Question about Science & Technology

[R. U. Sirius]

This just popped randomly into my head the other day...

I've read that our scientific knowledge and technology progress at an exponential rate, i.e., it takes half as long to make the next advance as the previous one took.

I've also read that we've reached the point where many major scientific and technological breakthroughs take only hours to weeks, where before they tended to take years to centuries.

Given this, is it possible that we'll eventually reach a point where science and technology will proceed at a minute-by-minute or even second-by-second rate, in a never-ending explosion of knowledge?

If so, will we be able to handle it, as a species?

[Witchyjoshy]

Honestly, hour-by-hour alone is probably physically impossible, as planning, developing, and manufacturing all take physical time.

Minute-by-minute and second-by-second are out of the question

We probably won't get much faster than our current rate - in fact, I'm guessing there will be a decline soon.

[Distind]

Breakthrough is a really hard term to use well.

You have to take into consideration that there may well be thousands of people working on the same general concept at the same time in parallel. Also you need to remember the sheer number of things out there to work on.

Plus even if we are making those ill defined breakthroughs finding uses for them as well as implementing them takes a considerable amount of time.

That said, computer modeling, analysis and various new fabrications methods have greatly reduced the time many things take, but all require investments of their own.