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To be honest I thinks its a very bad idea to tell the people were and how to make nuclear bombs, because then other countries can just start making hundreds of these bombs and sooner or later you will have a nuclear war because first of all if a countries states that they are making nuclear weapons then another country will start building nuclear weapons and so on and so and sooner or later you'll have people scared to death to even leave their house because they don't know if a bomb is coming, especially a nuclear bomb.

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There are exponential growths in population in many cities around the world. Develop new ways of conserving Land, by building elsewhere. My suggestion is that we start by building subterranean cities built in many levels. You could build Malls, offices, apartments, and other things below ground, which will help conserve the decreasing free land space. This will also help benefit the natural environment by allowing some forests to grow and, basically, restoring the global environment.

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i found the study of engineering to be a great benifit to africans because of thier poor quality in drinking water, engineers are looking for cheap and effective ways to clean it, and i would enjoy the line of work because your helping people and any job that helps people gets two thumbs up from me!!!!

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Hi There, "The Fractal Matrix Planning System" represents a new paradigm in the field of spatial planning which could help to establish sustainable patterns of urban development on a truly global scale. System Features; - Generates economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable patterns of development at all stages of settlement growth - Applicable within any environmental, cultural or economic context - Capable of structuring settlements of any scale If you would like to find out more about the FMPS, please feel free to download further information via our Facebook page at the following link; http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fractal-Planning-Solutions-Ltd/109017094107?ref=share I hope this is of some interest, and look forward to receiving any feedback you may have. Kind Regards, Padhraic Moneley M.D. Fractal Planning Solutions Ltd.

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Perhaps the great challenges should be focused on humanity's most acute problems, which can then be translated into technological objectives. In other words, perhaps the grand challenges are to build a greener/cleaner, healthier, more secure, more sustainable, more productive, more affordable, better connected, more energy-efficient, freer and safer world, with enough food, clean energy and opportunity for all.

"A grand challenge would be to find ways to reduce or even better remove the waste of fission. " 

While I am a believer in the benefits of individual use for solar energy, we can not ignore the massive benefits of nuclear fission for energy. A grand challenge would be to find ways to reduce or even better remove the waste of fission.

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as fossile fuels are being depleted, solar energy draw attention. from energy balance point of view, incomimg solar energy goes out from earth. at this moment area covered by solar panel is minimal compared with earth surface. if Sahara Desert is covered by solar panel, does it cuause localize climate change? who knows? butterfly effect leads to globla climate change?

"Our world has run out of significant innovations, after decades concentrating on the short-sighted application, rather than the discovery, of knowledge. " 

Post-Science Research Projects The recent financial crisis exposes two major defects of our world. First, social science does not even have a solution for the basic socioeconomic problem of our chronicle financial crises. Secondly, our world has run out of significant innovations, after decades concentrating on the short-sighted application, rather than the discovery, of knowledge. Government or the public should be in charge of knowledge, which is our common heritage. Society needs knowledge leaders as well as political leaders. Immediate Research Projects (* On-going; ~ Planned): 1. Financial Reform (Dual Valuation Reform) Based On Valuation*, 2. Survey Of Predictive Valuation Methods*, 3. Mathematical Foundation Of Social Science (with Kenneth Arrow)~, 4. All People Programming Language (with Richard Stallman)~, 5. Jumpulse Mechanism~, 6. Jumpulse Practice Racket With Prolong Detection~, 7. Active Automobile Shock Absorber~, 8. Jumpulse Provisional Patent~ Other Long-Term Projects: (1) Valuation Center, (2) Global Valuation Standard Based On Infinite Spreadsheet* (3) Jumpulse Robotics Laboratory (Initial concentration: software and touch), (4) Homotopy Graphics Laboratory (with T. L. Kunii), (5) Post-Science Medicine: A Theoretical Foundation For Natural Medicines*, (6) Replacing Peer Review Process By Valuation In Determining Funding Priority Valuation Example for (6): Valuation of the Value of the Valuation System for Determining Funding Priority First to Third Year Revenue(Valuation of 1000 projects x $100): $100,000 per year Fourth to Twentieth Year Revenue Growth Rate: 100% per year Revenue Growth after Twentieth Year to Infinity: 10% per year Rate of Return for the Initial Four Years: 100% per year Rate of Return for the Fifth Year to Infinity: 40% per year No Finance Price : $2.1 Million

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Complete Automation Based On Self-manufacturing General Purpose Robot Post-science provides the foundation for complete automation. Complete automation starts from the Self-manufactured General Purpose Robot with the ability of touch (coming safely into contact with an uncontrolled environment, as human, animal, and insects can do). The Self-manufactured General Purpose Robot is manufactured by itself and, with the ability of touch, can perform general duties and, thus, can replace all human physical labors, as machines have replaced animal labors in the Industrial Revolution. To finance the development of the SGPR (Self-Manufactured General Purpose Robot), the automobile industry provides an intermediate stage of application, which can justify the development cost. The main improvement will be the active shock absorber, which will give a competitive edge to the automobile. The active shock absorber will allow the car to travel on rough road and to make driving far less tiring when all the shocks have been eliminated. The active shock absorber will transfer the stress on the tire to the jumpulse mechanism, which is the key ingredient in preventing bounces. Thus, it will lengthen the useful life and reduce the manufacturing cost of the automobile tires. Most likely, the smooth ride could greatly increase the gas mileage. The feasibility of the active shock absorber has been experimentally demonstrated by mogul skiers, who can come down a bumpy hill in a straight line, while their legs go up and down executing jumpulses. Similarly, touch, collision without bouncing off, and prolonged contact in racket sports need the application of jumpulse. Post-Science Institute has solved the problem of touch, using the concept of jumpulse, an instantaneous change of force, while Isaac Newton and all the physicists since Newton have not yet fully realize touch is one of the most subtle problems in mechanics. A robot finger bounces off a surface like a ball bounces off a racket; jumpulse is needed in both touch and prolonged contact. To be completely automated, the Self-manufactured General Purpose Robot is constructed by the software programs which instruct the Robot to self-construct. In other words, the construction and modification of the Robot are done at a computer terminal. The robot software used should be completely automated, in particular, allowing completely automated updating from old to new versions with new functions. Thus, the other big innovation in complete automation is the completely automated software. Homotopy Graph Theory of T. L. Kunii will be useful in drawing the Robot. Homotopy Set Theory of Kunii provides an efficient mathematical foundation for complete automation. The solution of value of Hugh Ching will be needed to determine the value of the Robots. Richard Stallman and his army of Free Software programmers world-wide can rapidly convert the current partially automated to a completely automated software standard. Post-Science Institute would be willing to release the fundamental patent to the Free Software Foundation so that both the economic and the technical barriers to computer usage will be eliminated at the language level under the completely automated software standard. All people around the world over the age of six can start to program a completely automated All People Programming Language, which will communicate with its users in their native language or even graphics and sound. When the Self-manufactured General Purpose Robot is available for programming, everyone can have a job programming the Robot. For example, a car will be manufactured by simply push a button ordering the car to be manufactured. Today, in Japan there is already an electric fan factory, which is almost completely robot controlled. With the current financial crisis and with the automobile industry falling a victim to the economic downfall, our world has an opportunity to revamp the entire automobile industry, with public investment and, possibly, a world-wide initiative. Turning the automobile industry into a robotics industry might be the first step in the human destiny toward a completely automated technology. World political leaders should have the wisdom to see this opportunity. This huge project is blessed by the spirit of Ta-You Wu, who coined and defined the term jumpulse.

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in future we should be able to power source that is seen on iron man movie

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By efficient engineering we can greatly support the energy prolems that we are facing or will be facing by employing the combination of multiple non conventional energy sources together ,like we can use wind ,solar,geothermal energy sources and making a common node which will provide electricity collected from such a sources. Another simple way to make things reusable efficiently till end point .

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As an engineer i,we have to think beyond presnt technolgies,wich are old...we need fresh every thing fresh..want to silently conquer the technoloy,,as SILENT TECHNOVIAS.

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Use software engineering to provide for the following to come true: Capital markets are unstable. In the past there was no way to make them stable. But today we have computer power that can be used to make them stable. By using the greater computer power of today we can have a much higher turn over of capital in the capital market. This higher turnover will make the market harder to game or control and the market will no longer have the unstable run ups or declines. Who can change or control the market when say 20% of the capital is trading each day? So now that we have the compute power to provide for all these transactions that will smooth out the market how do we force people to turn over at a rate of 20% a day? Easy, put a cap gains tax of 0% (zero) on all gains of 7 days or less and put a cap gains tax of 90% of all gains of more than 7 days. The likes of Yahoo, Micosoft and/or Sun Micro Systems will give us the systems that will provide automated software agents to support turning over one's investments every 7 days (based on the specs you give the agent). A system like this will make the financial markets work as smoothly as the local fruit market.

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Problem: Limited fresh clean water Solution: The transport of melted Iceberg water from the Southern Hemisphere to America. Engineering can help America by developing the simple technologies of gathering, transporting and distribution of iceberg water from Mega icebergs that have run aground in the Southern Hemisphere around the 57 latitude. Iceberg water is a renewable resources and recognized as such by academia and the UN. Melting iceberg water can add to Americas fresh water resources. Giant fresh water tankers driven by photovoltaic cells and other eco-friendly power sources can economically supply an endless need for fresh drinking water not contaminated by industrial and pharmaceutical pollutants. Recycled drinking water does not mean clean water, its just water that meets a lower standard. Iceberg water does not mean the continued wasting of water only the expanded supply and the possibility of better water management. Right now all we are doing is recycling not expanding our water supply. Technology can only do so much. We are slowly poisoning our self's with recycled water just like the Romans did with Lead pipes. Think about it!

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Hi, I hope engineering will end meatindustry and end animal suffering by replacing it with brilliant cropteqniques feeding the entire world.

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As we can see that we are short of our natural resouces.. we have to shift to an alternative one....for example if we take the solar energy.. we can use it i many ways.. but the major question is how can we? fro that the answer is engineering.....

"I think limiting the goals to just fusion and solar, is diminishing the impact that we will need to see from multiple sources." 

I think that your engineering grand challenges are too narrow wrt energy. There are a number of alternative energy technologies that could be game changers alone, and even more likely, all together. We will likely need a number of these new and expanding technologies to get us out of our current crisis. I think limiting the goals to just fusion and solar, is diminishing the impact that we will need to see from multiple sources.

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Engineers are the controller of the world, in their hands what other need i think that engineer in next century will improve the ways to get rid of pollution as well as developing new machines that can work through solar energy which can lead to zero-gas pollution

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Make the built environment safer by helping developing nations establish and maintain building codes. Safety engineering is the instrumental arm of injury epidemiology.

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engineers can help improve the world but they don't have many hands to do it...we need some more ideas in improving...it's not just engineering can do it...we can do it all...everyone can do it, some of us lying around being a jerk...they can help if they wanna...people change the world...its not just engineering can help,scientist cure our sickness...hahaha...this is my own opinion

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I don't know how genetic engineering can help improve the world in the next century or so

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With our systems of education in threat, we have another direction to handle before addressing the big challenges. The initial application of process engineering to public education in the USA is available as a free download: http://www.jessebrogan.co m/Downloads/EdImprovePlla n.pdf.

