Read Online The Half-Life of Facts by Samuel Arbesman - Free Book Online

sextillion (a one followed by twenty-one zeroes). The most recent prefixes are
yotta
- (10 24 ) and
yocto
- (10 -24 ), both approved in 1991.
    But while prefixes are entertaining, and can possibly allow you to win the odd bar bet, the creation of new ones is not just for fun. They are created only when there is a need for them. As technology and science increase exponentially rapidly, so too do the prefix sizes. If you plot prefix sizes against the years they were introduced, you get a roughly exponential progression.
    We only measure quantities when we can wrap our scientific minds around them, whether it’s measuring energy usage, examining tiny atoms, or thinking about astronomical distances. It would make little sense to have prefixes that referred to numbers in the sextillions, or larger, if we had no use for them. However, as we expand what we know, from the number of galaxies in our universe to the sizes of subatomic particles, we expand our need for prefixes. For example, the cost of genome sequencing is dropping rapidly, even, recently, far faster than exponentially. All of the technological developments facilitate the quick advances of science, and with them the need for new metric prefixes.
    These technological doublings in the realm of science are actually the rule rather than the exception. For example, there is a Moore’s Law of proteomics, the field that deals with large-scale data and analysis related to proteins and their interactions within the cell. Here too there is a yearly doubling in technological capability when it comes to understanding the interactions of proteins.
    Even the field of neuroscience is able to move forward at a pace similar to Moore’s Law: The technological advances related to recording individual neurons have been growing at an exponential pace. Specifically, the number of neurons that can be recorded simultaneously has been growing exponentially, with a doubling time of about seven and a half years.
    Due to the intermingling of science and technology, how do we disentangle scientific knowledge and technological innovation? Well, sometimes, as we’ll see, we can’t. This is not to say that there aren’t differences, though. As Jonathan Cole, a sociologist of science, argues:
    Science and technology are closely related, but they are not the same thing. Science involves a body of knowledge that has accumulated over time through the process of scientific inquiry, as it generates new knowledge about the natural world—including knowledge in the physical and biological sciences as well as in the social and behavioral sciences. Technology, in its broadest sense, is the process by which we modify nature to meet our needs and wants. Some people think of technology in terms of gadgets and a variety of artifacts, but it also involves the process by which individuals or companies start with a set of criteria and constraints and work toward a solution of a problem that meets those conditions.
    Henry Petroski, a professor of engineering and history at Duke University, puts it even more succinctly: “Science is about understanding the origins, nature, and behavior of the universe and all it contains; engineering is about solving problems by rearranging the stuff of the world to make new things.” Science modifies the facts of what we
know
about the world, while technology modifies the facts of what we can
do
in the world.
    Sometimes, though, instead of basic scientific insight leading to new technologies, there are instances where engineering can actually precede science. For example, the steam engine was invented over a hundred years before a clear understanding of thermodynamics—the physics of energy—was developed.
    But not only isn’t it always clear which one occurs first, it is just as often the case that it’s difficult to distinguish between scientific and technological knowledge. Iron’s magnetic properties demonstrate this well.
    Iron is magnetic, as anyone who has spent any