The journey of a thousand miles

As an ancient proverb says, "the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." Even though the ultimate goal of the posclegom project seems to be out of reach, there are a lot of steps we could take now, little steps, that will move us in the general direction of posclegom's goals.

I believe that there really are only two major components to the posclegom project: a science component and an engineering component. The science component is for discovering new knowledge we don't already know. The engineering component for building new things using knowledge we already know.

The following is a list of suggested areas of investigation for the science component:

• Investigations into the nature of bonds.
• Differences between different types of covalent bonds, ionic bonds, resonance (1.5) bonds, hydrogen bonds, etc.
• Transition from the micro-scale to the macro-scale: how do the microscale arrangement of atoms and molecules create the macro-scale objects that we see around us, why do things take on the forms that we see, etc.

The following is a list of suggested areas of investigation for the engineering component: (to be continued...)

So what's the big deal?

So what does the ability to arbitrarily break and form bonds imply?

Assuming that the technology to break and form bonds in Lego-fashion is fully formed, the human society will move to a post-scarce society literally overnight. Now, there are some people who argue that even with a post-scarce society in place we will still not be "happy", whatever that word means. But I think that we could all agree that without a certain level of material abundance (i.e. in certain parts of the world such as Africa), no forms of "happiness" could ever be attained.

Hackers of nature

In other words, the posclegom project is for people who like to hack nature, in the same way that Linux programmers are people who like to hack computers. The word "hack" is to be taken in its original, benign meaning.

The Linux programmer is always out there, cunningly looking for new and interesting ways to make a computer do her bidding. Likewise, the posclegomers like to tinker with the molecules that exists in abundance around them, break the molecules into atoms, and Lego the atoms back into new molecules that would serve their purposes better. The only difference is that when the hungry Linux programmer programs the computer to render an entire 3D MacDonald's store on screen, the said Linux programmer is still hungry. However, when a hungry posclegomer assembles a pie out of the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms that she has obtained from breaking down a bag of freshly mowed lawn ...

Of course, the above exposition is not written to demean the open source software movement in any way. In fact, it could be argued that it is the success of the open source software movement that inspired the posclegom project, and made me so confident that the project will be successful.

Atomic Lego

The goal of the posclegom project is to research a systematic way of breaking and making bonds between atoms as easily as we are able to break apart existing Lego structures into Lego blocks and reattach Lego blocks into new Lego structures. In short, the posclegom project strives to give humanity the ability to play Lego with atoms as "Lego blocks".

Nomenclature

Given the radically new paradigm of research 2.0, it is only befitting that the posclegom project deserves an equally radical and revolutionary goal to go along with the new research model. Without further adue, I will attempt my best to reveal the nature of the posclegom project in subsequent posts. I start with a small explanation of the strange name of the project, i.e., its nomenclature.

posclegom is a portmanteau of the following terms:

Post-Scarcity
Lego
Atom

In full, the posclegom project reads "Atomic Lego Scenario of the Post-Scarcity Age", now that's quite a mouthful, and that's what the posclegom project hopes to accomplish.

Research 2.0 Part II

With "research 2.0", however, all the rules of "research 1.0" or, as you have guessed it at this point, traditional research, go out the window.

First of all there is no funding whatsoever, the posclegom project is not funded by any organization, and given the soon-to-be-revealed nature of the posclegom project, I doubt if any organization (especially corporations) in its sane state-of-mind is willing to fund a project like this. So like what Sir Rutherford had said, "we haven't got the money, so we've got to think."

Secondly, there is no deadline to when the posclegom project must produce quantifiable, tangible products (in the form of published papers, if you will). The posclegom project will take as long as it needs in order to accomplish its goal. I guess the important thing about this quality is what it implies -- no one should count on this project to work out (for their personal gain and glory) in the short-term. In fact, no one should ever count on the posclegom project to ever work out, but everyone should keep in their heart the vision of the posclegom project, of what the world would be like after the posclegom project works out, and to strive in that direction.

Thirdly, and I think this is the most important quality of the posclegom project -- it is open, free and liberal. Anyone is welcome to join the research at any time, and to take breaks for as long as you need and also quit at anytime if you don't feel like sticking with the project anymore (and of course, to rejoin the project again at a later time if you feel like coming back). I think a good example of this quality is the irregularity of the posts that I will be making to this blog in the future, so if I have exams coming up, I might disappear for a good two months, and if I die in a car crash tomorrow, then I will have quit from this project for good as of August 24, 2008 (which is right about when the Beijing '08 Games end, not a bad day to die, eh? ;-)

Other aspects of research 2.0 will be revealed in subsequent posts.

Research 2.0

So what is "research 2.0" exactly? In order to answer this question we must look at what "research 1.0" is.

Research 1.0 projects are typically undertaken in top-secret corporate research centers or in the academia. For convenience's sake (and also because I had been a university student for such a long time), I'll just look at aspects of research taking place in the academia.

A typical academic research project typically starts with the writing of a grant proposal. In the proposal, the lead researcher (whom I shall address as "prof" from now on) outlines what the research is all about and what she hopes to accomplish at the end. The grant proposal then gets sent to an organization that will provide funding to the prof, this organization maybe the university itself, the government, the corporate world, a charitable foundation, or very rarely from the the prof herself (like when she has won the lottery), in which case she may forgo the writing of the said grant proposal ;-).

With the funding in place, the prof then goes about, hiring goons...err...grad students who will do her bidding, buying lab equipments, getting the latest MacBook Air, etc. And finally gets the show on the road. Lots of paper research takes place, experiments are performed, computer simulations run, mice killed, test tubes broken, and, most important of all, papers are published. After a set period of time, usually a few years, the prof shows all the published papers to the funding organization, who will then be convinced that its money had been well-spent. As for the prof? -- mission accomplished!