Geniuses of the 21st century (part 1)

Today, every discovery is a step forward. But even when it's famous, it's just a brick on the high wall. Geniuses like Einstein are slightly different: they take a few bricks from the old wall, watch carefully and build a new building.

Learn about the geniuses of the 21st century

Einstein 's formula gave mankind an atomic bomb and a global positioning system, but the genius himself only created the formula, bringing the initiative into the world and broadening its vision. Einstein's example offers instructions on how people become geniuses. Most importantly, there must be a theorist with foresight - just like Charles Darwin , the father of evolutionary theory, the great genius of the nineteenth century. Darwin made a circuit tour. the world, then about to live in the south of England and develop his thoughts on the formation of species. The thought blocks of Einstein and Darwin have changed global thinking.

From the " knowledge wall ", geniuses like Einstein took out a few bricks, observed the design and then started building a new building. When geniuses laid the foundation, more and more masons came and built a new house. Science steps in a new direction. The genius of mankind offers scenarios . They are knowledgeable and comfortable with colleagues. But it is worth noting that they do not belong to the " main flow ". Most of them are less than 30 years old and are even interested in going against established views.

1. Eric Drexler - founder of the nano world

What does Nano mean? Nano machines are made up of parts that are only a few nanometers (nm) large. 1nm = 10 ^-9 meters. On this extremely small distance contains just four atoms. Assuming each fish is only 1nm, all fish in the ocean can swim in a single drop of water.

Eric Drexler was born in California in 1955 and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. In 1986, he and his wife, Christine Peterson, founded the Foresight Institute and devoted innovations on nano.

Eric Drexler is a version of a visionary genius . He was no longer in the laboratory. Instead, he created a whole new industry of science. In the early 80s, Drexler published many topics in professional journals and in 1986 was the widely popular book " Engines of Creation ".

That is the birth time of nanotechnology . Today " nano " is a common word, but when Drexler started talking about it, the nano world is still a white streak on the knowledge map.

His idea sounds completely utopian: We will use atoms and molecules as Bits and Bytes in computers. People will be able to assemble atoms in a reliable and fast way into new models. Manufacturing machines from single atoms? In the 1980s it was like the truth about flying saucers.

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Drexler's ambition goes even further: He dreams of molecular machines such as universal devices , called Assembler: those are nan machines , can make anything and reproduce themselves. . Assembler can be installed on machines like printers. New " ink cartridges " will give the "atoms" of atoms of each element. And so, there is no limit to Assembler. People can order them to produce cell phones according to new designs, they can build a car or a cow .

After Drexler introduced his ideas to the world, more and more researchers were involved in the new specialization of nanotechnology. In 1986, almost at the same time as Drexler's book, German physicist Gerd Binning invented the atomic force microscope, which not only could " see " each atom but also move them. Thus created the first step into the nano world. Today " nano " has carved into our daily lives. This technology hides in computer hard drives and sunscreens.

Only Assembler is still not sure when it will be available. At the very least, the proper engines are available, built by biologist Carlo Montemagno . In his machine, protein molecules move a tiny propeller of Nickel. An invention without Drexler's example, Montemagno may never have been possible.

Of course, not all scenarios are possible. Anyone who works with atoms encounters invisible forces in our giant world. And because nature still often creates many problems in body cells, the next step of nanotechnology will be to integrate with biotechnology. Drexler looks beyond that "in 30 years, biotechnology will make huge strides. By coordinating with nanotechnology, it will be possible to treat the disease in every cell. Our life span will increase. unpredictable '.

2. Lisa Randall - Who explains gravity

Lisa Randall was born in 1962 and grew up in New York. After graduating from Harvard University, she received a chair at Princeton University and Massachusets Technical Institute. She was the first woman in this position at the prestigious universities. Today she teaches again at Harvard University. Randall is single and has no children.

The scope of her research is called "high energy physics theory" . In physics there is something called a standard model, used to describe particles of matter and basic natural forces . Scientists like Randall want to find out why matter and forces have such characteristics.

Occasionally Lisa Randall has problems with physics, first of all with the attraction of the earth: "It shouldn't have simply happened , " she said of the fall when climbing the mountain. "The route is simple and I am tied carefully." But she still fell down and had a heel. In the hospital, she wrote the book "The hidden universe". According to the New York Times, it is one of the most important books of the year. Randall has solved many mysteries around one of nature's most complex phenomena: gravity or gravity.

Is our universe hovering in 5-dimensional space?

Lisa Randall presented a theory that could answer the questions of physics.

What makes physicists long-suffering: Gravity is much weaker than other fundamental forces. It can break a foot, but a magnet, when sucking a nail on the table, wins the force of the earth.

"But it has been shown that people can explain completely new gravity, if one thinks that there is more than three dimensions of space," Randall said.

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For her cosmic image, it takes 5 dimensions. According to her, our Universe is similar to a flag or a three-dimensional membrane, vibrating freely in an endless space, with special dimensions for that space. Near right next to there is a parallel Universe as the second membrane. Both are not interconnected, only gravity can come from the Parallel World " dripping " into our world. In the Parallel Universe , gravity is as strong as all other natural forces. In the world we are weaker, because it comes from outside. It is probably a force more than extraterrestrial force, perhaps it is an external force.