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I was told Mr. Raymond Kurzweil that reverse-engineering of the brain is impossible and unnecessarily task. There I will provide some details. “The plan is to engineer the mind by reverse-engineering the brain,” says Dharmendra Modha, manager of the cognitive computing project at IBM Almaden Research Center.” Reverse-engineering of the brain is impossible task. The brain is a dynamic structure. Dynamic of the brain structure is reflecting condition of a body where the brain is seating moment after moment. That will bring requirements to model a brain as whole in time short enough to make that structure pseudo static and link that structure to history of the body. That is important restriction. Brain structure is reflecting conditions of the body and did not have links to conditions in the environment. That is enough to make reverse-engineering of the brain impossible. Why that task is unnecessarily? So far no one attempt to build the human hand like printers. The same is with a brain. We have to build the devices with functionality of a brain. That is possible to accomplish on the base of a conventional computers and I know how to do that. Be my partners. Michael

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Asteroid/Comet Impact Prevention is an "insurance policy" for civilization. http://legendarypharma.co m/jdf/impact.html In our Solar System, each of the planets is hit by large, high-velocity rocks at unpredictable times. A meteorite which is 50 meters (150 feet) or more in diameter can wipe out a whole city. A larger meteorite hitting the ocean would cause tsunamis, huge waves which could wipe out all of the coastal cities on the shores of that ocean. A meteorite several kilometers in diameter (more than a mile) would cause global firestorms, trigger massive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis, and terminate human civilization and most "higher" species of life on Earth. If a comprehensive sky survey were in progress, a threatening asteroid could be discovered months or years in advance. If diversion planning is begun in advance, then the longer lead time could be used to send up a rocket to divert an incoming comet before it strikes the Earth. The expense of such preparations could be justified as buying DISASTER INSURANCE or implementing safety programs. We need to scan the entire sky every month. Long lead times are essential to successfully divert these objects to safely miss us. PARABOLIC COMETS (Long-period comets) are a special threat because: **They come through the Solar System only in once in human history, so we have no historical records by which to predict them. **They can come in from any direction including the north or south pole. **They come at extremely high velocities (50,000 miles per hour). **They are very large. **They could smash the Earth on their FIRST PASS through the inner Solar System, so we don't have lots of time to calculate their orbits. Hence the NEED TO SCAN THE ENTIRE SKY EVERY MONTH

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Focusing on a few challenges can draw attention away from others. Any list limits knowledge of others sometimes unintentionally. My list, with clear statement that I think lists can be somewhat misleading wihout misleading being my intent, would add 1. Finding ways to stop collapse of cities into the soil or tunnels underneath in some cities 2. Finding ways so that people with disabilities do not lose rights under guardianship 3. Time travel through wormholes 4. Much further distance with space travel 5. Engineering home gardening and urban gardening when people need food without damaging farming agriculture 6. Decreasing launch costs 7. decreasing radiation exposure during space travel 8. Making space travel more affordable 9. Engineering ideas wthout making them so that ideas can be shown to eachother 10. Building bridges out of fabric so that they can be laid easily 11. more boats to more people to respond to water level rises 12. Controlling 9/11 like airplane use 13. understanding where missile technology is going and controlling the technology from harming others 14. Helping people not misuse products like I misuse or overuse caffeine sometimes through helping people understand results of overuse My list would include many more issues as well. Fun to get participation on engineering going. James T Struck BA, BS, AA, MLIS

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engineering means engine earing.earing is nothing but ear getting info sec to sec.

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My comment concerns the lack of engineering and technology fields being selected by our current students. If the Administration wins its battle to cancel the Constellation program then how many young engineers does that affect when it comes time for them to select a program of study? How many students will choose other degrees outside of engineering and technology? There is already a lack in Aerospace Engineering graduates in the US today. According to current NASA Science and Engineering population statistics, nearly 87% of its workforce is of the age 35 and older. Of that 87%, 45% of those individuals will be eligible for retirement within the next five years. Young engineers who were motivated by space exploration and the dream of one day becoming an astronaut have just been removed by this Administration. How does canceling American’s spaceflight program improve our current education and workface gap in engineering and technology? It doesn’t! The number of predicted jobs for commercial spaceflight is less than the number of jobs that will be lost in canceling Constellation. Where do those young professionals go? By losing them you’ve just increased the time it will take to send American’s to ISS or beyond LEO. Where do you stand????

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I would really appreciate for making us know about the great challenges.I have many querry`s regarding the anti matter can anyone give me information about that in detail.

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Post-Science Institute has solved the problems of completely automated software and touch, or collision without bounce. The following is an explanation of the significance and the technology of the software: Of all the advantages in software design, none is more important than the design requirement of permanence achieved through complete automation, a lifetime unfinished goal of John von Neuman, the inventor of the computer. Generally, a permanent entity will someday be infinitely more valuable than a temporary entity. In fact, permanence could be the only discipline of its own for computer science, and is the main characteristics of life science, which can be defined as the programming of DNA, the prime example of a completely automated software system. The condition of permanence is achieved through endless self-generation and automatic updating, which are necessary features of complete automation. Without auto-updating, nearly all the software budget today is allocated for software manual updating. The three main innovations in the completely automated software are (1) Universal User Interface, (2) Universal Computer Source Code, and (3) Universal Data File, the last of which has been thoroughly examined by the patent examiner for the completely automated software “Self-generating and Completely Automated Software System” Pat. No. 5, 485, 601 and only needs to be understood by technical people. Just the first two innovations should provide a convincing argument for the absolute need of the completely automated software. Universal Computer Source Code is simply integers from minus to plus infinity. The completely automatic manipulation of integers by the computer is the key to complete automation. The Integer is the natural language of the machine or the computer. DNA, represented by 1, 2, 3, and 4, is the ultimate example of Universal Computer Source Code. However, the integer representation of machine instructions is hard for the human users to remember. To minimize the technical barrier to computer usage, instructions should be explained and documented in human native languages or universal symbols. Universal User Interface is a tree-structured, numerical multiple-choice question format, which allows the human user to understand the questions expressed in human understandable expressions and the computer to handle the integer answers. Humans have been created with the ability to remember an unlimited amount of information through Universal User Interface, which groups similar items in the same branch of the tree-structured multiple-choice questions. This ability is related to the Human Associative Memory, which allows the human user to retrieve an unlimited amount of information from a computerized library catalog and gives humans the capability in their self-creation. The completely automated software will bring about a technical breakthrough of historical proportion, even exceeding the significance of that of the Industrial Revolution. In addition to bridging the gap between human technology and creational technology, the completely automated software, with the elimination of all the technical barriers in computer usage, will make the tangible contribution of full employment, one of the ultimate goals of economics.

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We need to make it possible for individual inventors to work with our IP system. The present patent arrangements work well for big pharma but the costs crush the little guy. I am that little guy: http://iotd.patrickandrew s.com/

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In my opinion, there are hundreds of ways that mankind can use its resources in a more efficient and eco-friendly manner. It is more an issue of general knowledge and awareness by the public, coupled with favorable economical and political policies to be implemented by governments and multinational corporations. I´m particulary interested in the supply of clean water to the population, specially those who can´t afford it or are geographically distanced from mayor cities. A lot of these technologies already exist but are not being implemented either because there is a lack of budget or action by the government. Relatively cheap forms to accomplish this if by using surfaces or devices that capture the water vapor from humid air and condensate it to liquid form. This is a simple yet effective way to obtain water from the air (a source that is present in abundance). In addition to this, there is a huge development in water filter by using ceramic filters or activated carbon. It is important to take into account that these methods are not energy demanding such as reverse osmosis or desalinization plants, and could be supplied (transported) easier to populations in need, for example in the current situation in Haití. Thank you. Chemical Engineering department, Universidad de Los Andes

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I would like to enter this competition with my idea. I would like to work on the sustainable infrastructure division while designing and building a tornado proof house for urban areas in danger of tornadoes. I am a construction management engineering major at the ASU Dell Webb School of Construction. I have a sponsor that would possibly help fund a test home built from nearly 100% recycled material. Would I qualify? Thanks Mike Fischer

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first and the most important thing is stop cutting trees for construction of roads,buildings etc.allmost everbody finds one a new tech. to save our environment but nobody focuses on the trees . i think everybody should atleast grow a small garden in there house.start pricing water at a high rate for a particular class of people with so and so income so that they will understand the value or rather opt for a water meter just like electricity.

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COME UP WITH A PLAN TO PLACE IN SCHOOLS WORK PROGRAMS TO RESTORE TO WORK ETHIC IN OUR CHILDREN. THIS IS NOT AN EDUCATION JOB ITS GOING TO TAKE AN ENGINEER TO MAKE A PLAN TO INCLUDE WORKING FIELD TRIPS TO ALLOW FOR KIDS TO GET INVOLVED NOT SET BACK. THIS WOULD BE SOMETHING THAT WOULD BE NEW, NOT SURE HOW IT COULD BE DONE. SOMEBODY SMART HAS GOT TO GET INVOLVED. MAKE IT AN ENGINEER THANK YOU !!!

"The biggest problem with this is not that we do not know how to purify water or help prevent disease, but rather that we do not have efficient systems to transport our help to these areas." 

I believe that the first step to answering these questions is to identify our most pressing problems. While there are many out there and many great minds to focus on them, I believe our most pressing human problems begin in the areas that cannot gain access to healthcare, clean water, and other essential needs. The biggest problem with this is not that we do not know how to purify water or help prevent disease, but rather that we do not have efficient systems to transport our help to these areas. If we can develop technologies that can be airdroped or distributed in more efficient ways, we can make all of the knowledge and resources we have more useful to all. This is one of the weakest links in the system and therefore I believe its one of the places we need to focus the most effort.

"It is vital that engineers come up with a way to mimic the Earth's magnetic field to protect Earth from solar winds, radiation, etc. " 

We really need to focus on the non-renewable resources we are wasting away such as water and food. Along with this, it is vital that engineers come up with a way to mimic the Earth's magnetic field to protect Earth from solar winds, radiation, ect. It is weakening at a dramatic rate.

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Real time Language Interpreter A machine that remove the barrier of languages over knowledge. If someone has to learn Engineering Knowledge, first he has to understand English Language well. He has to do more work on it. (I'm not telling that he cant learn English but waste of time in learning English to gain main knowledge of Engineering). One person is good in one of the Language (other than English) but if he cant grab knowledge of English first, he cant easily grab the soul of Engineering. "Life is short". "Engineering Researches are more time consuming". In this current situations wasting of time in learning New Language is Costly for Engineers to grab the Knowledge. He already have much Work load for Engineering Stuffs. And Also this is a time of Globalization, none wanna to stick themselves on one point. So to explore his Ideas or Knowledge he has to communicate in more languages to reach more peoples. This Idea may useful to save REGIONAL LANGUAGES too. After all, 'Knowledge Is Power, Language Is Just A Medium To Represent It. ' ABOUT ME Name : Mainak Country : India Studying : MTech (Machine Intelligence) Institute : Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information And Communication Technology Studied : BTech Institute : Dharmsinh Desai University

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Hawk Eye Plane System A plane which can be handled by a Single person though a PC. Features : 1 Smaller in Size 2 It can be transform in other form i.e. it can be shrink or can change its shape as per users needs. 3 It has Vision too. i.e. It can capture images as per need. 4 It can have Sound recorder to record sounds for more informations. 5 It must can send signals to pilot(PC). 6 It can make explosion to destroy enemy area or self. Most Important 7 It must be resistible to water, air storms, and it can run in each conditions (i.e. Nature Resistible) 8 No limitations for its area to be covered. Use: 1 Useful in Spying. 2 Easily find the wanted person without losing army men. 3 It can be used in mainly those areas where a physical presence of a human not possible. ABOUT ME: Name : Mainak Dave Country : India Study : Mtech Student Institute : Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology BTech : Dharmsinh Desai University Institute

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Developing Engineer is enough now, Everyone is having enough mind to develop the new things, even a less brain user is also a good developer, Now this is the time to develop world with best environment for human being. Now i belive the most important topic which we need to work on is OZONE layer damaging issue. We need to think about it, which is most important now cause this is affecting all human being's life.  So i suggest we need to take care of this issue . I am requesting all of you please look in to this to make the world happy and safe for all human being !!! !!!

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My idea might well fit inside the pages of "Energy and Transportation: Challenges for the Chemical Sciences in the 21st Century" I propose the Glass Highway for America's transportation needs. A computerized electrical highway system that will power America's electric cars at 200-300 mph. The cars will be eco-clean & not even require a battery. The roadbed will be made of 50' sections of 2-3 foot glass (from melted sand) embeded with reinforcing, electrical conductors, a car slot, and communication wires. Massive machines will make the panels onsite and lay the 6 lane glass panels, 2 to a section, 6 lanes going, 6 lanes coming. The power will be supplied by 100 nuclear reactors built on each of our three coasts, to power America's future. Next to these will be built desaltination units, running fresh water by piping into the arid interiors of America. The nukes will also be hooked into the electrical grid to lower industrial costs, farming costs, domestic costs, and the glass highways. Overall, this project would eliminate our oil dependence, provide cheap consumer products, help us compete with the world, provide jobs, stop killing Americans due to exposure, and take our workforce to work at high speed uncongested highways. Thank you.

