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The Mysterious Pace of Human Achievement, all in one graph

sprott.physics.wisc.edu — All of human achieviement ... all our hopes, dreams, and fears ... in one graph. The mysterious pace of change is great. Where will be tomorrow?

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  • cpmcd2000, on 10/12/2007, -12/+8I have waited soooo long to see something like this graph!
    • jwyles, on 10/12/2007, -4/+21If these types of graphs and information interest you I suggest getting Ray Kurzweil's book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. It has an entire chapter full of graphs, statistics, and information regarding the coming digital age all relating to Moore's Law. You can also visit his website where a lot of information can be found at http://www.kurzweilai.net/ .
    • Aeiri, on 10/12/2007, -14/+8We should also superimpose a population graph on this. The more brains out there, the more innovation.
    • guytoronto, on 10/12/2007, -10/+9When do the "Dark Ages Part II" kick in?
    • DavidTrom, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16I also felt like the graphic was hopelessly bias. I don't deny the increased rate of discovery after the Industrial Rev. ( who named it as a "revolution" ). but it seems to me that you are bound to see more discoveries on a immediate age than far into the past.
      Historic perspective; like standing on top of a tall building, you can see every window across the street but way down in the horizon you only see the most remarkable features. Why do the graph gives the same weight to say; Writing and PCs or Math and a Cloned Sheep.

      Just my 2 cent

      But as most graphics you can read it anyway you want. I found interesting how the spike coincide with the discovery of the new word

      I would like to see this graph superimpose on the Know (by the western word) population of the world.
    • praisethelard, on 06/06/2008, -3/+5We'll come full circle soon enough.
    • Qubous, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21This *IS* a population graph. Look at the y-axais.
    • osbjmg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Did it really take that long to go from pottery to plow? What were we doing in the middle? Maybe we just started seeing the plow more often? This reminds me of Germs and Steel where civilization didn't need to farm for more than themselves to eat until you have people specializing and able to do other things such as raise animals so that others can take more time and grow food and then trade with each other. Trade is the key.
    • Vaelan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@jwyles mentioned Ray Kurzweil's book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

      One of the charts he's referring to is here:
      http://singularity.com/images/charts/CountdowntoSingularityLog.jpg

      Keep in mind that it's a logarithmic chart so it's scaled as such...

      Enjoy!
    • jhshukla, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3read carefully. it did not take that long to go from pottery to plow. it is "I plow". apple jokes aside, it translates to "Iron plow". earlier plows were softer and more prone to breakage. Iron plows allowed us to spread agriculture farther than possible earlier.
    • capnjosh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Aeiri - "We should also superimpose a population graph on this. The more brains out there, the more innovation."

      That is exactly what is required for progress. The more theoretically-thinking, logical-minded people there are, the more cool stuff that will happen.

      now if we could just get everyone on the planet to think that way.... then we could have holo-decks and the cool microwave-looking things that synthesis food from nothing. That's what I want for Christmas!
    • ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2and where is Paris Hilton??
    • Aeiri, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Interesting how I was modded down...

      @capnjosh

      That was my point. The title says "mysterious pace", and I was just saying it's not really that mysterious at all since the population has grown exponentially as well.
  • bitcloud, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3You see these type of graphs in statistics...

    they are generally spikes. Let's not make our population a spike... let's make ours a plateau...
    • kevincannon, on 10/12/2007, -7/+10That graph is slightly flawed and backs up what's refered to as a chronocentic view of the world. That is, that the time we're living in the most important.

      As bitcloud said, inventions take place in spurts. The graph shown there is cumulative so it's quite misleading. If it was graphed with number of important inventions over time you would see a different result.

      Obviously increased population, education levels and communications will lead to a higher pace of development, but I think the graph is still quite misleading as it is there.
    • jwyles, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@kevincannon:

      You ignore the fact that most of what is plotted are enormous paradigm shifts where the nearly all of the population adapts and harnesses the technology in a relatively short amount of time.

