robots. For example,a design called LAGR ( learning applied to ground robots) is being experimented by Yann LeCunn at New York University. This golf-cart sized robot is made to learn everything from scratch, by bumping into objects. The robots has on it two stereo color cameras that scan the landscape, identifying obstacles in its path as it moves among them. It carefully avoid these obstacles and learns with every pass. 

The challenges of developing intelligent robots
The  main challenge of developing robots that can that think and act like us is that computers have not been able to perform two key task that humans perform effortlessly, which are pattern recognition and common sense. 

Pattern Recognition:
Compared to humans robots are much better at seeing things, but they do not understand what they are seeing. When a robot sees something it transforms the image into a mixture of dots. It then processes the dots to recognize an array of lines, circles, squares and rectangles. Afterwards, one by one it tries to match the jumble of lines, circles, squares and rectangles, with the object being stored in its memory. It takes many hours of calculation before the robot will be able to identify the object. However, can recognize object within a fraction of second. 

Common Sense:
Robots are also a lot better at hearing things than humans, yet there do not understand what they hear. 

 What if robots became more intelligent than us?
Many Hollywood movies such as Terminator portray robots trying to take over the world. For example, in Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines the skynet computer virus infects the US military computer and takes over the machines. It then launches a nuclear attack on humanity and begins a war between man and machine. 

As proof of this revolution in robots people have pointed to the military, where the Predator drone as mentioned earlier is a pilotless robotic aircraft which targets terrorists with deadly accuracy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, cars with no drivers, and ASIMO as I said above. So are we very close to building robots that could destroy us? No. Even though, there have been many tremendous breakthroughs in artificial intelligence in the last decade we are still far away from constructing these machines. For example, the predator is controlled by a joystick, the cars the drive themselves do not make independent decisions as they scan the horizon and spin the steering wheel. They have to follow a GPS map that is stored in the memory. Fortunately, this means that the nightmare of fully autonomous, conscious, murderous robots is still far away in the distant future.  

Nanotechnology in the Future

What is Nanotechnology?

The use of nanotechnology would definitely change the world. So what is nanotechnology? Nanotechnology is the management or manipulation of matter or functional systems on a molecular scale. Currently it is so new that nobody is really sure what they can make out of it. However, from scientist's predictions using nanotechnology range from reproducing things such as diamonds and food or self-replicating nanobots. In fact with nanotechnology you could build almost anything.

With 15,342 atoms, this parallel-shaft speed reducer gear is one of the largest nano mechanical devices ever modeled in atomic detail

History of Nanotechnology

The first mention of nanotechnology goes back to the 1950s when Richard Feynman of the California Institute of Technology gave a talk describing molecular machines building with atomic precision which is considered to be the first lecture on technology and engineering at the atomic scale. 

Below is a link to find out how nanotechnology works:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/nanotechnology.htm 

How might nanotechnology benefit society?

• It will make manufacturing  much more efficient and cleaner.
• Food and crops could be atomically engineered which means agriculture will be improved and will be more efficient  requiring less labour.
• It could extremely improve formulation of drugs, diagnostics and organ replacement

For more ways it can benefit society click on link below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_nanotechnology

List of product that have already benefited from nanotechnology:

• Sunscreen
• Self-cleaning glass
• Clothing
• Scratch-resistant coatings
• Anti-microbial bandages.

For more detail visit link below:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/nanotechnology3.htm

Carbon Nanotubes
The most strongest material know today is carbon nanotubes which are allotropes of carbon with a cylindrical nanostructure. Carbon nanotubes has very unique properties that make it important for nanotechnology electronics, optics and other fields of materials science and technology. The properties of carbon nanotubes are shown in the list below.

• High electrical conductivity
• High thermal conductivity
• One of strongest materials in nature
• Elastic properties
• High flexibility

How will carbon nanotubes affect the future?

In the future carbon nanotubes will benefit society in many different ways. According to Dr Michio Kaku, we could use carbon nanotubes to make unbreakable cars, buildings that won't collapse, ultra-light jet planes. Some people also assume that we could use them to build a highway that goes into space.

Space Elevators

In maybe 50 years, elevators that go up to space could be real. This would make space travel cheaper and more efficient and overcome many of its biggest problems. So, how would carbon nanotubes be used for building a space elevator? Below is a video which shows how:

Nanorobots

One of the goals of nanotechnology is to build machines at an atomic scale that function as levers, gears, ball bearings and pulleys. With these nanomachines, physicist dream that one day they will be able to rearrange the molecules of an object, atom by atom until one object could transform into another object. This is the basis of how the replicator that you see a lot in science fiction works. With this we would be able to solve many of the problems of the world such as poverty and change the nature of society itself. It would also change our healthcare.

ENERGY SOURCES OF THE FUTURE

In the near future there will some changes in technology and our lives. For example, today more and more renewable energy sources are being used instead fossil fuels to generate energy. In 2020, solar panels, wind turbines, hydroelectric dams may become more common in the future. As the world population increases, the demand for energy has increased and new methods of obtaining energy would need to be developed. Non-renewable energy sources such as fossil fuels (oil, natural gas and coal) will eventually become depleted. Furthermore, they are a major cause of the greenhouse effect which causes global warming. This means we would need to look for more renewable energy sources that are much more efficient and friendly to the environment. In fact we already have them as I said earlier, but these still have some disadvantages. First of all, they are expensive and some do not produce enough electricity. 

Image showing how Greenhouse Effect can cause global warming

Solar Panels

Solar panels are renewable energy sources which use the light from the sun and convert into electricity. As long as the sun shines solar panels would be able to continue generating electricity unlike fossil fuels. However, they only generate electricity during the day because that is when there sunlight. Currently, today's solar panels mostly absorb infrared light to produce electricity. In the future though, new advances in technology will give us more efficient solar panels that can use all spectra of electromagnetic radiation to generate electricity. This means more electricity can made without damaging the environment. Below is a short clip of Dr Michio Kaku a theoretical physicist who will explain how discovery of new materials may pave the way for better more advanced solar panels.

Fusion Reactors

Another energy resource that would probably be used in the future is fusion reactors, where electricity is generated through a nuclear fusion reaction. They have major advantages over other energy resources. Compared to fission reactors which use nuclear fission to produce electricity, fusion reactors which will use  sufficient sources of fuel such as hydrogen. Furthermore, these reactors will not leak radiation above normal background levels and will generate less radioactive waste than fission reactors used today. The fusion reactor will use the same nuclear reaction that occurs inside stars like our sun which means a significant amount of energy can be generated. It will also be a clean and sustainable energy resource.

Advantages

• It is a renewable energy  resource. The fuel used in the fusion reactors like deuterium and tritium which are isotopes of hydrogen are virtually inexhaustible.
• It does not give off harmful gases into the atmosphere like fossil fuels which contribute to global warming. Fusion reactors only emit helium a gas that is already plentiful in the atmosphere.
• Fusion reactors are safe and have no problems over nuclear waste which is a major concern with the use of fission reactors.

Disadvantages

• Currently scientist have not been able to contain a fusion reaction for a long enough period of time to generate enough energy.
• Due to a failure to reach a breakthrough in fusion power many countries are phasing out research in nuclear fusion.

Other Energy Resources of the Future

• Tidal Power
• Wind Energy
• Wave Power
• Hydroelectricity
• Geothermal Power
• Biomass