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I am currently studying mechanical engineering at strathclyde university in Glasgow Scotland. I have always been interested to find out if it would be possible to build a transparent solar panel, which can then be used as a window. If you think of these huge skyscrapers we have now, if this technology existed they would power themselves and more. Obviously this will not be the first time someone has thought of the idea but if you could give me some information that would be great. Thanks

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Title: On the quantum theory of Einstein's argument for the Analysis of 0. Introduction. The universe, in nature, natural phenomena should be similar, only the material universe, the formation of different density and structure of the different quality of performance, makes us feel amazing. 1. Nature of matter and energy. High and low quality material and the formation of high and low speed compression level of energy; promoting the synthesis of high-density material, decide the level of synthesis of high energy density material, high-density substance that is very low or lower the quality of countless particles of compression; promoted by the need to promote the same level of energy ; impact the level of decomposition of the quality of the material synthesized particles can be high-energy particles of synthetic material to lower the quality of decomposition of the small particles, and to promote particles of high-speed movement, high-speed movement of very small particles can enter the high energy density material, in collision of high-density material; arising from the accumulation of high-energy, at the same time, external high-energy to promote accumulation of material arising from the energy of movement of high-energy, high-density material and there must be space, ultra-high energy can be broken down into very low quality of the material particles, the level of energy; quality is endless. High-quality high-speed movement of material will be high-energy friction material into a large number of low-quality particles. From sub-atomic. Proton. Electronic components, neutrons from a number of electronic synthesis, the electronic energy by the atoms inside and outside the movement to promote. Pressure by the weight of the material compression; energy thrust; cold reaction; by Block, and synthesis of particles of different densities; structure to properties of atoms to the material. That is, the weight of the pressure of compressed high-density material is the weight of the material particles will be compressed in many high density, the thrust of energy that is the level of high and low quality of the material of the high and low speed movement of material particles of energy to promote compression, thermal expansion or movement of many particles of high-speed collision of the energy generated material composed of particles or the expansion to break down the material into a soft particles, condensation or low-energy composition of the material so that many static and rigid particles, the seat edge to promote material that is, when the particle energy must be blocked high-density substance. The level of quality that is composed of atomic particles to the most basic unit of material. The performance of different high and low quality of particles mixed into cells of different density and structure of the cells to the performance of different properties of plants; biological. Cell density of the material that is the quality of cell synthesis of the energy density of the material. High-density material, the more the number of particles needed to effectively break down a certain energy degradation, it is difficult or slow low-energy decomposition and degradation of high density material, low-energy decomposition of the material can be friction and low-quality particle surface. Low-energy particles that is low-quality low-speed particle movement, the collision can not be strong; friction particles of high-quality synthesis of high-density material particles and decomposition of energy to friction. Synthesis of the material structure that is formed between the material particles of the gap; gap, different high-density mixed particles, very low quality synthetic particles of different density and body-like particles of higher quality. High density of different body shape and different sizes of particles of numerous kinds, and different properties of particles of different properties of synthetic material. Light in different density and structure of the material to produce different colors, different properties of density and structure of how much the quality of the material can absorb light. Some high-density material; tough; high temperature, some soft; Some have toughness; Some are flammable, such as gunpowder; oil; iron and steel; the density and structure of plants. Crystal structure that is the gap between numerous particles, particles of low density between the meson, photon - particle easy to penetrate. Flammable material that is the synthesis of particles of lower density, low-density particles have a more low-density particles as a meson, easy to make high-energy particles flammable and low-density energy. Internal high-density material to high-quality, by the energy of the particle movement to promote the accumulation of more rapid movement of the particles can not be released outside the accumulation of high-energy, external energy to promote the accumulation of internal energy arising from higher energy movement. Such as external temperature and low temperature heating and cooling have a role. The star of the heat energy will be broken down into very low quality of the material particles, the energy limited the promotion to a certain distance, some by the energy level of the quality of the material to enter the collisions between particles have high energy, the energy accumulation of material by the external energy to promote movement and rotation magnetic field energy to other particles in order to capture higher quality, and some material with the release of the laws of celestial bodies to run to run, and some substances absorb their own magnetic field, and some other substances with a strong magnetic field to capture the stars. Particles composed of material for the production of heat and friction of the source, the weight of the pressure of compression and friction, energy and the friction of the thrust to promote (a large number of high-energy particles into the material with the friction; the formation of high-energy collisions). Stars within the field of high energy can not be effectively released by rotating the external energy to promote and stimulate the outer stellar particles that form a magnetic field, the solar system by the energy and the activities of the Milky Way, the Milky Way galaxy by the greater energy and the activities of ultra, ultra outside galaxies greater energy galaxies unclear. Galaxies in the deep air support there is for energy, the universe, there is also in deep energy for air support. Nature, ultra-high energy density; structural material performance, ultra-low energy density; the structure of the performance of the material also. The galaxy; objects should include the quality of the sphere of influence of its magnetic field. Uneven distribution of the material universe, there is the level of sub-stellar quality, high-quality energy generated galaxies - magnetic fields and the release of lower-quality energy dominated galaxies, stars and galaxies to promote the activities and operation of the energy that is released by magnetic fields and energy . Galaxies in the universe, that is, the quality of this release tiny particles of high-speed run to the far into the material by the formation of energy. The quality of the material universe, that is, the quality of tiny particles to smaller particles. 2. Conclusion language So Einstein do not think there is a certain density; structure; the quality of the particle, the particle level of quality is endless, with different densities of particles and structure of substances (particles), high and low speed of the formation of high and low quality of the material energy. On scientific cutting-edge issues, please consider this research, a lot of technological breakthroughs in natural science questions need to find answers from this article, I just love scientific principles, what is the exchange of views with me.

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In my very unprofessional opinion, it seems to me that planting trees and halting deforstation of virgin forests would solve multiple problems. Not only would they greatly decrease the CO2 content in the atmosphere, but it would drastically decelerate desertification, restore the water table in deforested areas, and restore endangered ecosystems.

"I think that we should stop using money currency and switch to a network (separate from the internet) of electronic debits and credits. " 

I think that we should stop using money currency and switch to a network( separate from the internet) of electronic debits and credits. This way crime can become completely preventable in a society that used this system. Fraud could not exist because of the system would be somewhat autonomous. We can have some sort of fingerprint ID which is how your account is charged and also how you are paid by your employer. We could have people who apply for business licenses to have a fingerprint ID scanner coupled with an ID card scan to ensure proper identity. When i say crime i mean illegal trades like drug trafficking. If we are not using cash it would be difficult and less economical for people to deal drugs because their business scanning system would show accounting errors or some strangely high priced items. Tax evasion would not exist either because all income is Automatically reported. It is a little bit of a fantastical idea but maybe something of the sort could help economic regulation.

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We are developing a technology called Beamed energy propulsion that could make access to space finally economically viable for humanity, this technology, which has research groups in Russia, China, Brazil, Germany, Japan and the US will usher a new era for humanity,, the main benefit of which will be energy independence through solar energy beamed from solar farms in low earth orbit. We feel that the basic science work has been done and now we "only" have engineering challenges ahead of us. so it surprises me that with the renaissance in space sciences BEP is not getting its due, we hope this will change in the near future beacuse our success will be everybody's success in the end. best to everybody, Alessandro Biglioli CEO LTI (Lightcraft Technologies International)

"Engineers, more than any other profession, are educated, trained and experienced in the art and science of applying knowledge and researching new knowledge to solve new problems with soltuons that are at the same tiem safe, effectiv, efficient and sustainable." 

In my humble opinion the greatest contribution that engineers should make in the next century is to provide an objective, authroitative and credible approach to all the major challenges facing the global community. There is so much information made available on every conceivable subject that the prblem has become one of analysis, explanation and problem solving rather than debate and discussion. Engineers, more than any other profession, are educated, trained and experienced in the art and science of applying knowledge and researching new knowledge to solve new problems with soltuons that are at the same tiem safe, effectiv, efficient and sustainable. No other group can claim to do this with rigour and accountability, based on professional qualifications, accreditation and governence. Engineers make things happen and take full responsibilitiy for their works

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Dear Sir, During my M.Sc. in Environmental Technology, I was given a class-assignment to tackle a global environmental problem in an innovative way. I chose “Rise of CO2 in the Air” because I had something to say on this. I wrote a plan which was low tech, can easily put into practice and where the whole world can come to play. The plan opens a new dimension to carbon trade for businesses, also the World. The outline was as this- Fast-growing trees assimilate CO2 out of air fast. We need to harvest these trees for their fast growing period in selected areas around the world. The harvest (dry hard wood is >70% carbon? And very slow degrading?) will be put away into caves, empty mines and faults- thus putting away atmospheric CO2 safely and cheaply for a very long time. After all, thousands of years old similar fossilized trees we use (oil, coal and gas) cause air CO2 to rise. Why not put back some? A Chinese saying is “Catastrophe = Opportunity”. Could we not witness the CO2 rise as an opportunity to store some energized Carbon (similar to currency?) for future use? Businesses may choose to grow & bury calculated numbers of trees each year to compensate for their extra carbon emission need. This plan will help developing countries come to terms with the world’s Carbon Trade agreement where they can even keep the harvest for themselves. This act means no offense to tree-lovers, forest-lovers or nature lovers. Only newly grown, purposefully, commercially harvested trees will be used, leaving natural forests alone. Scientists will calculate the numbers of trees required each year and decide types of trees to harvest for total sustainability (go bananas! ..may start experimenting with water hyacinth!). Desperate time calls for desperate measures! I know this is not ‘The’ solution, but as an Environmental Technologist I believe it has the signature of being a substantial part of it. Sreeman Mishu Barua, MSc(UK), REHS(USA) BaruaEnviro Consultancy, Plot: X-50, Block: A, Chandgaon R/A, 4212 CTG, Bangladesh. +88 (0)31 672678 +88 (0)183 0183 777 sanitarian@inbox.com

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why can't we employ hot springs bacteria in coal stacks to use the CO2 generated by burning coal to release 02 and carbohydrate (the latter can be recycled as fuel) by the process of photosynthesis?

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As an Army Officer who transported material across the world, I saw what modern transportation has done to rapid movement of large items. Instead of pipelines, dams, and reservoirs that have large environmental impacts, why not use the modular technology in conjunction with trains to move water from areas that are flooded or potentially flooded. A 60 car train should transport about 4.5 million gallons of water. The technology to pump water is there and used regularly. GE has hybrid train engines and with some additional electricity (solar panels etc), the engine could run hydrogen and electricity while powering the pumps for the water. Modular tanks are already produced or current sea/land vans could be lined to carry water. Currently there at least 40,000 unused rail cars. Multiple ways to link systems but it is a way to remove water before it damages and provide water to areas that need it using excess capacity or a specific set up.

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Develop an engine which burns fossil fuel or non-fossil, is further exploited as much as the heat from burning these fuels, for use in liquid. It would be a great way for new engineering to develop a sustainable system. BRAZIL the first country to flex the world!

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I need to show a motor to somebody that I've design . It put out no pollution, totally revolutionary,(it uses a form of energy that everybody seams to have over look.)and yet is powerful enough to run a freight train.Who can I show it to? P.S. It would take about 10 minutes to show.

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Build an ozone machine that pumps O3 from the atmosphere into the stratosphere

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I would just like to inform those that might be interested that my ideas for food safety would be to tell us where exactly the food was grown, and not where it was shipped from. Remember the strawberries a few years ago sickened several grade school kids and we were told they were shipped from California---but they were grown in Mexico. I have instructed my family, "We buy nothing from Mexico, period!!". Our Vice President said in an article in the USATODAY paper yesterday, said several things about how we should operate to make our food safer but never mentioned about where the food is grown, not shipped from!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now, on another topic. In todays issue of the same paper they show a man telling us how much he liked his little electric car, and I have an idea about this! If you have an accident and bang up a fender or another panel somewhere, we should take a page out of the Nascar book and make our frames much stronger than we do today, then cover them with plastic fenders and panels that we should be able to buy from our 5 & dime store on the corner, or our parts store who handles things of this nature, Anywhere where there is competition to hold the price down. Our owners of these Nascars should be able to inform the makers of these panels where to get the best deals!! Can you see where these things could put people back to work, both in the plastics business and the installation and the selling of the part??? I don't know why we are stalling on these subjects!!!! Al Smith

"I think the biggest engineering challenge is to have the profession recognised at its true worth to society. " 

I think the biggest engineering challenge is to have the profession recognised at its true worth to society. There are a few countries, such as Germany, Japan and parts of the USA, where engineering is revered as a qualification, and the profession flourishes in spite of many headwinds. In other societies in the developed world engineering is paradoxically seen as a basic skill, not worhty of recognition in status or reward. The paradox lies in the fact that the education system in these societies has been evolved to avoid the hard subject matter that is a prerequisite to any engineering qualification. Societies that recognise the potential of engineering as a profession, and appropriately reward its achievers, will contribute most in the discovery and development of solutions to the specific problems that your website seeks to prompt. I believe that the effort in this direction over the next decades will increasingly eminate from the east, which is a logical consequence of the fact that such a high proportion of the region's Kindergarden parents understand and pass on the importance of education, especially in the mathematical and science arenas. This aspect of glabalisation is one of the most positive I can imagine.

