| Dr.
Manuela Eber-Koyuncu Germany Chief Scientist |
Nadia
Sarie Belgium Assistant to the CEO |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
evolution in
general
the prediction
seemingly impossible things that could be of importance in the future
and actually work on it to make it happen.
|
The
greatest examples for me may be Mendeleyev, Beethoven, Plato and Newton |
| ENVIRONMENT |
ENVIRONMENT |
| air
pollution due to cars. Only electric cars should be allowed. |
Most
urgent and environmental problem may be waterpollution leading to
the complete pollution of our dear planet meaning no more plants,
no more oxygen, no more us? What to do ? |
| Prof.
Dr. Walter Van de Velde Belgium Chief Scientific Officer and Director
of Research |
Dr.
Keith Still Scotland Mathematical Model Building Leader |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
- NOT viewing
the brain as an information processor (Maturana and Varela)
- the MP3 player that broadcast an FM signal so that it plays through
your
car stereo (IDEO)
- the Matrix (Joel Silver for FOX)
- viewing the world as a kind of computer that continuously computes
its
future (me)
|
The
creation of high IQ sperm banks. |
| ENVIRONMENT |
|
| Water
management and distribution (available to all) |
|
| Werner
Vanderhaeghe Belgium Chief Legal Officer |
Dr.
Keith Still Scotland Mathematical Model Building Leader |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
Shakespeare,
when he decided, in Henry VI not to have all the lawyers killed.
|
The
creation of high-IQ sperm banks. |
| Dr.Maria
F. Ramalho Portugal Research Scientist -co-ordinating Today's Stories |
Johan
Kaers Belgium Research Scientist - Computers |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
Greta Garbo
( yes a goddess of the cinema and a genius for that matter)
Camille Claudel (a genius of sensibility exploited by Rodin as was
the case with many unknown genius)
Marie Curie (http://curie.che.virginia.edu/scientist/curie.html)
Alice Schafer (Mathematician,
http://www.scottlan.edu/lriddle/women/schafer.htm)
Maria Montessori (medical doctor and pedagogue)
|
Kürl
Gödel's Incompleteness & Completeness theorems
Because they shattered the old dream of mathematicians to have a set
of axioms out of which All Things Mathematical could be derived.
Darwin's Evolution Theory
Because it shattered the Christian idea of creation.
Sadly enough it was abused afterwards by falsely interpreting it as
a proof that nature has an inherent preference for complexity,
and that therefore humans are the ultimate goal of evolution.
John von Neumann's Cellular Automata theory
He developed this theory in the 40's using pencil and paper. It took
up until the mid 80's before personal computers become powerful enough
to simulate it... And because this work is the basis for much of today'smost
interesting artificial intelligence research. |
| ENVIRONMENT |
ENVIRONMENT |
| The
greatest threats are: the inhabitants of planet earth pollution of river beds |
The
greatest threat is the illusion of (scientific and technological)
'progress' that is hard-wired into civilization. The blind faith that
people have in technology coupled with the lack of knowledge about
the long or even mid-long term effects of civilization on the earth. The inherent anthropocentrism in democracy,
which forces policy makers to disregard all long term goals in order
to make it through the next elections.
And so on... |
| Rossella
Magli Italy Research Scientist – Anthropology, Education, Communication |
Jose
Julio Rodriguez Arellano, Ph.D. Spain Manager Atoms, Barcelona |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
The Invisible
Cities, by Italo Calvino
Water depurators, pipes and taps
Electricity
Telephones
The Italian Piazza (to meet people, exchange ideas, re-make the
world...)
|
-
Santiago Ramon y Cajal
- Severo Ochoa
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Bill Gates |
| ENVIRONMENT |
ENVIRONMENT |
The
invisible chemicals polluting air, water, food...
Bad management of natural resources
But, if you asked me tomorrow again, I would probably come up with
completely different answers... |
The
Ozone layer and climatic change. |
| Prof.
Dick J Bierman Netherlands Chief Scientist |
Dr.
Metin Koyuncu Turkey Chief Scientist - Materials Science |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
Here is a new
one (I assume): The first wife of Einstein
|
1)
Make use of semiconductors - transistors
2) Putting all world on-line by Internet
3) Flying (planes)
4) Human genome project
5) Eye glasses |
| ENVIRONMENT |
ENVIRONMENT |
Overpopulation,
all other problems are derivatives.
