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Cold comfort
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LEADERS
LOCATIONS UK 110 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6EU Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 50 Hampshire St, Floor 5, Cambridge, MA 02139 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 330 333 9470 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150
cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3787 9001 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, 2nd Floor, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HU Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588 [email protected] New Scientist Live Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1273 [email protected]
© 2016 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. New Scientist (Online) ISSN 2059 5387 Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Williams Gibbons (Wolverhampton)
Future perfect Don’t hark back to the past for utopia ABUNDANCE. Freedom. Peace. Our model of a perfect society has been continually updated over the five centuries since Thomas More wrote Utopia, but those three elements are always central. It’s a tall order to achieve it, and small wonder no large society has done so for any length of time. Or has it? Those studying the Bronze Age Indus civilisation say it met these conditions for 800 years, making it our best candidate for a real-life utopia (see page 30). There’s nothing new about seeking utopia in a bygone age. More recently, though, we’ve looked to the future, first through science fiction, now via visionary business plans and talks that promise to “change the world”.
Abundance, freedom and peace are also the rallying cries of techno-utopians, be they internet libertarians, Silicon Valley mavens or those who hope humans and machines will eventually fuse in a godlike technological singularity. Automation offers abundance and digital life offers freedom; benevolent AIs could help us avoid accident and strife. So is utopia within our grasp? Imaginary utopias are often isolated, found at the frontiers of the known world (see page 44). That’s also true of many technoutopian visions today, from Martian colonies to seasteading. Utopia is easier to imagine when you can cast off from the real world and leave its problems behind.
While utopian fantasies play out among the privileged – and innovation skews towards their “first world problems” – popular culture is dominated by dystopias. Perhaps that reflects fears of being left behind to languish in a world that seems increasingly chaotic. In the long view, such fears are wide of the mark. Over the past five centuries, we’ve lived lives of increasing plenty and liberty, while a good case can be made that peace has increased. Through advances in science and society, we’ve inched towards utopia. We won’t ever arrive at it; after all, one reading of the word is “no place”. But with enough wit and will, we can keep making the world ever more utopian. n
a few do, and so it has never really gone away. Private funding, mostly from investors, has now reached millions of dollars. Alerted, the US Congress has asked for a report on the case for public funding. Is there one? Our investigation finds a murky world of claims and counterclaims, whose denizens worry that too much openness will jeopardise the fortunes they hope to make (see page 34).
Taxpayer money could provide credibility and ensure that results are properly reported, rather than just rumoured. And if there is anything to cold fusion, it would be in the public interest for it to be investigated properly. But that’s an enormous if. There’s still no compelling reason to think cold fusion will work. Let those with money to burn take the risk and, if proven right, the rewards for their chutzpah too. For the rest of us, cold fusion is better off left out in the cold. n
Cold comfort HAVE we unfairly given cold fusion the cold shoulder? Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons caused a sensation when they reported in 1989 that they had fused atomic nuclei at room pressure and temperature, producing a burst of energy. But the results weren’t replicable, and the field sank into ignominy. Not many respectable scientists would touch cold fusion today. But
17 September 2016 | NewScientist | 5
LEADERS
LOCATIONS UK 110 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6EU Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 50 Hampshire St, Floor 5, Cambridge, MA 02139 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 330 333 9470 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150
cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3787 9001 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, 2nd Floor, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HU Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588 [email protected] New Scientist Live Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1273 [email protected]
© 2016 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. New Scientist (Online) ISSN 2059 5387 Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Williams Gibbons (Wolverhampton)
Future perfect Don’t hark back to the past for utopia ABUNDANCE. Freedom. Peace. Our model of a perfect society has been continually updated over the five centuries since Thomas More wrote Utopia, but those three elements are always central. It’s a tall order to achieve it, and small wonder no large society has done so for any length of time. Or has it? Those studying the Bronze Age Indus civilisation say it met these conditions for 800 years, making it our best candidate for a real-life utopia (see page 30). There’s nothing new about seeking utopia in a bygone age. More recently, though, we’ve looked to the future, first through science fiction, now via visionary business plans and talks that promise to “change the world”.
Abundance, freedom and peace are also the rallying cries of techno-utopians, be they internet libertarians, Silicon Valley mavens or those who hope humans and machines will eventually fuse in a godlike technological singularity. Automation offers abundance and digital life offers freedom; benevolent AIs could help us avoid accident and strife. So is utopia within our grasp? Imaginary utopias are often isolated, found at the frontiers of the known world (see page 44). That’s also true of many technoutopian visions today, from Martian colonies to seasteading. Utopia is easier to imagine when you can cast off from the real world and leave its problems behind.
While utopian fantasies play out among the privileged – and innovation skews towards their “first world problems” – popular culture is dominated by dystopias. Perhaps that reflects fears of being left behind to languish in a world that seems increasingly chaotic. In the long view, such fears are wide of the mark. Over the past five centuries, we’ve lived lives of increasing plenty and liberty, while a good case can be made that peace has increased. Through advances in science and society, we’ve inched towards utopia. We won’t ever arrive at it; after all, one reading of the word is “no place”. But with enough wit and will, we can keep making the world ever more utopian. n
a few do, and so it has never really gone away. Private funding, mostly from investors, has now reached millions of dollars. Alerted, the US Congress has asked for a report on the case for public funding. Is there one? Our investigation finds a murky world of claims and counterclaims, whose denizens worry that too much openness will jeopardise the fortunes they hope to make (see page 34).
Taxpayer money could provide credibility and ensure that results are properly reported, rather than just rumoured. And if there is anything to cold fusion, it would be in the public interest for it to be investigated properly. But that’s an enormous if. There’s still no compelling reason to think cold fusion will work. Let those with money to burn take the risk and, if proven right, the rewards for their chutzpah too. For the rest of us, cold fusion is better off left out in the cold. n
Cold comfort HAVE we unfairly given cold fusion the cold shoulder? Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons caused a sensation when they reported in 1989 that they had fused atomic nuclei at room pressure and temperature, producing a burst of energy. But the results weren’t replicable, and the field sank into ignominy. Not many respectable scientists would touch cold fusion today. But
17 September 2016 | NewScientist | 5