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Solar Highways: Although solar fotovoltaic cells are a still less profitable way to obtain electric energy when compared with fosil energies, there's no doubt that they are an absolute trend for next decades and that this source of energy will be key for next generations' survival. In that particular sence, I think it could be a good idea to start exploiting right now the possibility to join in the same frame the construction of highways with the construction of solar centrals. A highway can easily support at its sides (and in the middle zone sometimes) a frame of solar fotovoltaic panels elevated for example 4 or 5 meters from the soil and with the possibility to rotate according to the sun position. This already well known structures could be replicated in theory across all the highway of any sunny zone of any country in the world. The idea is to take advantage on the fact that a highway is a sunk cost with a permanent impact and this impact can be additionally used to support another sunk cost with another permanent impact. Possibily, there could also be construction savings. Furthermore, it would be easier at the begining to attract investors for a solar central if it is part of a surelly profitable toll communication way, than otherwise. Business could be made for example with a partnership between an energy company and a highway company. The main point of this idea is that this way the presence of fotovoltaic solar energy arround the globe could be boosted just because there's an intense need to built or renewal highways everywhere, specially in emerging economies.

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West and South regions of our country are suffering from the lack of water (as many other parts of the World). But there is an invention (US # 5,598,661) that can solve this problem once and forever. It allows to use any brackish or seawater for agricultural irrigation (one of the major use of water) with minimum investment. It will allow to return millions of acres of fallow land back into production and free valuable drinking water for population.

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Please look abstract my research A hypothesis is proposed concerning the cause of the origin of universal gravitation. This cause consists in a system of the ether vortex rotations. Physical and mathematical grounds are described and the formula for the determination of the space gravitation forces is deduced. On the basis of the vortex gravitation, the principles of creation and existence of the celestial bodies are shown. Methods of the use of the vortex gravitation properties for the space flight projection are proposed. My theory can to explane origin of gravitation, anomalies and accelerations space flight of satelites "Galileo", "Rosette", "Cassini". My theory can to make flight on Moon and other planets on 25-30% cheaply. My theory can to explaine cause of THE ELLIPSOIDAL SHAPE OF ORBITS and OF EBBS AND FLOWS. My article was published on journal http://jvr.freewebpage.or g/TableOfContents/Volume2 /Issue2/2-2.html I would like to receive your response with your opinion and your help to research its principle. Regards Sergey Orlo

"A bridge between physics and engineering in the field of nanotechnology can lead world to meet challenges like energy storage, environment purification and treatment of chronic diseases. " 

A bridge between physics and engineering in the field of nanotechnology can lead world to meet challenges like energy storage, environment purification and treatment of chronic diseases. For instance nano-TiO2 is proven to have been a great soruce of gas cleaning, energy storage and treatment of diseases like cancer. Production of nano-materials on larger scale can produce a great revolution in the engineering world.

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I think increasing the efficiency of biofuels, in the harvesting (or collecting, when we think of used cooking oil, for instance), processing, tax incentive, government laws and aid, and so on, is a challenge for this century.

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I believe we also need to address the phosphate cycle and our realization that phosphorus fertilizers are a finite resource that must be recycled.

"Refineries for used cooking oil and other materials, that can be processed into bio diesel, could be built." 

We need to find ways to produce biofuels economically on a large scale. Refineries for used cooking oil and other materials, that can be processed into bio diesel, could be built. It would solve two problems: how to dispose of used cooking oil, and how to provide cleaner, Petroleum-free fuel. Also, developing cellulosic ethanol and producing hydrogen on a large scale from water are other methods for providing renewable fuel that need to be further developed. Another Idea involves using plasma disposal units to dispose of our municipal refuse. I don't know why this technology is not used more widely

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I belive that another good idea for thinking about would be the new clean coal idea would be a good thing to research, id like to know more about it.

"Efforts to create photosynthesis artificially should certainly rank with sequestration of carbon dioxide as a challenge." 

1. I have serious doubts that sequestration of carbon dioxide will pass a cost-benefit test. Nature deals with it by using photo-synthesis to free the oxygen and use the carbon for building plant material. Effort to create photosynthesis artificially should certainly rank with sequestration of carbon dioxide as a challenge. It would be a lot easier to bury the resulting solid material. 2. If hydrogen is used as an energy-storage medium, the next question is whether it would more effective to ship the hydrogen to points of use, or to use it with fixed-base fuel cells at the point of creation and to transmit the resulting electricity to the points of use. I doubt that hydrogen and fuel cells in electric cars will prevail, so I bet on the second option. 3. Unspoken in the very meaningful challenge report is that population control lies at the heart of many of the problems addressed. The application of engineering to the reproductive process is certainly the equal of possible engineering actions to other biological processes. The fact that there are religious and other sociological barriers to the application of any results of such research and development should not prevent the search for better methods for dealing with this issue.

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There remains humanity's unflagging acceptance of the quasi-engineering challenge, that suggests Mother Earth is incapable of satisfying each and every need of her beloved inhabitants. Dismantling this roadblock will involve a paradigmatic shift, not unlike any other technology application, requiring techniques of behavior engineering, currently in vogue. The overarching belief in scarcity undermines innovation by virtue of its unquestioned acceptance in human reasoning. There is a fantastic abundance of electrical energy pervading our Solar System in the form of electric ring currents. Our challenge is therefore, to activate, arouse and awaken the bountiful creativity long repressed in the human mind. Once that is accomplished, it will become obvious that scarcity has always been the mere figment of the imagination.

""I think accelerating research in nanotechnology will help to improve the efficiency in any other engineering field."" 

I think accelerating the research in nanotechnology would help to improve the efficiency in any other engineering field, such as: industy (making it more sustanaible and competitive), electronics, construction materials, to enhance the use of natural resources, trasportation systems... And it would be also useful in medicine, scientific research and more. The uses of nanotechnology are almost endless. And after that, the solution of the challenges will have to be less difficult to achieve. Nanotechnology as a tool, not as an accomplishment.

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Please consider adding another Grand Challenge focused on complex adaptive systems. A few thoughts regarding a complex adaptive system grand challenge: This framework was influenced from work underway at the Boeing Company and the book "Complex Adaptive Systems" (Miller-Page). Research questions to consider: Study Industry-Academia and Governments as complex adaptive system: What is it that enables the their system to sustain productivity aggregate patterns through technological. For example in the aerospace industry, advanced material and product lifecycle management and global business partnerships i.e., distributed  global business shared risk-shared value investment model?  How robust are these heterogeneous social system? What is the capacity for dynamic adaptation? What policies and procedures enable adaptation, how do they propagate through the social network?  What is the effect of internal  external policy decisions, technology and global pressures change? How do these decisions support the goal oriented behaviors of social agents? (Contagion phenomena)  What computational models can we employ to better understand the Boeing Innovation culture, as a complex adaptive system?  What are the commonalities among adaptive agents (leadership, fellowship and extended workforce)? Can we distill these behaviors into prototypical adaptive behaviors; can we leverage this insight to shift lifelong learning strategies? Can we identify the level of sophistication and enabling conditions?  Social Niche Construction: the new business model fundamentally altered the internal agent behavior through exposure to global external agents and cultures. Can we model this new operational mode and understand how to leverage the combined intellectual capital generated from this diverse perspective? Social worlds: This new model presents a opportunity to shape influence global behaviors by shifting the balance of local and regional control. How is this accomplished by agents within this global environment? How does this decentralized  centralized balance occur, how does this impact agent behavior i.e., heuristic business modeling for the benefit of the collective system goals?  Social agents receive or acquire knowledge; the information is leveraged against a schema, processes and acted on. Within the social network, how do agents access information, what is the level of fidelity, how do they direct their acts toward optimizing the solution space?

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In order to generate more ideas for the betterment of humankind,we should encourage sharing the results of current research happening around the world. AN SMALL IDEA CAN CHANGE OUR LIVE..

"Every new highway project can cheaply and easily integrate more green practices with proper research and development. " 

It is vital that every engineering discipline do their part to advance the quality of the world we live in. I believe one of the most plaguing issues facing my field of engineering (Civil) is an unwillingness to accept the challenge to advance to a higher level of environmental consciousness. Every new highway project can cheaply and easily integrate more green practices with proper research and development. We need to reevaluate all of the old best management practices that some adhere to, and push engineering to a new level of environmental and social consciousness.

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I believe that only engineering has potential to change the society for better world in comming decades. we should do the following Develope spritual intelligence and skills in the new generation of engineering professionals so that we exploit the nature for minimum possible and expect very less for life to live . ABET Curriculum should have included above in their frame work.

"Several of the remaining challenges can be solved if we have access to clean power. " 

In my mind, the greatest challenge is the generation of cheap, plentiful power. Several of the remaining challenges can be solved if we have access to clean power. This can come from many sources but ultimately all power on earth originated with the nuclear fusion reactor we call the Sun. We should look to solar and nuclear power as the primary sources for this clean energy. Engineers and scientists should also take a larger part in developing public policy. In the US, I would go so far as to suggest the generation of a third political party - the Engineering Party. Let engineers do what they are trained to do - solve problems - in the political arena.

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I find very important the need to foster wide adoption of solar energy and develop means to massively increase the availability of clean water. Empowering the 1.000.000.000 excluded people in the world with cheap energy and water would make an important step in their lives. Next challenge: engineering science figuring out how to integrate the working members of those families to productive chains with optimized state funding. Maybe even showing how they can be involved in the obtention of their energy or water.

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Natural fisheries of high value tunas are on the verge of collapse, due to high world demand and ineffective international fisheries management, at the same time commercial tuna aquaculture is fast becoming a reality. Tuna is a much healthier form of protein then beef and large production of tuna could increase the world population's health and help ensure the availability of tuna well past the next century. Engineering of aquaculture systems to meet world demand for tuna can help to improve the world in the next century. To this end Hawaii Oceanic Technology, Inc has begun the engineering of large open ocean aquaculture vessels to raise tuna in large enough quantities necessary to meet world demand. Please refer to www.hioceanictech.com for more information regarding this pressing issue.

"We can try charging cell phones using solar energy." 

There are nearly billions people using cell phone. And there is a great amount of electricity used by people to charge their cell phone around the world. We can try charging the cell phones using solar energy. By doing this we can charge our cell phones where ever we go.

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Cereal crops that have the genetic ability to produce nitrogen in the same manner as legume crops.

"Food recommendations have been good and now with the new studies showing us that mind exercise can be good for the brain, we need to start finding other ways to help with people that have brain injuries or are aging and have Alzheimer's. " 

I think we need to discover and create better ways to engage the mind and keep it youthful. Food recommendations have been good and now with the new studies showing us that mind exercise can be good for the brain, we need to start finding other ways to help with people that have brain injuries or are aging and have Alzheimer's. Crosswords, playing Jeopardy and some website (http://blog.fitbrains.co m) are great, but there has to be more...

"Could we tap into volcanic magma and create blowback steam in the casing after pumping high pressure water through ceramic high temperature pipe? " 

Could we do more to turn our earth"s volcanos into geothermal furnaces? Could we tap into volcanic magma and create blowback steam in the casing after pumping high pressure water through ceramic high temperature pipe? Ceramic pipe is also used for water jet cutting? Shouldn't we be using the extra heat of global warming from as far down as possible? Turn ocean volcanic activity into hydrogen and oxygen mines via steam turbine powered remote electrolysis plants. The same ships that haul Natural Gas could haul Hydrogen. Come on people those zits to big for us or what? If the source of the heat of the magma is from a large concentration of high density and radioactive minerals "piled" up at the center, it may be at least part of the source of global warming and shouldn't we be trying to use it? Any chance some of our deep wells could turn into volcano's, if the heat from beneath is expanding?

"Mostly, to the general public, this list could represent the ideal direction in which humanity should progress. " 

Hi, I am also an engineer, and I like the idea of having these grand challenges listed. It serves a source of inspiration to help student engineers choose areas of study as well as to giving senior engineers something to consider for their career. This list also hopefully servers as an inspiration to business leaders looking for market opportunity areas or directions for R&D efforts. Mostly, to the general public, this list could represent the ideal direction in which humanity should progress. With that in mind, I thought this list could do with a few emerging areas that are currently growing fast in both research and commercial interest: 1) environmental and ecological conservation 2) planetary exploration and colonization 3) bioprocess and biofabrication technology ... anyone else has a few other categories?

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Engineers should find a way to harvest nitrogen from the air and transform it into energy to power vehicles. Just trying to think outside the box. I want to eliminate any use of liquid fuel of any sort to prevent anymore carbon footprints for everyone.

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we are known for breaking chains...chains which run a cycle of energy...we know how the energy from the sun is flowing through every corner of this planet without any flaw or drawback...the little energy which comes from the sun in our planet is being used in a wonderfull manner without any losses...sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening but still the flow of energy continues... i am very low in knowledge about the latest technology or even about the old...wheels which rotate at 3000rpm are used for just moving...imagine using this for generating electricity...

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I hold a BS and MS in Engineering and have worked in research and quality control of fuels for many years. I participated in a research team that patented a new fossil fuel called ORIMULSION in Venezuela. I have an idea that I believe would reduce the consuption of gasoline in 3 to 6%.