This theory was so revolutionary that it made Randall a star in physics. In the past five years Randall's works have been cited more than 10,000 times by her colleagues in their subjects. And although Randall's theory has many unproven things, it still carries very logical lines of thought, and gives lab practitioners years of work.

Other theorists also followed Randall's theory and built up new thought buildings.

A group of researchers from the United States and the United Kingdom asked the question, what happens if the membranes touch? They discovered in Randall's formula a possible answer: The collision caused the original explosion and has since created the beginning of all that exists in our universe today. .

"When we calculated what happened at such a collision, we came up with quite exact coincidence with Big Bang data," said Burt Ovrut at the University of Pennsylvania. to speak. "The temperature, the speed of spreading, the formation of matter, it all seems to fit together." So Randall provided the premise to explain our cosmic origin. Meanwhile Randall also became the most important representative of her science, she wrote best-selling books and appeared on television.

3. Craig Venter - The decoder of the ocean's genome

Craig Venter was born in 1946 in Salt Lake City, USA. He joined the Navy and served as a military soldier in Vietnam. Venter has studied biochemistry, psychology and pharmaceuticals. He then worked for a national health research institute. Here he developed a revolutionary process to decode genes. With this knowledge he established his own company. Today his goal is artificial life.

With DNA molecule, Craig Venter has created a key breakthrough in biological research. He deciphered the human genome and wanted to use this knowledge to create completely new drugs.

"Today, a child with the help of the most modern tools can detect in a glass of seawater of more genes and species than the rest of the world in the past decades . " Craig Venter said, and in saying that is the foundation for his future vision. With the sailboat " Sorcerer 2 " he went around the world to get water samples. He brought the specimens through giant analyzers in his research institute. The task of these machines is: finding an unknown gene. He gathered 1.2 million genes. Venter's conclusion: " 99% of marine life has yet to be discovered ". Most of them can be single-celled, but genetic information can make them a gold store.

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Venter dreams of creating artificial life. As a first step, he created a data bank of giant genes: the genome of the ocean. Venter did not plan to create an entirely new car. Instead, he wanted to install a new engine into an old chassis. That chassis is a primary bacterium. It gives Craig's creature the cover. When he kills its natural gene, he will use his data bank and assemble a whole new genome on the computer from individual genes. This new life material will be placed into the bacterial shell. The result is a completely new creature.

"When we have a synthetic organism with minimal genes, we can create new genes and regulate it specifically, how those genes change our organisms . " Suppose Venter has some new color research tool, perhaps he will take him up one level with God. "My goal is to save the planet," said Craig Venter ambitiously. If Venter's creature ever lived, it would have to learn, produce new fuels, make pharmaceuticals or kill the greenhouse gas emissions.

4. Grigori Perelman - mathematical genius

Perelman was born in 1966 in St. Petersburg. He studied in Russia and famous American universities. He refused offers of teaching. He lives in Russia, maybe living with his mother, likes to go to theater and have a job and doesn't have a job.

During his studies, he spent time for spherical mathematics by Henri Poincaré. Thereby he encountered the problem of Poincaré conjecture, his solution that decided his life.

In the article he published online in 2002, Perelman proved Poincaré's conjecture and solved the most difficult problem of all time - a century turning point of mathematics. Perhaps it is the greatest achievement that a single brain has made.

Can a human form the universe?

Perelman's brain was more productive than an Olympic athlete's body, but he hid himself from the world.

Henri Poincaré lived 100 years ago and was the father of topology (also known as Topology), a specialized area of ​​mathematics, also known as rubber piece geometry. Poincaré realized that, in principle, all forms of the world could lead back to spheres. If one takes a rubber ball, one can squeeze it until it looks like a rabbit ear or as a telephone receiver. But if one is not allowed to hurt the surface of the sphere, it cannot be molded into a cup of coffee, because the cup has a hole in the handle.

Poincaré surmises that this basic meaning of the sphere is not only valuable in our three-dimensional space, but also in multi-dimensional spaces . The proof for this conjecture is so complicated that mathematicians have been skeptical for the past 100 years - until Grigori Perelman presented his work on the Internet. This work is of course not understandable: Perelman's colleagues spent four years poring over until they understood his work. Even today only a handful of mathematicians understand how Perelman built his arguments.

Such a great achievement, yet Perelman created a breakthrough alone. He worked in a small research institute, never interacting with other mathematicians. Even in the unusual world of mathematics, Perelman was always an eccentric, who had thousands of rumors. After news that he was nominated for a Nobel Prize in mathematics, he disappeared. He applied for resignation, did not answer the interview, did not reply to the email. Experts estimate that it will take another hundred years to fully understand Perelman's work. That makes absolutely sense. Poincaré conjecture creates important representations of the whole universe. Thanks to Perelman, researchers will one day understand the universe more.

