Re: virus: Memetic evolution

Mitchell Porter (qix@desire.apana.org.au)
Wed, 20 Mar 1996 10:36:08 +1000 (EST)

> (in a nutshell)
> Task: You are one of the caretakers of 20th century scientific knowledge,
> and a severe budget crisis is forcing your program out of existence. You may
> save the knowledge of only 5 twentieth century scientific ideas or
> technologies for posterity. What ones do you choose and why?

Here's an initial proposal, on the plane of ideas only:

1. General relativity
2. Quantum field theory
3. DNA and the genetic code (or: the "New Synthesis" of Mendel + Darwin,
if this included the knowledge that genes are encoded in DNA)
4. Goedel's theorem -or- the concept of the Turing machine
5. The neuron hypothesis - published by Ramon y Cajal (sp?) in 1900, I think!
-or- the connectionist concept

I am assuming that pre-20th century ideas like atomism and evolution will
survive.

-- 
-mitch
http://desire.apana.org.au/~qix