      You are right to say that if the number of inventions were plotted the graph would be different, but not by much. You have to believe that there are far more inventions being made now that are unique and novel than there were in the past and that this rate is only increasing. Each new invention may not mark a new milestone for mankind but an accumulation of technologies used in a particular invention do, and that is what sets the next milestone.

      We are progressively getting more and more technologically advanced and the world's population is growing ever more adaptive in accepting these technologies. This will rush in a new era: where man and machine merge. Hard to accept but very likely.
    • aeproberts, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I completely agree with KevinCannon.

      That graph assumes that what we view as innovation is correct. How do you know that the first guy who decided to pack mud into a wound in the stone age was not as important a discovery as one of our modern medical discoveries. That is not a great example, but hopefully you get the point. It is completely biased based on a modern view.
    • jatlasb, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1@jwyles

      Good thoughts, but I have to digg you down for trying to use the phrase "paradigm shift" in an actual sentence.

      You've been Dilberted
    • willcode4beer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Invention begets invention.
      Each invention is supported by the ones that came before it. As inventions make peoples lives better, they have more time to invent. As inventions make it possible for the planet to support more people, there are more people and ideas, thus more inventions.
      So, of course the graph takes that shape. And the rate of invention will continue to increase as the standard of living and population of the planet increases.
  • PhantomTrain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21Where's the printing press? (telephone is on its own, why not the press?)
    And why is 'Stem Cell Research Approved in the US' a major leap in advancement?
    • skotski, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Good point.

      for that matter, where is Mtv and the ipod?
    • MuscleAnimal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4 Exactly, like where is the "Peak of Chinese Civilization" (8th Century) and the Invention of the Jock Strap (19th century)?"
    • snypa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4MTV an achievement? More like the beginning of the downfall of man.
    • DrBarnett, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Good point. The Greek calculation machine (possible precursor of our computing platforms) is missing too. Knowledge of how ancient civilizations managed huge construction projects is still very incomplete.

      The biggest problem with the graph is that it shows a consistent upward movement. Where are the dips for the Dark Ages, the Inquisition, the 50's. I would propose that the advance of technology is more akin to a stock graph with lots of little (and not so little) ups and downs that has generally slopped upward.

      Dr. B
  • PirateFSM, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Awesome, just awesome...
  • pbaehr, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16If you look at the axis you realize that really all the graph shows is that population has skyrocketed since the 2nd agricultural revolution. This is hardly news. In fact, it reveals almost nothing about the pace of technological advancement.
    • alecks, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Exactly, plus, i'm sure if someone from 1000 yrs ago would draw a similar graph, they too, would clutter their immediate 50-100 yrs with "important" things. Just shows how naive we were, as kevincannon mentioned above as well.
  • alecks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2According to that graph, the world population was less than 500Million people around 1500AD. Is that right??
  • jonsedar, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12The two axes are completely unrelated! The size of the global population has no bearing on a group of cherry-picked historical events.

    This is junk. Buried.
    • mathmanjeffy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Not to burst your sense of self-pride for degrading someones work, but...

      The x-axis is "Time", the y-axis is "Human Population." Those are fairly well related. The "cherry picked" innovations are just labels along the graph.
  • grunherz5x5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8It's a population graph with hand-picked historical references.

    Interesting, but not earth-shattering.
  • SmurfyBrown, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10It looks like a 7th grader made it for a school project. The layout is really annoying, and I don't really find the content that enlightening. There's hardly any perspective. Furthermore, i find the use of "negative years" (as in the year -4000) to be bush league
  • domokunt, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3worth it for the population graph

    to read about pace of development read ray kurzweils "the law of accelerating returns"
    (google it its free)
  • wtfunkymonkey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5So Dolly the Sheep is, to date, our greatest achievement?
    • marnaq, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Thought digg.com was.
    • Phlag, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1No, it's just the most recent notable achievement the author decided to mention.
    • Scottamus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Not a damned life shattering thing has come from dolly the cloned sheep. Plants have been cloned for centuries, where is that on the chart? It's a cool gauge of medical advances, but IMHO the internet has changed society just a wee bit more than a cloned sheep with genetic defects.