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i dont think in terms of the importance to the world, health informatics ranks as a major engineering challenge. i mean lets look at it, health informatics may be in the frontiers of engineering with nanomedicine and those things but what does it mean to almost half of the world who live in developing countries. the same goes for virtual reality and cyber space

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We need to provide tools for software and technology to learn from individual users. We should teach our technology to work how we need it to, for individual needs. If we share these patterns of behavior, we will provide the ability for others to use those same patterns and apply them to different applications. If technology is driving this type of movement, it will then be available to any technology that comes our way. We can even go as far as sharing how we live and think as an individual, giving insight into human behavior. All the while, logging this information using intelligent technologies.

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In our morden science world an engineering is an very iku analysis of an system so now we need technology over atomic study of an material to analyse the scientific reaction on the space then only we conform wether life in space is possible or not.

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Consider placing sol-stationary solar collectors in series between the earth and venus. The collectors would be convex mirrors (~3 ft. in diameter) teathered to reflective foil parabolic parachutes (~500 ft in diameter) with a hole in their middle. The concave side of the foil would face the sun, reflect sunlight to the convex mirror which would then focus it earthward through the hole in the foil. Dozen of these assemblies could be placed in a line so that the final beam could be dozens of megawatts of thermal energy. Each assembly would be held into place by the balancing of the solar wind force pushing the assembly spaceward against the gravitational force on the mirror. The nearer an assembly is to the sun, the lighter the mirror and or larger the foil. It is this opposing force dynamic that would allow an object that is closer to the sun to maintain the same rate of revolutioin around the sun as the farther away earth. These concentrated beams of light could be used to protect crops from occassional freezes, melt ice for fresh water, make battle zones temporarily uninhabitable, optimize climate (like evaporate sea water channeled to death valley so that Utah, Nevada have higher air humidity), run power stations on earth, and possibly disrupt hurricanes. Since the assembies could be 'sailed' by feathering the foil 'sail' they would only consist of a mirror, a small solar collector to run servos that tug on specific wires of the 'parachute'. In theory, mass produced assembly could be produced for a pitance. One last thought is the climate effect. Blocking sunlight and then channeling it for power reduces heat input to the earth as well as reducing heat retention.

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I feel that engineering would help us by inventing us a system where we can tap the huge amount of enegry that is generated during lightning

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"Make solar energy affordable" is inadequate; transmission and annual-scale firming storage are necessary for "solar" and other large-scale stranded renewables. Electricity transmission provides no affordable annual-scale storage. We find that gaseous hydrogen (GH2) and anhydrous ammonia (NH3), gathered and transmitted and distributed via underground pipelines as C-free fuels, firmed in solution-mined salt caverns (for GH2) and surface liquid "atmospheric" tanks, would allow us to run the world on renewables. See our papers, posters, and conference presentations at www.leightyfoundation.org /earth.php We must think energy systems, not sources. Now we need to build pilot plants to discover and demonstrate whether these GH2 and NH3 renewable-source energy systems are technically, economically, and socially attractive. Thank you.

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The engineering field is very important for this world.

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There are enough engineers in the world and more in the making. If every engineer takes up the task of developing one proposal to reduce environmental burden of whatever they are engineering, it will be a step closer to our environmental independance. It is a fight we ought to make collectively challenging each other and exchanging innovative as well as existing ideas. We get caught in the innovation realm, while leaving a lot of proven technologies that need breeding grounds on the table. What I say is lets bring up ideas whether innovative or not and let each of us see how relevant these ideas are in the things we do and foster the ideas that will better our purpose and environment.

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The only way engineering can advance is if we focus on what is actually possible within the realm of what we already know, I have read alot of the previous comments and reading some of them I actually lost a little bit of hope for humanity. Just a couple that stood out in my mind, Transmitting energy wirelessly is physically possible, but you cannot control it's direction, it is well known that electricity follows the path of least resistance, in an atmosphere resistance is homogenous, this means that the energy goes in all directions losing more and more energy to both the fact that it is spreading in a spherical manner, and the extremely high resistance of air. basically what I am saying is that you can transmit electricity through air, but it would be amazingly inefficient and would probably kill everyone in the room. the other proposition that I remember is the idea that we could make bacteria that consume CO2 and produce water, I would recommend a basic chemistry class to this idea's author, Carbon and oxygen do not make water. Hydrogen and oxygen do, so in order for these bacteria to produce water they would need to be supplied with hydrogen and probably produce pure carbon as a byproduct, not a terrible idea altogether until you consider the energy that has to go into the production of hydrogen it ends up being a wash, with today's energy costs its just not economical to use hydrogen fed bacteria for capturing carbon. but at least these two authors gave an honest effort, albeit a very idealistic attempt, they are still far superior to the single sentence of one "d.venkateswarlu" from india, this kind of pessimism is not constructive in any way, and if you want to continue making statements like that I suggest you change fields, literature perhaps. Overall i like the comments that are on this site, it shows that people, especially young people still have ideas, and still want to change the world for the better. With just a little bit of guidance these ideas could be pointed in the right direction and actually do some real good, for example, if you want to transmit energy efficiently, look into high temperature superconductors, if you want to work with bacteria to improve the world, look into genetics to make bacteria that produce new pharmaceuticals, I hope that my remarks on the two previous ideas did not discourage their authors, I only want to provide some of my previously mentioned guidance. and thats the end of my rant :P

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Engineering is not always necessary to solve the perils created by human kind itself. A general approach may bring a drastic change. I, being a student of chemical engineering, strongly believe that, small changes like avoiding packaged drinking water(to prevent exposure of plastics to environment) may be considered one of the step. Figure this out, a used plastic pouch has an approximate area of 0.005 sq.m only. Imagine that a small location of population around 100000 causes an exposure of around 5000 used bags per day. The area for heat transfer with atmosphere available is thus 25sq.m. Summing up for a city of population around 500000 and considering the average consumption of 200000, the area is 10000 sq. m. WOW! almost equal to 2 football grounds. These statistics are for a single day and a single location. Now consider usage in whole world, and u get 1000s of football ground exposed to amosphere directly to exchange heat. a temperature difference of 5 degrees celcius and avg conductivity of 2 will give 100000 watts of heat per day. Now u can imagine the HUGE effect of a small change.

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by making instruments which help us to remove nuclear power

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I might be young to have a respected opinion, but it's one that I believe will change how we engineer the world. We need a new form of transferring energy. A world without wires would help our environment, resources, discoveries, and how much energy we could access. Transferring energy in large quanities could lie in our information technology. Just like we can transmit images and sounds wirelessly, we could engineer a way to do the same with energy.

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Being the student of nanotechnology i can surely say that , mainly in area of Energy & Health , we can really really realise our dreams, Regarding solar energy i think by developing flexible cells and production of cell we have passed a big mountain in implementation of the solar cells (as before there were panels only , hard to put up and also they required the big place,), Multi-junction solar cells will be soon in all new role, Also i can say we are progressing fine area or Hydrogen fuel cells. also Carbon nanotubes are playing very very good role in these areas

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GREATEST DANGER OF UNIVERSE Space stations can be used to save life on earth- AS they create a weak gravitational effect their positions can be adjusted SO they can divert the forth coming danger from space IF they are placed at appropriate position. NEW TECH like LASERBEAMS,MASS DEVIATION,SPACE LAVITATION can also be used

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One important way that Engineering can improve the world, is to have an epistemological sense of itself, i.e. to know the bounds of problems it is equipped to potentially solve. Some problems are better addressed through social science, focusing on innovative applications of existing technology. For instance, virtual reality is listed as one of the 14 challenges, however online social networking applications such as Facebook, which are certainly some of the most compelling forms of "virtual reality" existing today, are not mentioned. Technology is a partial solution. When Engineers work in tandem with social scientists and social innovators, better solutions emerge.

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If food habits can be changed there is enough water for providing safe drinking water to all the population in the world. For instance one kg. of paddy consumes about 4000 litres of water. This coupled with minimizing transmission losses would help meet water needs of the world. Then the issue to be discussed would be equitable distribution of water. Politics enters here. We need statesman here not the run of the mill politicians whose agenda most of the times is for 3-5 year time span. Therefore the solution is not in finding engineering solution to the current problems(these will be replaced by new ones once they are solved) but engineering the emergence of statesman to lead the nation states and the world. Is this a tall order?

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People are always talking about two thing: global Warming and provide clean water to the world. The two don't really have any thing in common but I recently came up with an idea which will kill both birds with one stone. humans around the world have been creating carbon collectors a lot recently which store carbon underground for all eternity, well I thinking maybe humans could Bio-engineer a form of bacteria that breaths or eats carbon dioxide and the creatures waste product is water. we could create billions of these creatures in carbon collectors and when they've eaten all the carbon, fresh H2o awaits to be filtered, then drunked. It sounds a little crazy I bet but for every ton of CO2, there's 250 gallons of water, and given the billions of ton of CO2 we have created would mean hundreds of billions of gallons of new water would be available for mankind.

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This century will witness extinction of man from the earth.

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I propose that further involvement is taken into the consideration of materials science in environments not that of earth. One subject that has recently captured my attention is the rust on Mars. Now, think that for rust to occur, the process of oxidation and reduction needs to occur. Well, if one looks at the chemical composition of basic iron (III) oxide, you can see there is H2O included. Back to Mars: if there was ever found a reliable method of seperating this water from the hydrated iron oxide (a de-oxidation, if you will), then we could very well be producing water and oxygen on Mars -- a very good proposition for Space exploration/colonization in years to come.

"...governments of first-world countries should start making new desalination plants and distribute the water to third world countries..." 

I was thinking to give access to clean water throughout the world is this: governments of first-world countries should start making new desalination plants and distribute the water to third world countries and use the water to replenish reservoirs with the water [the reason why I think it would be best to replenish reservoirs rather than just give people the water is because the reservoirs are where the water evaporates into the atmosphere and begins the water cycle which would be better because it would feed crops better, gives nature some of the water for plants and animals, and distribute the water much better.]  I'd also a have people make sure that theres only a certain amount of water each person or farm would get; making it much more sustainable. last but certainly not least, I start making a wide range of water plants that recycle the sewage water, filter and clean it, and redistrubute the water [they already do have a plant located in orange county, California that recycles sewage water but It would be good if we started making lots of these plants.] if we did all these things, we would save millions [if not billions because a third of our world lacks clean water.] of life's, and stop world hunger.

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Engineering, reviewing current trends, will lead to more efficient technologies. These technologies will not be enitirely new ones, but improved versions of the ones we use today. I conducted a research lately on the future of aeronautics. I designed a plane for the aviation needs of 2058. During the research I noticed that current technical efforts were directed on improving current technologies rather than making new ones. For example, the research on the propulsion systems is meant not to come up with an engine with an entirely new mechanism, but instead to understand the operating principles better through computational engineering and then only to 'modify' current designs. By studying new concepts like the Boundary Layer Ingestion (BLI), engineers are working to change the current propulsion sytems by varing nozzle/intake geometry, engine placement, and bypass ratios, so that the utilize BLI efficiently. The results are better engine configurations which can be validated without largescale design revisions. This means that technology can be improved significantly to meet changing demands with minimum wastage of effort and, most importantly, money. Engineering in the coming years will improve existing technologies with moderate capital investments, benefiting the developing economies in particular.

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USA Energy / Usage / Imports https://www.cia.gov/libra ry/publications/the-world -factbook/print/us.html Natural gas - proved reserves: 5.551 trillion cu m (1 January 2006 est.) Natural gas - production: 490.8 billion cu m (2005 est.) Reserves = 5551/491 = 11.3 yrs (AT CURRENT USAGE RATES). Oil - proved reserves: 21.76 billion bbl (1 January 2006 est.) Oil - consumption: 20.8 million bbl/day (2005 est.) Oil - production: 8.322 million bbl/day (2005 est.) Reserves = 21760/(8.3*365) = 7.2 yrs (AT CURRENT USAGE RATES). Electricity - production: 4.062 trillion kWh (2005) Electricity - production by source: fossil fuel: 71.4% hydro: 5.6% nuclear: 20.7% other: 2.3% (2001) Electricity - consumption: 3.816 trillion kWh (2005) ======================== Did-u-know The average American drives ALONE ~50 mi to/fm work in a car made for 5+ pasangers! Approx 70% of oil is used for transportation! If everyone were to CARPOOLwith one other person: --- Gas usage for work transportaton would: --- Reduce polution 50% --- Reduce driving costs 50% --- Reduce gas usage 50% --- Reduce USA oil imports ~20% --- Reduce national debt by a significant % --- Prolong usage of fuel reserves WHY NOT REDUCE YOUR COSTS AND CARBON FOOTPRINT? CARPOOL

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We all are mostly discussing about nuclear energy but are not developing new ideas for space related queries like taking our space shuttles to other solar systems.

