March 29, 2004
Wired's article, "The God Particle and the Grid," is fascinating.
It reminds us once again of the mutually reinforcing nature of science and techology. Physicists want to find the Higgs boson, aka the "God particle." To look for it, they must advance technology, specifically network computing. That more advanced computing will, in turn, probably make spectacular things possible. What things, you ask? Nobody yet knows. But one of the most optimistic sentences I've ever heard is this:
"People have a way of repurposing powerful technologies in surprising ways."
(They have already achieved a transmssion speed of 5.44 gigabits/second--that's the equivalent of a DVD every 7 seconds.)