Although we, or the next generation, probably need not to die due
to aging cells the overpopulation will result in massive killings.
Unless we will got to the moon and further. |
Most
Important Environmental Problem: Destruction of the Ozone Layer |
| Christianne
Baruqui Mexico Vice President, Bioprocessors |
Dr.
Alex Hum Peng Jong Singapore Chief Scientist- currently running a
Starlab spin-off |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
1) The airplane
(the Wright brothers) 1903
2) The telephone Graham Bell) 1875, this is because thanks
to it I can be in contact with my family all around the
world.
3) Laser Eye Surgery
4) Vaccinations (Louis Pasteur)
5) Microbioreactor- Dr. Andrey Zarur
|
1.
invention of Wan-Ton noodles and Dim Sum
2. discovery of Maxwell's equations
3. realisation of Duality concepts |
| ENVIRONMENT |
ENVIRONMENT |
Overpopulation,
all other problems are derivatives.
Although we, or the next generation, probably need not to die due
to aging cells the overpopulation will result in massive killings.
Unless we will got to the moon and further. |
1.
shortage of living space
2. politics
3. hunger
4. diseases
5. mortality |
| Dr.Gerhard
Wickler Germany Chief Scientist, Computers, Free Medschool |
Richard
Wheeler United Kingdom Research Scientist – Computers, Free Medschool
among other projects |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
When [a] person
tells you about a really clever idea they had, [you] think to yourself
"Gosh, that's really clever. Now that I
understand it; I could have come up with that, but I didn't."
If the really
clever idea is in fact a Strokes of genius, you tend to think "Gosh,
I never
could have come up with this."
I'm not saying I agree with this, but there seems to be a grain
of truth in
it. Anyway, here are my nominees
* Aristotle's theories, specifically, what we now call ontologies.
* Leonardo da Vinci's inventions. He was just so ahead of his time.
* Keppler/Copernicus: Rattling the foundations of the universe at
the time.
* Darwin: Someone was bound to come up with this. Darwin did.
|
By
"Strokes of genius" I assume you mean not a clever leap
of faith, but ideas which come entirely out of a person's intuition
rather than their knowledge.
The formalization of atomic theory in the 4th century BC by Leucippus
- surely this was a true Strokes of intuitive genius without significant
antecedents.
The founding of the Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) by Joseph
Smith in 1830. Leucippus was perhaps a true scientist, Joseph
Smith was perhaps a true sociologist. He understood that saviourism
is somehow rooted in humankind's biology, and that when manipulated,
people will believe almost anything ... We see this same mechanism at work upholding even more
mainstream and absurd religious concoctions [such] as Scientology,
Zoroastrianism, and Christianity itself (think creationism). It was
perhaps Joseph Smith's unique insight into the human condition that
allowed him to sell upstate New York as God's promised land - and
that *is* a pretty hard sell after all. |
| ENVIRONMENT |
ENVIRONMENT |
| Only
the first world can afford to protect its environment. |
The
biggest threat to the planet's ecology is the wide-spread belief that
we are able to monitor and understand the forces at work around us,
and evaluate their effect on the ecology. The truth is that we have
very little idea what effect our presence on the planet (especially
in the last 100 years) has had, and whether the situation is recoverable
at all. The blaming of the consumer and the shell game of recycling
is a weak attempt by
the government to distract us from the real problems and challenges
which our children will face, and which neither the government nor
the scientific community are capable of measuring or understanding.
A well-known story has it that when the ecological crisis became impossible
to ignore in the 1980s,
Ronald Reagan appointed a committee of forty top government scientists,
industrialists, politicians, and military people to study the problem,
and after two years of fact-finding and hard science they issued their
half-billion dollar recommendations for saving the planet and ourselves
from extinction. Their single recommendation for turning around possible
ecological collapse? That the Pentagon and other big governmental
agencies should try to recycle photocopier paper. |
| Jack
Klaff South Africa/ United Kingdom Professor of the Public Understanding
of Science |
Andrey
J. Zarur, Ph.D. Mexico CEO Bioprocessors |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
The achievements
of:
Shakespeare
The Buddha
Leonardo da Vinci
Beethoven
Newton
|
The
conclusion by Watson and Crick about the structure and nature of DNA.
Leonardo’s Golden Rectangular Proportion.