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Food supply is a crisis now. Global warming is taking a heavy toll on Earth and everyone and everything on it. Finding an alternative for petroleum is also nearing a deadline. Well, these are the world's top priority for now to bring civilisation back to peace and harmony for all beings on Earth. Space ventures will help in finding the BEST alternative fuel. Genetic engineering on food should be given more advantage than trying to extend the average human life span or cure the common diseases. And I think every engineer, from electrical engineers to environmental engineers to civil engineers and also acedemics in this field MUST play a role in solving the global warming phenomena through practising integrity and spreading awareness. All the best my fellow mankind.

"We must develop engineers capable of optimizing Amory Lovin's "whole systems." Implicit is the need to develop life cycle designers, not product designers." 

Rethinking Engineering Education: The 100+ year old paradigm of engineering education has led to the "grand challenges." We cannot continue to develop engineers who are trained to perpetuate the practice which has led to these grand challenges. We must stop educating engineers capable of developing optimal designs fo single components only. We must develop engineers capable of optimizing Amory Lovin's "whole systems." Implicit is the need to develop life cycle designers, not product designers. Implicit is the need to RAPIDLY change the educational paradigm to inspire creativity and entrepreneurial spirits. The grand challenges if not addressed immediately and holistically by ALL engineers, not just a small subset, will lead to grand disaster. Engineers: Let's change the paradigm!

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The food on earth are soon runing out. So why don't combine the gene for the bamboos fast growing speed thed some kindes of groups and maybe even the gene for the great redwoods tree. On it you can gove potatos and many other things.

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i'm not an social worker not and politician thus instead of ideas which exists beyond there existence i've suggestion which can be turned into realities and definately they can change the world so my list is 1. a low cost water purifier which can convert even sewage water to a potable one. it will be very helpfull in poor countries. 2. ultra low cost projector because with the help of it we can teach a large number of student at a time and can connect them to the world class via satellite (such as edusat) thus enabling high quality education to every part of the world at a very low cost.and i personally feel it will be of more help when we compare it to $100 laptop and i feel the cost of this lcd projector should be less than this 3. low cost all weather high energy food 4. modular hospitals which can be set up any where in any case such as flood or drought they should be highly mobile and should boast all modern facilities so as they can be used in poor countries.

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EDUCATION!!! At all levels; our children, our politicians, the public. Without education, children cannot become engineers (particularly in developing countries). Engineers must educate our politicians so they can make wise decisions. And the public must be educated about how their actions affect the world around them. Effective education at all levels is the only way of creating a sustainable future for the human race.

"Before any of these can take major flight, they need the support of our leaders." 

Everyone has opinions and I'm sure you continue to receive new ones everyday. I believe in ideas, hope and research, however our major concern is not even listed in your top 14! Before any of these can take major flight, they need the support of our leaders. We were raised to believe our for fathers got it right and today our leaders are making a mockery of these beliefs. We the people, all the people, need an engineering assignment. One that will outline the do's and don'ts for our leaders. Two parties or 10 parties, the winner should lead and the losers should become supporters making things better not fighting like kids who can't win. As an engineer I want one thing before all else, a leader that will unite all Americans when they take office, one leader, one america for one term of office, called America the America, then all 14 ideas will be funded properly because they are all for the people!

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What about sde-mechanising some construction activities so as to provide employment for the unemployed - particulary in the third world

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Saving the planet from the effects of global climate change should be the first goal of world-wide engineering. Before worrying about things that can be put on hold -- like going to Mars. The clear water goal should be expanded to include providing an adequate world-wide food supply, and the solar energy task should be expanded to include wind energy generation. The infrastructure task should be expanded to handle distrabution of energy from huge solar and wind farms -- why not use the interstate highway rights-of-way.

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Space-Based Solar Power Satellites are a huge engineering challenge worthy of this generation: http://www.nss.org/settle ment/ssp/library/index.htm And it greatly enables another huge enginneering challenge, protecting the planet from impacting Asteroids and Comets.

"What would we DO with this free and abundant energy, if we were to have it NOW?" 

Assume, for a moment, that we found the perfect, everlasting, abundant, and totally non-polluting source of energy. Assume also that this energy was freely available, compact, portable, very cheap, and simple enough for anyone to harness with simple/cheap off-the-shelf equipment. Also assume this energy would be available to all, from the poorest-of-poor to the richest-of-rich, as it is neither patentable nor could anyone own it's source, as it is everywhere. Assume also that this energy would be capable of energizing all of our current machines of the world many times over into the future, ad infintum...

Now, this hypothetical 'perfect energy' may one day become a reality. But the pertinent questions we must ask ourselves are these.... What would we DO with this free and abundant energy, if we were to have it NOW? Likewise, what would 'they' do with it? What are we doing NOW with our CURRENT cheap energy? (Oil is about a dime per cup, and a couple gallons of oil does the work of one man-year of labor.) Again, what are 'they' doing with it? Extrapolate, if you will, from our current energy needs and wants, on into our future needs and wants....Include our children's needs and wants, and their children, and on and on. Include all the nations of the world. Include 'them'... Would we not overpopulate, overpollute, and overextract everything of value within this once precious Earth? If one were inclined to say "No", then consider how one could prevent someone else from saying "Hmmm...Yes, why not? (We'll just lobby!)". Are we/they not destroying our planet now with cheap oil? Also consider the 'darker-side' uses of this perfect energy, as in the utilization of this cheap, compact, and portable energy as a 'not-so-friendly' gesture of general disagreement. Again, would any Earth-Life survive? Do we really need what we so desparately want? Is it for the good of FUTURE Mankind, i.e, the child, and his Earth-home, that we find this energy? Judging by our current uses of energy, some would think not.

"Our society today demands more accurate modeling of our world..." 

Throughout civilization's advancement, modeling of what is 'to be' has allowed engineers through simulation to experiment and optimize solutions that have advanced modern society. Our society today demands more accurate modeling of our world so that better decisions on how things are to be and how these things will behave can be explored. Advances in modeling of electrical infrastructure in particular are critically important, as is the lean management approach to the data and information required to make better decision on this decaying infrastructure. The application of Machine Learning in making better decisions on predicting potential issues with underground infrastructure is one such example of better math to enable better decisions. Models of infrastructure using version 31 of old Fortran computer software models will not allow us to make the advancements we need to migrate to the electric economy that can enable the significant use of renewables and demand side management.

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I read somewhere that the possibility of immortality was actually possible....really? I guess I wouldn't be too surprised, with all of this new and amazing technology, however, when and how would you go about this? I've heard about transfering brains into computers (kind of like the matrix...seriously!), cryonics (or something like that), and a way to manipulate genes in order to stop aging in the body, or at least prolong youth untiil some kind of replacement or transfer can occur. I also understand that this process could probably take place within the year of 2050 -2080.....interesting stuff to ponder on :)

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A large volume of water is used for power plants as a heat exchange medium. Some experimental designs for a new generation of nuclear power plants use Helium as a heat exchange medium. I was thinking that water could be saved for drinking and agriculture by switching power plants to use helium gas as a heat exchange medium. It has a much lower boiling point than water so I was questioning if it would be even better at generating electricity.

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i do not know a lot about carbon capture , but why would we pump it into ground. could we not use this co2 in produces we use every day. Perpare mix it in with concrete or make building materials from it ,Is it not carbon the building block of world.

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With respect to some the comments on this page, it's easy to jump to solutions instead of identifying the challenges. A lot of the challenges that were mentioned by the committee are really a subset of a larger challenge: an abundant and sustainable energy source. A solution to that challenge would change everything.

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I recently read an article about ozone pollution. There were so many discussions about environmental limits. If I remember my basic chemistry, ozone is 3 oxygen atoms bonded. It occurred to me to develop a [catalytic converter] of sorts for smoke stacks. My theory was to have a device to break up the ozone molecule and let it recombine as oxygen. I thought that an electrically charged plate (solar powered, wind backup) would satisfy the valence shell electron and break up the ozone, then send it through a gradient to allow the oxygen ions to recombine.

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THE new era of CYBER SPACE is has to meet the challenge of extreme mathematical hacking to literally gather data with out detection. By utilizing the most extremist levels of mathematics and the numeral and zero system the ultimate challenge to CYBER SPACE security is born.

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Engineering community, The article "Introduction for grand challenges for Engineering" was well written. Onother couple of topics left out. Harnising the hydrodgen fuel cell cheaply. Some company's have claimed they can cheaply crack water (into hydrodgen and oxygen) by using nanotechnology. The most important one left out is an American issue all to itself. The U.S. is failing to produce large number's of engineer's which will leave a major talent drain in the U.S. For the U.S. to reclaim/maintain it's technology and innovation, bringing Engineering back to the forefront in the U.S. must happen or we will lose (our losing) our hold on being a technology leader. This change must occur fast. China is pumping out 650,000 engineers per/year form college and the U.S. is only bringing 75,000. Accoring to world ranking, the U.S. colleges are rated 17th in the world, wheras, a half a century ago, we were 1, or 2 in getting a quality education. How do we convince our Government/kids/parents, that engineering and science are the needed fields to be in. The field that will allow the country to pull out of the slippery slope the U.S.is currently on? History, has told us time and time again, that technology will always be a major layer as to how well a country prospers or suffers. How do we (as U.S. citizen's) make the change of the failing system and get innovation and engineering back to the forefront? Sincerely, Mark Webster Kokomo, IN

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I have two suggestions for the scientists and engineers: #1 - If you can simply design wings for the human being so that we can fly like birds. If it can be done, we don't need to worry about building million miles of road networks, we don't need to live in congested cities and no need to worry about CO2. Most of todays problems will be solved. This idea might be little too far but hope this can be done in the near future. #2 - If we can design human body through genetic engineering (by inserting plant genes) to have chloropyll in the body which can perform photosynthesis in presence of sun light like any plants do. People won't suffer from hunger, malnutrition, food safety, etc. I hope these two are not that difficult achieve in the near future. Best,

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"the only relation left BETWEEN the MANKIND AND the FUTURE is GLOBAL WARMING- WE HAVE TO BELIEVE THAT GEOTHERMAL ENERGY WILL BE THE ONLY WAY OUT AS A MAIN SOURCE OF ENERGY, till THE WORLD ENDS..." after all no politics is involved in global warming..... it's the power of mother nature BELIEVE global warming cannot be stoped, but it can be controlled and used

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Engineering has to improve statistic methods. Most decisions are made based on statistics that do not represent opinions or characteristics of man or any other research subjects reliable. From this it follows that we have to improve the engineering of statistics. The (especially in Germany) popular idiom "I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself." demonstrates the current situation. decisions are like steps upstairs, it's dangerous when the bottom of these stairs is not firm and reliable. The improvement of engineering of the statistic methods has to go along with all the other challenges.

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Do you support out side the box research that is not institutional ? Schools support only a percentage of our best thinkers. The discovery of a high gain rainfall enhancement mechanism that could reduce drought on a continental scale and could have a significant impact on global warming. 100 years ago weather prediction was considered impossible, today weather modification is so viewed. I think I know how.

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I have gone through the Grand challenges. I belive before creating a new era or innovation better to look backwards and bridge these new challenges where it can fullfill the earlier engineering developments. In addition every invention has two sides such as Bad and Good, the magnitude of the direction is decided by the mob/decesion maker. So this is the time for challengeing the past innovations rather than finding new challenges. I also belive the challenges posted are shortlisted from human evidencing disasters earlier times. I belive the biggest challenge is to the engineer life cycle of a citizen.

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I believe the most benefit will be found in working out practical economies and closed cycle production for resources of all kinds. Toward this end advances in energy production, energy usage, renewable materials and their uses and clean fusion will all make great strides. I also believe that finding out how the human mind works to better model it for artificial intelligence usage may one day lead to faster, more efficient solutions in all areas of scientific investigation and engineering application.

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Ideas must be beneficial to somebody--either in suffering or ethically helpful to people in power willing to help the masses in suffering. I feel that if someone in power who cannot remove suffering of his people should ask those who can show the way Ideas should improve a process so that it uses less time resources, or have the cost of the remedy drasticlly reduced or avoid recurence totally. The ideas person should select problem which are very serious and not trivial things... as sufferers can't wait!

