2. The book: The thinking pill and other
technologies that change your life
Our life in twenty years
- Life science and Medical Technology
- Sustainable technologies
- Communication
Questions?
- Fundamental barriers
- Solutions and resulting technologies
- Impact society

3. Limits to man (summary)
• Is there a limit to age?
- technology to support the elder
• Man-made molecular life; self replicating robots?
- man’s release of boring tasks
• Intelligent computers?
- solution to data-explosion
- human embedded computational
intelligence ,replacement of human
intelligence?
- man’s responsibility for decision making,
free-will?

4. Basic consumer expenditures decreased from 51% to 30% of
35 GDP in only 45 years
Food and tobacco
30
25 Housing
20
Clothing etc
15
Food and tobacco
10
5 Housing
0
Clothing etc
-5
1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060
Witholt, ETH Zurich 2006

5. Expenditures for health, longevity and amusement
have grown from 17% to 35% of GDP in the past 45 years
35
Med care
30
25 Recreation
20
Personal Business
15
Med care
10
5 Recreation
0
Personal Business
-5
1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060
Witholt, ETH Zurich 2006

6. Copenhagen consensus 2004
10 challenges facing humanity
- climate change
- communicable diseases
- conflicts and arm prolifiration
- access to education
- financial instability
- gouvernance and corruption
- malnutrition and hunger
- migration
- sanitation and access to clean water
- subsidies and trade barriers
From B. Lomborg, Global crises, global solutions; Cambridge 2004

7. Brundland (1987):
Sustainable development is a social development,
which fulfills the need of present generations without
endangering the possibilities of fulfillment of the needs
of future generations

8. Engineering and society triangle
The engineer changes the world with his machines

9. Society ideologies determine definition of society challenges
Progress through technology Power through technology

10. Technology - Science - Art
function
DESIGN
form material
Adapted from Ludwig Mies von der
Rohe,
1921 Bauhaus

11. Schumpeters conjuctuurcycli: 1 is de Kondratieff-cyclus;
2 is de Juglar-cyclus; 3 is de Kitchin-cyclus; 4 is de
resulterende samengestelde cyclus.

12. Complex phenomena:
Emergence of new phenomena as a function of scale parameter
Example:
Physics of river current with increasing stream velocity,
slow stream small waves eddy’s turbulence
Emotion
No sound musical sound thunder

13. Sustainable society (1)
- “The finite earth” (motto)
1. Rigid energy supply; centralized versus decentralized
distribution
2. Sense or nonsense of
biodiesel; food versus energy - bio diversity
3. A nuclear future?; threads - challenges politics
4. Fossil future; new clean or alternative technologies

14. Sustainable society (2)
- “The finite earth” (motto)
5. The ideal factory; small, modular, efficient catalysis design
6. A world without hunger; watermanegement, sustainable agriculture;
logistics
7. Life on a vulcano; sensors, communication, organization
8. A world wide balance; material cycles, extra terrestial life

15. Sustainability concerns the continuation of our
current human civilization
Living system(selforganization outside equilibrium)
has to produce entropy(waste)
Evolutionary dynamics (as in biological ecology) is
also characteristic for human forms of civilization
Key is adaptation through technological and social
Innovation
Technology gives solutions as well as problems

16. Sustainable dynamical trangle
Sustainable society
Threads Adaptation
survival

18. Ecological adaptation
Type I: colonization
Primary concern growth. Exhaustion of
environment is secundary
- grass hoppers destr.: plants in the desert
- archeological processes (iron, copper)
- first industrial revolution

19. Ecological adaptation
Type II: consolidation
Primary concern survival (draught, cold)
- root-stem formation
- industrialization with attention for primary
environmental effects. Substitution of natural
products, selective catalysis

20. Ecological adaptation
Type III: Sustainable, self supporting, “zero”
(minimum) emission system, adaptive,
selfrepair
- Tropical rain forest. Specialization of
functions, interdependance
- Sustainable human society; complex interaction
of human artefacts with industrial production:
intelligent systems