      In short, this graph is a piece of *****.

      FTA:"Where will be tomorrow?"
      back in junior high for you I hope.
  • atlacatl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I don't know, but the way this graph is drawn makes it look like everything we (humanity as whole) have accomplished is because of sheer numbers.

    I agree that the more raw material there is the more will be produced, however, the biggest accelerator of progress was the discovery of electricity and then the invention of electronics. Once every tube was replaced by a transistor, we started sliding into this slippery slope and we are still falling. This minor discovery alone created the inflection point we see in the graph--it's very dramatic, but so is the impact the transistor has had in our economy/world.

    Had electronics being discovered earlier, say, around 1 AD we would probably be flying cars right now, as opposed to the promised year 2000...Oh, wait...

    As matter of fact, if we (humanity again) had found Archimides Palimpsest (http://www.archimedespalimpsest.org/palimpsest_making1.html), say, 300 years earlier, it would have meant that Newton would have not have "invented" calculus. Archimides was using a form of calculus in the 3 centuries before the 0 year (what we attribute to be the 0 year).
    • jonathono2000, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2That is assuming that the human race was "ready" for calculus, electronics, etc. at that point where it is very likely that just because something is discovered or invented does not mean that it will be instantaneaously exploited.

      It is my feeling that most of the human race trudges along at a slow pace and certain individuals make magnificent leaps forward from time to time that they themselves may not even fully understand the ramifications of, let alone the general public.

      Right now there are physicist that can prove that time travel in theory is possible, that doesn't mean in five years I will be able to go back and party with cavemen.
    • willcode4beer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1http://www.google.com/search?q=baghdad+battery
    • ChrisDScott, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Well, if you knew anything about Robert Fogel - the source of the graph - you would understand the ground-breaking research he has done in historical economics and the substantial amount of data he has that correlates population size with technological achievement. I was introduced to this by an Economics professor that I took a class from that studied under him while he was at the University of Chicago.
  • Helfax, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Poor representations of data make the baby cry.
  • zaqintosh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10The picture of Keira Knightley from the the movie "King Arthur" really lends to the prestige of this incredible and inspiring graph. (Sarcasm)
  • Freyburg, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2This graph makes human progress look ike an uphill climb, and while that's in the broadest sense true, it doesn't account for the fact that the Dark Ages were (in Europe, at least) a big tumble backwards for civilization. Come to that, it really ignores all the progress that was made in African, Asian, and Indian cultures at the time. And it doesn't come anywhere near addressing the huge spike in progress that came with harnessing electricity or the use of oil, which was a huge accelerator for humanity. Without oil, we wouldn't be anywhere near where we're at now....and we may yet sink back into another Dark Age once it runs out.

    Still, it's interesting in and of itself, and it's nice to see something other than "OMG IPHONE LOL" on Digg, so I dugg it.

  • RodeoRobot, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2So where does my Xbox Live gamer score fit on the graph?
  • RodeoRobot, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2And why is Math considered more advanced than Writing? Why is cloning considered more advanced than Nuclear Energy? Heck, why is the Black Death considered more advanced than the peak of Greek and Roman civilization? And why is a greater population considered better than a smaller one?
    • jatlasb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3And why does the black death (most devastaing plague in known history--yes, I know that the 19187 flu killed more people, but in terms of percentages, the Plague was worse) coincide with a RISE in population? And why is the black death considered an acheivement? (everything else on this graph is...)

      If we're going to start with "and" all the time I might as wel join in.
    • SlappyMc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2you're reading the graph wrong. The are not labeled in order of significance.
  • troydoogle7, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I didn't realise how quickly world population is growing.... I predict that in the next 20 years a can of oil will be like gold...

    This is really unsustainable... I reckon we should start a war somewhere and bring the numbers down... oh wait..
    • starvo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Actually, I'm beginning to wonder about that myself. Don't get me wrong, I love almost all who exist on this planet. But at what point do we step back, and go.. "Oh holy *****, it's getting a little crowded here?" When does the population start to overburden our -insert-scarce-resource-here and cause the economies of the world to start flagging, and lead to war?