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GRAND CHALLENGES What are the grand challenges for engineers? Engineers, today and in the future, need to fully examine our design & construction processes to determine the impacts (both positive and negative on all life forms) for the next 7 generations as a guiding principle (source: the Iroquois Confederation). Principle Declarations I. We must reclaim our humanity through creatively imagining the future with everyone (every being on this planet is a stakeholder -- not only our clients, employers, and local ecosystems and local human communities). II. We must change our engineering foundations from Newtonian/Cartesian thinking (mechanical-based, disconnected, separate, reductionist analytical theories and laws) to integrative and complementary, fluid, circular, holistic living systems-based, connected, conceptual theories and laws. We can not change the world for the better until we change the way that we view the world. III. We must choose peace and not war. We must decide to use our intelligence to create a peaceful, fair, just, and humane world. We have participated way too long in Wars where we systematically kill ourselves, therefore we must begin the process of healing and saving ourselves. We must support and engage in research efforts that enhance everyone's humanity, imagination, creativity, and overall well-being. IV. We must support ethics by not condoning corruption and other unethical behaviors in our business dealings, pursuits, research, etc. V. We must examine our design and construction processes through life cycle ecological & temporal synthesis (geologic time constraints, internal and external costs, ecosystem health impact, human health impact, overall global impacts - biogeophysicochemical cycles, etc.) rather than life cycle analysis. VI. We must develop frameworks similar to the Cradle to Cradle framework created by the MBDC. VII. We must develop energy effective rather than energy efficient products (source: MBDC). VIII. We must work with the general public better because solving the world's problems and avoiding creating future problems requires working in true interdisciplinary teams. IX. We must continue research efforts in the field of biomimicry. X. We must uphold ecological health systems [ecosystem health & human health (biological, economic, emotional, social, spiritual) in our top lines rather than our bottom lines (source for triple top lines: MBDC).

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Engineering has a great opportunity to not only advance the cutting edge of advanced technology, but more importantly to find ways to ecenomically bridge the divide between the richest of nations and the poorest. The great divide is certainly an engine for conflict which will continue to drain rich nation's wealth on national defense. An investment in the future will find ways to reduce the wealth gap through the building of infrastructure in the poorest of nations. Through technology improvements that can reduce the cost of current technology and a forward thinking policy to fight the root conflict the world can be made much better via engieering and technology.

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Engineers need to participate in carving the future of society. They should take steps to grab political power and spend on hour a day with non engineers. Solar power and Bio mass gasification projects need to be pursued with zeal. Our concentration should be on children. Engineers always work in a planned manner, they should teach children to work in a team and planned manner and improve their vision.

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It is very good that you give a step to those who don't have the ability to go to conferences. I'm 15 years old, and I want to became an aerospace engineer. I am taking part in a NASA competition. For me the biggest point for us, the engineers, to achieve is to send the first space crew to Mars. Thank you, Dimitris T.

"There are lots of solutions but, unfortunately, the political power is held by petrol owners, so for this reason we can't improve any solution: we must first change the economic power. Ty" 

THERE ARE A LOTS OF SOLUTION ,BUT UNFORTUNATELY THE POLITIC POWER IS HOLD BY PETROL OWNERS , SO THIS REASON WE CAN'T IMPROVE ANY SOLUTION : WE MUST CHANGE FIRST THE ECONOMIC POWER .TY

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First and foremost I'd like to express my thanks for at least having such a forum available where people can express themselves in regards to these issue. now I'd like to take this opportunity to say a few things about the issues brought to the table here. What is the purpose of this site? to inform the public about what could be done in the future? what about today. The time is now!! and it's all the time we get. no matter how much planning or debating or wishing is done, we are still wasting the only time we will ever have to do the things we're not doing right now. stop the crying over spilt milk and let's get off our butts and do something. I am so tired of hearing about the next big breakthrough in whatever field we're talking about. I am 100% positive that if we wanted solar energy to be the main source of electricity for our urban centers it can be done with nothing more than will power, which costs the taxpayers nothing. efficency is the tag line for solar energy. we need more effiiciency. how efficient is the destruction of the ozone layer? let's just start using it and worry about efficiency as we grow with the technology. sound evolutionary to you. natural maybe. The promise of making a killing in the fiels of solar energy is the only thing holding it back from benefitting all of us right now. money is the greatest excuse those who have it and control it can use to deter those who don't have it from achieving their goals. What it takes to get things done isn't monetary in nature. human beings survived for a long time without money and seemed to get things done in ways we will never truly know or understand. I'm not saying anything about getting rid of money or using a barter system, but human beings make money from paper made from trees. the importance comes from that which we put on it and it has gotten to a point where we have fooled ourselves into thinking money controls us, therefore those who control the money control us. well I for one am not sacrificing my life so people can have gold toilets, SUV's and flatscreen tv's. Food and water maybe! the basics. this is where we need to go. we need to supply the need not the demand. If I demand 40 virgins and all the beer I can drink. do I have to go bomb a building to get it in my next life? or do I just sell you oil to burn and call it a "prophet"-able day. educating the young is a problem only because the young will conquer the old and create a new system of thier own which the older generation will resent them for having when they did not and could not create themselves. the jealous side of human nature. so until the old school thinkers can benefit equally from any new system (monetarily as this is the only thing woth having to them) more war and strife are looming to stop any new system from emerging. I am also 100% positive that on the day I was born, when mankind was sending it's first explorers to set foot on another body in the universe (the Moon, JULY 16, 1969) the money spent to do so was alot more than it would cost today. but of course inflation / greed has increased substantially since then, so the costs of even repeating tasks that have already been accomplished would cost more. this is not how nature works but this is how society as we have allowed it to become works. nature is our only teacher but again the experts know more and know better. not just in the field of space exploration but in every walk of life? The mindset of the people in charge is that they deserve to be in charge and make decisions for the rest of us who can't make decisions for ourselves. well if asked I'm pretty sure I can make any decision I need to make given the proper information. this is the next point i'd like to make. information is the root of evil not money. those with the information always use it to better themselves which naturally makes it worse for others somewhere. simple math to illustrate. if you have 50 apples in your bag, that means 50 people can't have 1 apple each. is that simple enough, can george bushites understand that kind of simple and true logic? there will be no true democracy until the commmon man can have his own voice heard instead of an elected official whose voice is bought and paid for. this is the future of the communication network evolving out of the internet. a forum where true democracy can actually raise it's head and proudly proclaim to be the voice of the people by the people themselves. No small closed off groups to manipulate us anymore. voting will be real and meaningful as it has never been in the past. We need to change our ways of thinking about life, about society/civilization and about the future. we leave a splintered and corrupt legasy of abuse to the planet that spawned us all. We have already condemned our future generations to a life of slavery just to undo the damage we've done. yet all we can do is praise ourselves for the technology we have and the lifestyles we lead. we are the most useless and worthless society yet to emerge due to our lack of connection to the real world we live in and what's worse is we're destroying it. when was the last time you said no to buying gas which you know causes wars and pollutes the atmosphere? yeah I thought so. I don't own a car and won't until they come fully electric. you think this is a long way off but it's actually a long time gone by because electric cars have been around since before the combustion engine. those in control felt it was better for you to have gas guzzling cars instead. for an answer to the question why, just look at the "president" a dumb as a stump cowboy who thinks because he has money and power (gained from your consumption of gas) that it is somehow his right to make decisions for the rest of us. this guy wasn't even elected to the office and you're still allowing him to rule you like julius ceaser. is this guys word the best that you can offer the world? if so the US is headed for a major fall on the order of the Egyptians, romans, and especially the Neanderthals. Economies can't survive being based on commodities which come, go and run out. ecomonies need to be based on those who are affected by them meaning people. nothing can run without people. people buy and sell. people consume goods and services. people are the most underrated and under used commodity out there. we all need to eat, we all need to drink, we all need a roof over our heads. and we all will do whatever we have to do to get these things whether it's work 9-5, rob, cheat, steal, or kill. I say base the ecomony of the world on the simple principles of feed and house, and let the rest sort itself out. We have people better suited to run the free world than george bush and the like. or do we just want to let the wild west riegn forever and have things sorted out in a manner man can only acheive with a handful of bullets. If that's the future we're going to allow, I'd rather go back to my birthday 38 years ago when man had at least a hope of better things to come. in not so short, ACTION NOW is what we need to focus on, not questions like "What are the engineering challenges we need to focus on?" don't put off until tomoorow what you can do today because tomorrow isn't guarrenteed to any of us. and I mean that literally. we will always be able to ask questions of what to do but let's get something done now that we engineer to be "UPGRADABLE" in the future. We've been asking the wrong questions for far too long already and these questions are not going to go away even after we find the answers, a whole new set of questions must arise. this is change, and it rules the universe not your local goverment no matter what they try to tell you. this is where your fight is, not fighting change itself but fight for the changes you know to be right, are you up to that challenge?

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Dear Fellow Engineers, We have seen so may revolutions including Industrial, Automobiles,Information Technology ,Space and what not. We have missed to solve the problem of shortage of safe & good water. It applies to Drinking as well as for Agriculture . We have forgotten that Nature [ or say GOD ] has given us on this earth more of WATER only. That too with a safe pollutant resistant as Common Salt .Even if it is salty it is only water which can be desalinated. The question is how to economically desalinate this? When the whole focus is on it, solutions can be easily found. We can find ways to get Good Water and Hydrogen from sea water to feed all the populations right from Plants , Animals and Humans. May be ,hydrogen as a bye product will be the best replacement for the Petroleum. The whole world is facing inflation due to the so called 'PETRO - GOLD ' pricing . Let the best of our Engineering Brains spend their energy with the support of the International Donors / Sponsors to break new grounds There is a famous quote from an Indian Swamiji as follows: 'THE PROBLEM IS YOU THE SOLUTION IS YOU ONLY' Let us jointly solve this problem. .The problem is only SALT. Desalination at an economical process. I am confident that the Engineers and Scientists who made Mr Neel Armstrong to land on the Moon and return safely will be able to solve it - given the right direction and resources. True to his words 'LET US GET A GREAT LEAP FOR MANKIND BY TAKING THE ABOVE SMALL STEPS' Social Medicine Scientists and Agricultural Scientists will agree that better drinking water will bring in better healthy individuals and better plants/crops. And environmentalists should take care of the GREEN OCEAN in this endeavour. WISHING THE BEST WE ENGINEERS MAKE THE WORLD

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Airborne wind turbines like: http://www.kitegen.com/

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One challenge not mentioned in the list is that of finding a way to reduce the human population of the planet, and maintain it at a low, sustainable level, preferably without resorting to nuclear war or a global fatal disease epidemic. Our other scientific and engineering challenges can ultimately be traced back to the fact that there are simply too many people trying to thrive on a limitted amount of resources. Global education of people about science and the consequences of over population seems the most effective method of achieving this goal. If huge amounts of money and diplomatic effort could be spent on the education of the world's population about basic biology, chemistry, ecology, geology, and all aspects of how our planet and its inhabitants funciton, then people would be in a better position to make political and lifestyle decisions.

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The greatest problem we face is the ongoing human population explosion. This core problem is a major contributing factor to many other serious problems, such as running out of water, deforestation, desertification, collapse of fishery populations, running out of oil, pollution in many forms, climate change, etc. There are simply too many of us humans for this planet to support. Therefore, the most serious challenge we face, in my opinion, is to find humane ways to regulate, control, and reduce the human population.

"I believe that among all the renewable energy, gravitational energy is the only energy which is available 24/7 at any place in any condition. " 

I believe that we can stabilise the world status only if we concentrate on all the 14 challenges. Here they have considered solar energy alone which is the drawback I feel. We sould concentrate on all the renewable energy. I don't know why scientists have not extracting energy from gravitational energy which is available 24/7. I believe that among all the renewable energy, gravitational energy is the only energy which is available 24/7 at any place in any condition. This is one of the area I have talked on and there are many areas which are yet to discovered

