• Question: is there going to be a great leap in science in the next 10 years or do you think it will still be at this level of discovery

    Asked by epicduckofepicness to Dilwar, Lou, Rachel, Simon, Susan on 12 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Simon Langley-Evans

      Simon Langley-Evans answered on 12 Nov 2013:

      Oh yes- definitely. Wherever I look the pace of change is so fast that it takes my breath away. All areas of science and technology are moving in massive leaps. As a biologist I have noticed that the techniques I use in the lab as a matter of routine now were just unthinkable 20 years ago, and a bit of a dream 10 years ago. Think about gadgets like iPads that we take for granted now- 10 years ago touch screens were not around.

      It isn’t just technology, it is knowledge too. New discoveries happen every day. Some of them are small, but others are massive and transform the way in which we think about life, the universe and everything.

      I can’t imagine what the next big breakthrough will be, but I know that we are living at a very exciting time.

    • Photo: Susan Skelton

      Susan Skelton answered on 13 Nov 2013:

      Hi epicduck!
      I don’t know that there will be a great leap, but I definitely think we will have moved beyond where we are now…

      Science is progressing faster now than it ever has before, and we are learning new things about how our world works, every single day! But scientific progress often happens at a fairly constant speed – with a few fast bits, but also lots of hiccups and slow bits. The overall progress is usually fairly gradual.

      Very occasionally there is a huge leap in our understanding – like Einstein’s theory of relativity, or the discovery of DNA. But we never know when that is going to happen – it might be years away, or just around the corner! That’s what makes science so exciting for me!

    • Photo: Rachel Dakin

      Rachel Dakin answered on 13 Nov 2013:

      I think science will progress a lot in the next few years – particularly because of the advances in technology. This means we can do a lot more in a lot less time.
      The whole thing about major advances in science are we often don’t realise how important they are at the time. Discovering DNA was obviously very important at the time but I doubt anyone realised just how big a leap in science it would be. From that discovery we have learnt much more about how are bodies are put together, how some diseases work or can be treated. I guess what I’m saying is we might not realise exactly how big a leap we’ve made until another 10 years after!

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