scholarly journals Forecasting the Growth of Complexity and Change—An Update

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
THEODORE MODIS
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Rate Of Change ◽  
Exponential Trend

In 2002, Modis published an article forecasting that the rate of change in our lives was about to stop accelerating and indeed begin decelerating [DOI:10.1016/S0040-1625(01)00172-X]. Today, with twenty years’ worth more data, Modis revisits those forecasts. He points out that an exponential trend would have predicted the appearance of three “cosmic” milestones by now, namely in 2008, 2015, and 2018, but we have seen none. The logistic trend, however, predicted the next milestone around 2033 and could well turn out to be a cluster of achievements in AI, robotics, nanotechnology, and bioengineering, analogous to what happened with the milestone at the turn of the 20th century. He sees this as confirmation that the concept of a Singularity is not called for.

Technology and Disabilities in the Century Ahead

2011 ◽  
pp. 2077-2081
Author(s):  
Ray Kurzweil
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Current Level ◽  
Rate Of Change ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Speed Up ◽  
Technology Trends ◽  
Over Time

I have been involved in inventing since I was five, and I quickly realized that for an invention to succeed, you have to target the world of the future. But what would the future be like? To find out, I became a student of technology trends and began to develop mathematical models of different technologies: computation, miniaturization, evolution over time. I have been doing that for 25 years, and it has been remarkable to me how powerful and predictive these models are. Now, before I show you some of these models and then try to build with you some of the scenarios for the future—and, in particular, focus on how these will benefit technology for the disabled—I would like to share one trend that I think is particularly profound and that many people fail to take into consideration. It is this: the rate of progress—what I call the “paradigmshift rate”—is itself accelerating. We are doubling this paradigm-shift rate every decade. The whole 20th century was not 100 years of progress as we know it today, because it has taken us a while to speed up to the current level of progress. The 20t h century represented about 20 years of progress in terms of today’s rate. And at today’s rate of change, we will achieve an amount of progress equivalent to that of the whole 20th century in 14 years, then as the acceleration continues, in 7 years. The progress in the 21st century will be about 1,000 times greater than that in the 20th century, which was no slouch in terms of change.

scholarly journals Siliceous algae response to the “Great Acceleration” of the mid-20th century in Crawford Lake (Ontario, Canada): A potential candidate for the Anthropocene GSSP

2021 ◽  
pp. 205301962110460
Author(s):  
Cale AC Gushulak ◽  
Matthew Marshall ◽  
Brian F Cumming ◽  
Brendan Llew-Williams ◽  
R Timothy Patterson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Additive Model ◽  
Lake Ontario ◽  
Rate Of Change ◽  
Potential Candidate ◽  
Change Analysis ◽  
Siliceous Algae ◽  
Great Acceleration ◽  
Crawford Lake

Diatom and chrysophyte assemblages from varved sediments of meromictic Crawford Lake, Ontario record major environmental changes resulting from spatially broadening anthropogenic environmental stressors related to the “Great Acceleration” in the mid-20th century. Biannual assessment of diatom and chrysophyte assemblages over the last ~200 years allowed for rate of change analysis between adjacent samples that increased substantially during the mid-20th century, concurrent with significant generalized additive model trends. Changes in diatom and chrysophyte assemblages were likely driven by multiple anthropogenic stressors including local forestry harvesting, agriculture, and milling activities, acidic deposition from regional industrial processes, and anthropogenic climate warming. Novel siliceous algal assemblages now exist in Crawford Lake, likely related to the complexities of the above mentioned local and regional stressors. The major assemblage changes at the proposed base of the Anthropocene Epoch detected in this study support the laminated sequence from Crawford Lake as a strong potential candidate for the Anthropocene GSSP.

Development of Reading Remediation for Dyslexic Individuals

2016 ◽  
Vol 224 (4) ◽  
pp. 240-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mélanie Bédard ◽  
Line Laplante ◽  
Julien Mercier
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Behavioral Data ◽  
Educational Neuroscience ◽  
Reading Remediation ◽  
Functional Brain ◽  
Neurophysiological Data ◽  
Brain Correlates ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The Brain

Abstract. Dyslexia is a phenomenon for which the brain correlates have been studied since the beginning of the 20th century. Simultaneously, the field of education has also been studying dyslexia and its remediation, mainly through behavioral data. The last two decades have seen a growing interest in integrating neuroscience and education. This article provides a quick overview of pertinent scientific literature involving neurophysiological data on functional brain differences in dyslexia and discusses their very limited influence on the development of reading remediation for dyslexic individuals. Nevertheless, it appears that if certain conditions are met – related to the key elements of educational neuroscience and to the nature of the research questions – conceivable benefits can be expected from the integration of neurophysiological data with educational research. When neurophysiological data can be employed to overcome the limits of using behavioral data alone, researchers can both unravel phenomenon otherwise impossible to document and raise new questions.

Updating Our Knowledge of Reasoning in the 20th Century

1994 ◽  
Vol 39 (7) ◽  
pp. 764-765
Author(s):  
William E. Deuser ◽  
Craig A. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century
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