      Oh, do we (I'm going optimist here) manage to find some wonderful way to live in space, in the ocean, etc, and that eases the over-population for another generation or two?

      Or hell, does nature and fate finally just get pissed off, and us, and some wretched super virus/germ/republican/teleporter accident cause the extinction of millions? Billions?
    • willcode4beer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Maybe you should get a few barrels and hide them in the garage
    • williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2When people get a middle class lifestyle, the women start to say "No" to pumping out 7 kids. Don't worry about it, unless the economy stops growing in India and China.
    • Decimator, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Necessity is the mother of invention. We'll do exactly what we have in the past; when we run out of space, we expand. We still have the oceans on this planet to live in, and after that we'll take the moon and Mars.
    • SlappyMc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@starvo.
      I'm betting on the Nature option..
  • shardex, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I'd love to hear Edward Tufte's take on the graphical integrity of this overly-decorative graphic. I wonder what the lie-value, if any, is?

    Lie Factor = size of effect shown on graphic / size of effect in data

    Lie factors greater than around 1.05 are distortions of fact.

    http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/
  • eliotmat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4MTV and the ipod are steps back.
  • mapkinase, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4How did they estimate the population of the past?
  • totorototoro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2The graph itself looks pretty interesting, but the images don't do much to add to the information. (and jesus, i'm all for saving bandwidth, but ease off the JPEG compression a few notches :p )
  • speel, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Be ready for the collapse.
  • jackimhoffer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3This is one of the worst graphs I've ever seen.
  • this, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Picky although this is; the image on the site isn't actually dolly. It's a picture of a sheep which escaped being sheered for 6 years on the other side of the world (New Zealand):

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3665735.stm
  • insomniacal, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2UNBELIEVABLY MISLEADING! The chart spikes upward for the last 150 years, making it seem as though progress has risen exponentially.

    BUT LOOK AGAIN. The y-axis doesn't represent progress or technical achievements -- it represents human population. That alone is impressive -- but the chart LOOKS as though it's graphing a spike in human technical progress, and that is simply INCORRECT.

    Not that our advances in the last 150 haven't been amazing. I'm just amazed that, despite those advances, someone could design a chart that is so misleading.
  • DavidTrom, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1BTW: I wouldn't be surprise if this graphic is some sort of Joke.
    What is with Xena chick with a nipple draw on.

    Am I the only one to notice?

    Darn!

  • TheToecutter, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Log graph please.

    But as others have said it's just a population graph with technological points of interest being pointed out along the way.

    How do you quantify technological progress enough to slap it on the Y axis tho? Very difficult to do.
  • ezrider0, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This is ridiculous. It fails to mention ALL of the fundamental discoveries which gave rise to modern technology. For example, this does not include the discovery of Newtonian Math [Calculus] or any of Gauss' discoveries. It also fails to mention the discovery of the transistor which made all modern electronics successful, or the discovery of radioactive material, which is far more profound then nuclear fusion. It does not account for any of Descartes' fundamental discoveries in Logic and Proof theory. What about theories of economics?

    Over all this graph only points out the end result, not the building blocks of technology and science, which are significantly more important.
  • GoldenGopher1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Silly humanity and our infinite desire. Definitely the wrong crowd for this, but I'll throw in an Thoreau quote anyway...

    "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail."

    At this rate of achievement, we won't have a habitable planet in 100 years.
  • aguynamedben, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1it goes so straight up. soon it will bend backward, indicating that we have mastered time travel!!! mauahaHAHAHA
  • bkedersha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1This graph is not misleading. Technological development will continue to grow experientially as we learn more. The fact is the 20th century had more developments they almost all the past centuries combined.
  • sa9e, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The graph is completely wrong, in the same way that Kurzweil's singularity prediction is wrong. There's no way you can give a small slope at "the development of mathematics" while giving such a steep slope at a hundred years of recent technological progress. Doesn't make sense at all. It's a nearly infinite slope for 50 years? C'mon. That's total presentist bias that overemphasizes ephemera and plays down technologies like language and civilization that have been developing steadily for hundreds of thousands of years.