21. Example: soda process
• until 1750; …………….from seaweed
• 1780 Le Blanc process: raw materials: salt, sulphuric acid, coal,
calcium carbonate
product: hydrogensulphide (detrimental
to environment) and soda
• 1870 Solvay process: …ammonia, carbondioxide and salt gives
soda and Cl2

22. Thread
Limited adaptation; destruction

23. Figure 1 | Inequality in economic growth. a, Although gross world product and the value of exports
throughout the world rose steadily during the period 1981–2001 (values relative to 1990 = 100), the
number living below the US$2 per day poverty line has increased slightly. b, Whereas in 1820 the
difference between the mean incomes of the poorest 60% of countries and of the richest 10% was
fourfold, by 1992 the disparity was tenfold (value of mean income of poorest countries in 1820 = 1)
R. Kerry Turner and Brendan Fischer,
Nature 451, pp. 1067-1068 (2008).

24. Utopia
Human Extended healthy life
- well being
Society Peaceful coexistance
- culture
- wealth
Earth Sustainable future
- natural resources
- adaptation
Space Exploration
- non-terrestial life?
- resources?
- threads

27. Adapted from Ruddiman, Scientific American 2002

28. Source: Nature, Vol. 437, 27 October 2005
Hans Joachim Schnellnhuber’s map of global ‘tipping points’ in climatic change

29. Source:
The Skeptical Environmentalist
Bjørn Lomborg
Cambridge University Press 2001

30. Source:
Energy at the Crossroads:
Global Perspectives and Uncertainties
Vaclav Smil
The MIT Press 2003

31. Source:
Sustainable Fossil Fuels
The Unusual Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy
Mark Jaccard
Cambridge University Press 2005

32. Source:
Energy at the Crossroads:
Global Perspectives and Uncertainties
Vaclav Smil
The MIT Press 2003

33. Source: Science Vol 311 10 February 2006, pp. 764
Article: A Budget With Big Winners and Losers

34. Source:
Sustainable Fossil Fuels
The Unusual Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy
Mark Jaccard
Cambridge University Press 2005

35. Source:
Sustainable Fossil Fuels
The Unusual Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy
Mark Jaccard
Cambridge University Press 2005

36. Source: Science Vol 311 27 January 2006, pp. 484
Article: The Path Forward for Biofuels and Biomaterials

37. Source:
The Skeptical Environmentalist
Bjørn Lomborg
Cambridge University Press 2001

38. Sustainable society
Scientific issue - Stability analysis of complex systems (climate;
stability rainforest);
network theory
- Frictionless conversion of energy to motion;
efficient primary to secundary energy
conversion
(molecular systems; precision engineering)
-From craddle to cradle, nonemission society;
recycle

39. Outcome of the book:
- Technology is a necessity to maintain human civilization
- The challenge to technology is to create predictable
behaviour of complex systems
- The challenge to science is to understand the interacting
networks and building blocks that lead to the multiscale
phenomena of natural world and universe
- Technological innovation through organizational adaptation
is also a necessity to maintain human civilization.
V. Kandinsky, Blue Segment 1921

40. Essential technologies
- Pattern recognition (data mining)
- imaging (hardware)
- resolution, speed
- Communication
- nano / molecular dimensional devices
- embedded systems
- hardware
- software
- networks
- long range, short range

41. Essential technologies
- Materials
- electronic, mechanical
- smart, self-healing
- tissue engineering
- complex molecular systems (biomimetics)
- Robotics
- integration
- computer science
- sensors and actors and materials

42. Utopia
Human Extended healthy life
- well being
Society Peaceful coexistance
- culture
- wealth
Earth Sustainable future
- natural resources
- adaptation
Space Exploration
- non-terrestial life?
- resources?
- threads

43. Ecological adaptation versus Disruptive change through
human thrive