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Achieving the goal of sustainable development is indeed one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. If industrialization and economic development is not based on the premise of sustainable development that is in harmony with nature’s carrying capacity (supportive and assimilative capacity), human civilization cannot realize the goal of eradicating poverty and improving the living standards of the majority of its population. The present open ended economy which is driven by unsustainable pattern of consumtion must be replaced with ecological economy wherein the use of natural resources must not exceed the rate of their regeneration. Ecological economy would help to preserve the ecological integrity of the earth system and produce waste only at the rate at which it could be assimilated by the nature. All our present and future developmental goals are to be set on the premise of symbiotic relationship between consumer human race and producer natural systems so that dynamic equilibrium is always maintained between them. The very goal of sustainable development offer multitude of great challenges and opportunities for engineers and scientists, those challenges may be broadly categorized as follows. Materials Materials we formulate and design must have closed loop, either they should be recyclable or be safely assimilated by nature at the end of their life cycle. Production and Process Engineering Zero waste and zero emission Energy I vote for the combination of wind, solar, tidal and bio-waste energy. Until problem of nuclear waste is solved, or nuclear energy is based on closed loop cycle with zero waste it is not a viable solution for energy problem Engineers must design affordable and viable energy generating systems (wind, solar and bio-waste) which can be installed and maintained by individuals at house-hold level. Water and Sanitation Desalination plants driven by tidal and wind energy Affordable biological wastewater treatment plants which can be installed and maintained by individuals at house-hold level Aero-toilets, can natural air be harnessed for flushing instead of water, a great challenge for engineers. Sanitary engineers and compressed air technologists may have to work together Food and Agriculture Genetically engineered crops which use atmospheric moisture for their growth Can we design plants which make use hydrogen and oxygen available in atmosphere and produce water for themselves Can we design a single crop which can deliver all nutritional requirements? Shelter A simple shelter kit which is affordable by masses, can be bought across the counter and be assembled by individuals. Such shelter kits should fulfill the basic functional requirement such as protection from natural forces and man made hazards, privacy and durability. Health Replacing and/or repairing defective parts of brain If any disease is traced to particular genes, doctors simply should be able to replace the defective gene and cure the patient. Indeed a great challenge to genetic engineers and doctors. Elimination of all known inherited or genetic diseases would be a wonderful gift to humanity. Drugs with zero-side effect Build virtual hospital which works round the clock ( 24x7x365 ) and can reach the masses. A patient from any geographical corner of the world simply should be able to reach this hospital through local machine and interact with doctor. Hardware and software required to measure basic health parameters (like blood pressure, pulse rate, temperature etc.) should be part of the local personal computer. This basic data should be delivered real-time to the virtual hospital. At least regional virtual hospitals which can be connected to all villages in the region would have revolutionary impact on rural health system in developing countries. It is great opportunity and challenge for computer and information technology engineers Transportation Transport sector is the enemy of climate scientists. Again a big challenge and opportunity for all those concerned engineers in this sector. Carbon footprint of a typical car is about 250 grams /km, whereas it is 3 grams/km for walking and cycling, so walking is almost 80 percent more efficient in terms of carbon footprint. Human beings are akin to bio-reactors and produce energy very efficiently. Comparative analysis of IC engines and these bio-reactors make very interesting study. We need to understand in grater detail the principles behind the energy production and energy management system of this organic automobile (human beings), and explore the possibility of adopting them in cars and other automobiles. We climb, jump, jog, swim , think etc., I am sure energy requirement is different for these different activities, energy management system of human beings (even some animals) must be very sophisticated and efficient to manage these multi-tasks. If we include energy as constraint, then all these so called state-of-the-art automobiles, aircrafts, trains, ships and even many more gadgets suddenly looks primitive!!! Transport sector should be powered by air, water and sun; it is indeed a great challenge and a pre-requisite for SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.

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Idea For Personalised Learning. In the information age everything is going to become digital or computerised. reading printed material should not be encouraged. yet there is tremendous use of computer printing as the information is always printed on paper for reading. the reason is habbit & less burdon on eyes. the purpose of digitisation i.e paperless office will never achieved. If we see the problem in different approach find that the person is reading means he is reading in his own voice which no one is hearing . so if the information he get in textual format if get in his own voice in audible format it would be very helpfull . so there should be development in technolgy which converts textual data in the persons own voice data. simce every person has different accent & pronounsation differ from country to country this technolgy will be very helpful.the student do not need to starin his eyes on comuter or thick books. his laptop or media player will be enough to carry the task. he would have feeling as if he is listening his own recorded voice. the tecnology sould be developed to break the recorded sound amplitudes with a program & would develop a code which will standardise it so that every sentance will be converted into the persons voice.

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This is an excellent time for one to think if it would be possible to improve human bodies in order to be able to sustain a trip to a planet far away from Earth. It would be helpful to discuss the ethical parameters of generating humans that could travel many years in deep space and be able to function in space for many years without gravity etc. Is there a way? Stavros Valsamidis Thessaloniki Greece

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One of the important thing in urban infrastructure is mass transit.It reduces the polution cosiderably.The stress on mass transit is always high & it became the most usafe & unpleasent mode of travel. the infrastructure for mass transit should be improved to make it more attractive & enjoyable experience for the commuters. one of the method i would suggest is use of natural force- Gravity for mass transit. A sloping track can be built on the existing rail track like roller coster. the slope will cause the acceleration & speed up the car at the destination the slope will not maintain resulting stopping of the car. the bottom of a car has an air bag whose botton will mach with the slope resulting keeping the commuters of the car in horizaontal position. when the car approaches towards the destination the air bag will release the air resulting to make it horizontal agin near the destination.If the car wish to travel again next station it has to travel a negative slope. for this there should be two approchase eithe a vertical lift or using travelling belt which is moving continuously. the structure required for this arrangement will be high in air cosidering 20 meter high with slope of 1 degree.so for every 1 km there would be requirement of lift station of 20m high. the car used for this type of transport will be similer for roller coster with 4 occupants. this method should be studied in engineering asspect with improvements in design.

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A Space Elevator is a mandatory requirement for human advancement. Regarding matters of objective environmental research, simple scientific methodology implies that we should be collecting regular environmental data on non-terrestrial bodies, so that a reliable set of base data can be arrived at for analysing the environmental data of Earth. Humanity must explore our solar system, and especially our near neighbours like the Moon, Venus and Mars. This will not be economically viable, via contemporary rocketry, and the carbon load will be prohibitive. Although in it's first iteration a Space Elevator will be a serious scientific an financial undertaking, following versions will be much more accessible. The first 'proof of concept' of a Space Elevator must be built on the moon, where the one sixth gravity will make it immediately doable with contemporary materials and technology. Valuable experience will be collated and inexpensive access to the lunar surface will be made available. Once built a Space Elevator makes Low Earth Orbit launches trivially inexpensive, and real non-terrestrial scientific research in the grasp of even Post-Graduate students. http://en.wikipedia.org/w iki/Space_elevator

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it sounds stupid, but get word out about how cheap solar energy is. The world always tries to save a couple bucks, let alone the bulk of their electricity bills! Also, i heard of this material that acts just like solar panels, but is flexible like rubber. Maybe use these as curtains? Or blinds? Heck, even as shingles!

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Sustainable living, also called a "full-world" mindset, is necessary as all the accessible places in the world either support life directly or indirectly. A reasonable and balanced approach to fulfiling life's necessities need be determined, established and maintained. I've offered a few ideas to folks for reducing the demands people make on the planet, without much sacrifice. For instance: 1. If all the appropriate roof tops in the USA, and wherever it is affordable , were to be used either for solar power generation, solar water heating or small wind power plants the need for new, large, centralized power generating plants (and the requisite distribution infrastructure) could be vastly reduced. Carbon Dioxide would also be reduced and folks would have the power needed for a modern, efficient-utilization, lifestyle without induced suffering or sacrifice. 2. If large scale electrolysis and fuel cells (possibly on a closed, or near-closed, cycle loop) were placed near water sources, along the routes of power distribution grids, then the fluctuations of solar and wind based electrical power generation might be smoothed out efficiently and effectively. 3. I've proposed to a few organizations that we team up to take on the American X Prize challenge of the 100 mpg auto. I believe that there are reasonable and relatively simple steps to that end that, for reasons that (I hope) have escaped me (because the ones I can imagine are seriously unflattering), have not been sufficiently pursued; if at all. There is much talk, in this election year, of energy independence. I feel that unless people are willing to make tremendous sacrifice that that goal is unattainable. However, sustainable energy utilization is possible with moderation and comparatively small changes in our way of living on planet Earth.

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Develop carbon sequestration methods: This one is a dual use strategy, make bio fuel, and sequester CO2. http://www.youtube.com/wa tch?v=8hioZ7C6HLs It is the Vertigro System developed by Valcent fuels that uses certain high oil yield algae to turn sewer waste into bio fuel, and the remaining material can be used as fertilizer or sequestered underground possibly even in dry oil wells. The best part is the land used to grow the Algae can be desert, and thus not disrupt land used to grow food. One of the best places to get a virtual unlimited supply of high phosphate water is the Salton sea in the Sonora desert as discussed by Michael Briggs of UNH. http://www.unh.edu/p2/bio diesel/article_alge.html The vast majority of land in the Sonora Desert is unused. http://en.wikipedia.org/w iki/Sonora_desert

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Providing access to clean water: This one is easy: http://en.wikipedia.org/w iki/Slow_sand_filter done... Slow sand filters are recognized by the World Health Organization [1], Oxfam, United Nations [2] and the United States Environmental Protection Agency [3] as being superior technology for the treatment of surface water sources. According to the World Health Organization, "Under suitable circumstances, slow sand filtration may be not only the cheapest and simplest but also the most efficient method of water treatment."

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Ideas in regards to Fusion: On the hot fusion side Google is very familiar with the late Mr. Bussard's work: http://en.wikipedia.org/w iki/Bussard On the alternate fusion side : Bubble fusion shows the signature background effects and it works now, and costs much less than any other approach. http://en.wikipedia.org/w iki/Bubble_fusion Thou it gets a lot of grief from the big hot fusion people, Cold Fusion has produced excess heat, and background elements indicative of fusion. It has been independently replicated around the world dozens of times, thou it is not 100% reproducible as some minor variables can have a large impact towards success. http://en.wikipedia.org/w iki/Cold_fusion A full in detail explanation of this black sheep of the fusion world can be seen in the online video "Heavy Watergate: The War on Cold Fusion" http://video.google.com/v ideoplay?docid=6562030534 380820378 Also the experiments by the US navy have had positive results: http://www.dailytech.com/ article.aspx?newsid=7168

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There are so many things that need to be done. People need to start working together again like they used to in small communities, but now on a larger scale. There are too many people 'in power' that only look out for themselves. I'm sure many would agree that more and more we perceive the world as getting more greedy and more selfish. One of the most important things we need to work on is a world standardized education. An intelligent world is a better world. A lot of problems are caused by ignorance. Then we can focus on everything else: alternative energy, better infrastructure, etc.

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Cars roof could be installed with inexpensive solar cells on top to charge a battery. When charged, this battery could be replaced in the gas station for a discharged new one and a tax payment discount would be obtained in the fuel . The batteries from the gas station could be used to charged a bigger one or a more efficient electricity supply mechanism. This process would hold forever in a quite cheap way if the batteries and solar cells were provided when buying a new car.

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This post is just for the solar issue: The SEGs system in California works well now for large scale solar power. 354 Mega Watts out in the Mojave Desert. http://en.wikipedia.org/w iki/SEGS Solar Power Tower: From the article they need cheaper Heliostat methods and I think this could be achieved with one central sun tracker, and the panels controlled with cheap servos akin to those used on model RC cars. A cheaper tracker can be made via using 4 photo diodes split N-S-E-W by semi transparent vertical grid walls point up to the sky, and have the 4 photo diodes seek equalization, ie. track til they get equal light on all 4 diodes that separated by the 4 way vertical divider grid. photo diodes are very cheap and are on top of all the street lights in every major US city. http://en.wikipedia.org/w iki/Solar_power_tower For small scale solar for the mass nanosolar has very promising approach and just needs further research in its current area. Printable solar cells for $1 a watt, Google is already involved with this company. http://en.wikipedia.org/w iki/Nanosolar

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How can you have too many people? Too many mosquitos, cokroaches or rats yes, but too many people? That we are thriving as a species is a cause for celebration surely. Human beings are wonderful. We compose symphonies, write literature, design buildings and fly through space. Poverty is a consequence of failed and outdated politcal and economic systems and this obsession with numbers is misanthropic.

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The grand challenges addressed are very realastic. To reduce global warming by means of reducing carbon di oxide, it needs to improve the quality of vehicle as well as the fuel. Public should use common public carrier instead of personal car. Conditions of the road in India are to be improved to reduce the co/co2 emmission. So let us educate public to reduce great burden on the Engineers in the 21st Century and so on.

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Too many people. Too many people. Did I mention that there are too many people?

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I think I'd have voted with the majority to make solar power cheaper but I'm pretty sure this is already happening. REC is putting in a 1.5 GW manufacturing plant in Singapore and this should have the scale needed to make solar power cheaper than coal. The US is falling behind in solar power manufacturing and should try to do something about this but costs are going to go down dramatically if we do or if we don't. So, I voted for sequestration. But, I don't support sequestration of carbon dioxide. I think we need much better engineering than that. We need to sequester carbon in elemental form or as carbonate minerals. And, we need to do it from the atmosphere, not power plants. This, I think, is going to be the greatest engineering challenge of the next fifty years. We need to bring the concentation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere down below 320 ppm from its current value of 385 ppm. So, we need to retrieve about half of the carbon we have put into the atmosphere since about 1965. The biosphere has soaked up the other half already. Revisioning engineering to be planetary and cooperative with the ecosystem seems to me to be about the only way a challenge of this magnitude can be met. Managing the nitrogen cycle is probably only an beginning for this.

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Small Ideas first... One Step to the time. First, Translate this page with all post to Spanish, Chinesse, French, Italian, Greek, etc... Second, Show this in more Nations by all the comunications systems. Third, Selections locals (Citys) or by country. Cuarto, Hacer un catastro por ciudad y país a gente no relacionada a las respectivas ingenierías, pero que también tienen