    So what happens in 200 years when 20th technology looks positively prehistoric to the people of the time? By then people will have gotten used to the rapid novelty of technological innovation, and the last few hundred years will appear to be quite continuous with the past.

    Now, if I were making such a graph, I would make sure it's tied to real metrics, like world population, lifespan, habitable areas of the planet (or later, cosmos), food production, sustainability, education levels, etc. From that perspective, only a small proportion of the world has experienced any sudden changes from the smooth trends of history.
  • pauly1980, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Is it just me, or is the primitive chimp in the photo smoking a cigarette?
  • Ruckgesicht, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Exponential growth means that things that wouldn't happen "in a million years" will probably happen this decade. Throw in Omega Point Theory and you have something to gawk at in total awe at where we could eventually be headed.
  • bkedersha, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1There are no smooth trends in history, there are bumps, jerks, stops, turns, slow downs and speedups. i.e. World War Two was a turn, a slow down in the show down with communism and a speedup in certain technologies. But, if you look at the 20th century history of the Industrialized and newly industrialized nation-states, a clear, path to accelerated development is clearly seen.
    • sa9e, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Well, in that sense - the bumps, jerks, stops, turns, slowdowns and speedups are equiprobable in the past and the future, and so there is no such thing as a smooth directionality, nor predictable acceleration. WW2 was a complex event, but not unprecedented in any of its individual facets. The fact that it was bigger, or more complex, represents the continuous trend of wars in that very general direction, but that doesn't mean either that the next world war would be as big, or that it would be necessarily much bigger, or more complex.

      You could say that any novelty represents an acceleration of whatever came before it, but that's not what the graph tried to demonstrate. My point above about the backwards perspective of future man bears repeating: in a few hundred years, the apparent acceleration of the 20th century will look a lot less dramatic. The Industrial Revolution started in late 18th century England, but it still hasn't made it to every corner of the world. In that sense, things are not moving quickly enough.
  • vvvv, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The graph will take a sharp downturn in a few years once the nations of Earth get into a nuclear war over the shrinking supply of natural resources.
  • Burritovision, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1not good enough.

    study Nikola Tesla. Study the watercar. We've been on a fairly even plain of public excellence since about 1972, but for computer advancement and some elements of medicine. industrial methods have advanced only slightly. we've got cool new toys, but industrial infrastructure is almost identical in plan and shape. nuclear plants, coal, oil cars, crappy factories. junk.
    • Ruckgesicht, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2But you fail to recognize how this technology will be able to turn around and advance everything else in turn - the modern futurists's NGR (Nanotechnology, Genetic Engineering, Robotics). Nanotechnology alone will allow for nano-assemblers (also referred to as molecular engineering) which is basically a small factory no bigger than a fridge capable of making almost anything - and this done by a machine that would be in every home. And so on with these other aspects of NGR.
  • knowmachine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The issue with charts and graphs like this one or those by Kurzwell, and even with Moore's law itself, is that they are charting the outcomes of the process while never seeing the process itself.

    The process is knowledge creation which, as a whole, is equivalent to social advance. We advance as a society by creating new knowledge. The more new knowledge we create, the more we advance society. The less new knowledge we create, the less we advance society.

    Individuals create new knowledge, not society itself. As such, more individuals or more population, can mean more new knowledge. But if the entire population, no matter how large, is not skilled in the knowledge creation process, there will be little social advance.

    New products are an outcome, or result of this knowledge creation process. They are the part that people see, but they are not the cause or driver of the advance...knowledge creation is.

    And most importantly, since very, very few people to date have even tried to explain how this knowledge creation process works, I'd conclude that most singularity talk is conjecture...a lot like watching the leaves on a tree move and calling them the wind.

    See my evolving definition of singularity here:
    http://www.hyperadvance.com/wiki/index.php?title=Singularity

    Bruce LaDuke
    http://www.hyperadvance.com/
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