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iDisrupted
iDisruptedCONVERGENCE
Disruptive TechnologyChanging the human race forever
From the book iDisruptedby John Straw & Michael Baxter
It is human nature that we overestimate how quickly technology will and can develop, and underestimate its final impact on the world. But perhaps we forget about convergence. No medium in history can match the internet for its ability to support convergence. Still a sceptic? Let’s take a look....
No medium in history can match the internet for its ability to support convergence. You may not be able to eat the internet, wear it, use it to travel to real destinations but it does provide us with a feast of information. It can enable scientists to market their ideas and appeal to a broader audience and it can transport our minds into collaborative ventures spread across the world. We are in the midst of a new industrial revolution.
Convergence of Rock’n’Roll
Convergence of DNA
Convergence of Solar Energy
Convergence of Carbon Fibre
Convergence of Virtual Reality
The
inve
ntion of rock’n’roll
The double helix
Solar energy
Carbon Fibre
Virtual Reality
Two cultures converged: European music culture, with its emphasis on mathematical precision, and African music, with a more rhythmic emphasis.
Identified when the American biologist James Watson and the English physicist Francis Crick built on experiments with x-rays – supplied by the biochemist Rosalind Franklin – using tools from several disciplines.
Photovoltaic solar panels are silicon based. Some of the technology in silicon was developed for computers. The advances that occurred for one reason now apply to something else. That’s convergence.
Carbon Fibre demand will increase by 103% between 2012 and 2020.The airline industry initially fuelled the increase in demand for carbon fibre with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A380.
Virtual Reality is initially being developed for use with video games. But its future applications will be many. It can and will change how we do many everyday things.
Recent advances in Virtual Reality were made possible thanks to the homogenisation of components, such as accelerometers used in smart phones. These are essential in Virtual Reality devices.
That technology is now helping the use of carbon fibre in many other applications, such as wind turbines.
Demand for lithium ion batteries began to rise with the popularity of laptop PCs and mobile phones. It accelerated further with the emergence of smart phones and tablets. Technology became more efficient and now it is relevant to electric cars and solar panels.
George Gamow studied the work ofWatson & Crick and drawing on his own knowledge, he explained how the four bases in the double helix of DNA could control the synthesis of protein from amino acid.
European music Afric
an music
Biochemistry
ComputersSmartphones Electric CarsTablets
GeneticsMathematics
Info
rmation Technolog
y
Silicon
Lithium battery
Arthur Koestler
All decisive events in the history of scientific thought can be described in
terms of mental cross-fertilization between different disciplines
speaker at Advanced Technology conference, 2004
Highly miniaturized, functional, and efficient electronics devices, and precise and selective
biomolecular materials are part of…[the future]. Advancing these developments depends on the
ability to foster multidisciplinary interconnections.
AircraftW
ind Turbines