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
De Broglie’s Duality Principle.
Pythagoras ‘theorem |
| ENVIRONMENT |
|
| Only
the first world can afford to protect its environment. |
|
| Edward
A. Rietman USA Chief Scientist – Nanotechnology |
Christophe
Van Huffel Belgium Chief Scientist -Genetics, Gene Bank |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
The greatest
Strokes of genius was the invention of yoga.
|
The
transistor
The human clone (unidentified).
The pill.
Internet.
Recombinant DNA. |
| ENVIRONMENT |
|
| Only
the first world can afford to protect its environment. |
|
| Maja
Kuzmanovic Croatia Computers, Innovative Artist |
Jack
Tuszynski Poland/Canada Chief Scientist Neurons |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
Being able to
connect everything to everything else and melt that all in the smallest
possible research focus. Knowing that he/she doesn’t know much.
Being egoless, devoted to an unreachable target. Having no social
life.
Thinking of at least 10 impossible things before breakfast, and
making at least five of them come to existence before dinner.
|
Marketing
of coca-cola – a drink which is best for getting the bugs off
your car’s windshield but otherwise completely useless.
McDonald’s billions and billions of hamburgers sold – which
hugely contributed to America’s boasting that 50% of its adult
populations is clinically obese.
Mozart’s Requiem – why would anybody even want to compose
anything on one’s death bed unless you know that what you are
composing is tapping directly into God’s mind.
Van Eyck brothers’ "Lamb of God" in the Ghent Cathedral
– just go and see it for yourself, you’ll know what I’m
talking about.
Newton’s calculus, pretty much everything modern science and
technology achieved is based on it - by the way this is the only seriously
useful thing on my list.
Jung’s insights into the human soul – analytical psychology.
It is useful for some and useless to others. Basically, only works
for those who want to truly understand themselves. |
| Oliver
Rudolph Germany Chief Scientist – Quantum Computing |
Inge
van Wely Human Resources and Erik Vanderhaegen (Country)Chief Financial
Officer |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
The discovery
that the square root of 2 is irrational.
The Tristan chord.
Lord Rayleigh’s explanation of blue sky.
|
Putting
ordinary water in bottles and asking a fortune for it; selling it
as if it were champagne.
Clean water.
Water in bottles.
Whiskey in bottles.
Ships in bottles.
Bottles in babies.
Test tube babies. |
| Kris
Booghmans Belgium: Research Scientist |
Ronald
Schrooten Belgium Chief Scientist – Computers COMRIS |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
A bicycle, because
it’s an ideal solution for the air pollution problem.
|
Tennis
balls, footballs, basketballs, ... balls in general. At a given point
in time someone thought that throwing, kicking, smashing a ball among
people just for the purpose of useless time consumption must be great
fun. Several years later the world stands still at cup finals, battles
on the street are fought and a large bunch of people get very rich.
And all this is caused by a simple ball. If we could only have a patent
on it :-) |
| Gregoire
R. Thomas France Chief Scientist |
Erol
Sahin Turkey Chief Scientist Computers |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
The early and
clumsy invention of blood transfer.
Progress is based on information transfer. Take the inventions that
have increased info streaming the most and you’re on a winner
(press, telephone, wireless communication, sea/air/land transport,
and so on).
|
Godel’s
Incompleteness Theorem
|
| Amy
McMorrow USA Manager Business Development |
Kristof
Van Laerhoven Belgium Research Assistant |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
Epidurals.
Jet engines.
Email.
Recycling.
|
Generic remote
controls for TV, CD player, stereo, etc.
|
| Christophe
Fonteyne Belgium |
H.L.H.
de Penning The Netherlands Research Scientist Brain Building |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
My Stroke of
genius would be the MicroChip. Not only is it very important for
my line of work, but due to its characteristics (being very small,
very powerful and dedicated to one single, yet very versatile job:
computing), it can be embedded in many more ways that we
can even imagine nowadays. This tiny piece of sand has put mankind
on a different level of evolution.
|
A World too
Complex for Human Science, but far more Beautiful than Human Science
can Create.
|
| Giulio
Ruffini Spain Head of Research Barcelona |
Koen
Berghmans Belgium |
| STROKES
OF GENIUS |
STROKES
OF GENIUS |
|
Relativity theory.
Immortality.
|
The learning
process of a baby (we never can match this as an adult).
|
|