5. Marvin Minsky - the father of artificial intelligence

Marvin Minsky was born in 1927 in New York, graduated in mathematics at Harvard University, earning a doctorate at Princeton University. But he spent most of his life studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Minsky received numerous academic academy awards, and he was still considered the pioneer thinker of artificial intelligence research .

"He is the smartest person I've ever met . " Conscious researcher Roger Schank talks about Marvin. And Minsky's intelligence knows only one purpose: understanding intelligence - and putting it into a machine.

When Marvin Minsky started dreaming about thoughtful machines, people were still calculating with the abacus. In 1956, 50 years ago, he was the decisive pioneer of the "artificial intelligence" scope of research . Since then Minsky has taken "his specialty " forward. He established an artificial intelligence lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - a research facility, likened to the Vatican in the territory of artificial intelligence. And Minsky here is clearly the Pope.

Can artificial intelligence form in the network?

When relatively simple machines are capable of solving problems, forming a network, they will have to form a sense.

He created neural networks, mechanical arms and other body parts for robots, in addition to machines that alter the music. His books are filled with shelves and prizes that are hidden throughout the wall. But Minsky's greatest achievement is " The Society of Mind ". In it he presented a theory, how to create artificial intelligence.

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He asked: "What magic ingenuity has created our intelligence?" His answer: "That ingenuity is, there is no ingenuity. One can create an intelligence from many parts, but all those individual parts are completely intellectual. ".

Accordingly, intelligence appears completely natural, when many units are connected together, in which each small and simple task is completed. We all have the best proof for this theory in mind: Our brain.Intelligence forms in the brain through extremely complex networks from simple units - nerve cells. Minsky's network theory of intelligence has spread rapidly in science and technology. Today the computer network is in every office, biologists have discovered in many species of intelligence organisms: a large group of single organisms that are not as intelligent as bees have completed decadence. True marvel, when their brains are linked in groups. To do that, only simple response principles and some form of information exchange are needed.

Today's researchers even use computer networks to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The SETI @ home project connects about 5 million personal computers around the world. The unused productivity of those computers helps science find a message from radio signals coming from space. To this day, we have not yet created real artificial intelligence, but that may be that our networks are still not complicated enough.

That must change: Swiss neurologist Henry Markram is adapting the human brain on a supercomputer. Even the most powerful computer can only create a small and low-level unit of the brain. Markram hopes for future computers. It needs to be strong enough to connect thousands of those low-level units together. "That might appear something similar to artificial consciousness," the researcher thought.

Although the age is higher, Marvin Minsky is still far from resting. Recently he again revolutionized his area of ​​expertise. His book " The Emotion Machine " appeared in November 2007 indicating the study of artificial intelligence a new path. He believes: " Emotion is just another kind of intelligence ." When computers learn to think, they must first know what emotion is. Laboratory researchers are preparing, with software tricks, to give computers a sense of fear or joy.

6. Richard Dawkins - the evolutionist of evolution

Richard Dawkins was born in 1941 in Kenya and arrived in England as a child. Dawkins' area of ​​expertise is to study the behavior of people and animals, also known as arithmetic or humanity . He studied at Oxford University, where he is now a professor. Dawkins is one of the most successful and influential biology book authors. Even Oxford University has created the Dawkins award for the exceptionally good humanities .

He not only thought to continue Darwin's theory but also revolutionized it.

Is our gene immortal?

Whether a person, a mouse or a pine tree - all living things exist only as a protective shell for the informational units of the gene.

Dawkins conclusion: Not species are the center of selection, but genes.

He found that genes control our actions to ensure their development. " The body is just survival machines and a cover for genes, but the gene itself is immortal," Dawkins thought. It is really a gene thanks to the identical copy versions that exist over very large periods in many categories. For example, red blood cells, a red substance in the blood of all mammals. The gene that controlled its production had to be formed through mutations , when life did not take place in the water. Since then it has grown throughout the earth.

Dawkins' immortal gene principle solves a headache problem since Darwin: why do individuals sacrifice their own lives for other individuals? That sacrifice countered the "existence of the strong". Since Dawkins, it's clear: we help the weak, because we have the same genome as them. It is valuable in the family, and also in a small set of an entire species. Dawkins expanded his idea of ​​genes into ideas about cultural assets.

Cultural assets are cultural information spread in a society, as well as genes that develop in a living object. Self-replicating genes in the model of DNA molecules, and also cultural information, leave real traces by how they change the brain structure. Cultural information can be ideas about fashion, a musical melody or a new technology. If we learn a cultural information, such as riding a bicycle, new links will be created in our brains. And when we teach our children to learn to drive, we continue to transmit cultural information. Like genes, cultural information can be almost immortal and mutant. Cultural information on " damming tool manufacturing " had at least 600,000 years, but had transformed itself from a wedge to a hammer.

An idea has especially impacted Dawkins: religion. " It's just a virus in the head !" he thinks so. Just like computer viruses, it spreads and affects the whole system of thought. It is not uncommon for Dawkins to stand in the midst of a cultural war against conservative Christians. He defended biology against finding a way to replace their theory of the creation of the Genesis of the Letter (Genesis is the beginning of the Old Testament in biblical writings about the creation of the world of Creation).