I'd say that in terms of what we are able to do next, Graphene wins by a long way. Graphene is remarkable stuff, literally.
I'd say in terms of impact on philosophy, religion and way of life, the large number of planets we're discovering.
I'd say in terms of impact on philosophy, religion and way of life, the large number of planets we're discovering.
Another example is nuclear energy. Clean, abundant, and extremely safe. The fear of radiation exposer has turned it into a pariah in the world community; totally ignoring the fact the radioactive elements in coal emissions have kill more people in the last 30 years than 100 Three Mile Island incidences would.
Nuclear companies are in bad shape nowadays, because governments around the world caught up with the way they conduct business.
Graphene will see adoption, but will probably be halted at the first sign of asbestos like diseases. I can only imagine how hard it would be to dispose of products with graphene correctly.
The "fear of radiation" is perhaps the least important problem (with bigger ones including cost, centralization, waste disposal and environmental issues), yet the only problem some proponents of the technology wants to discuss, perhaps with the implication that if we treat everyone else as stupid they will go away. Perhaps after so many years it is time to reevaluate that strategy.
But, unlike asbestos, graphene won't be literally all around everyone right? And it won't be worked on by people who weren't informed of risks and provided with proper safety gear.
Also unlike asbestos we may be able to manufacture products which use an astonishingly small mass of graphene to be useful. Perhaps that small mass can be suspended/isolated with other materials that will mitigate the likelihood of impacting humans.
Yeah, but what do you do about the waste? The US has tons of waste sitting around. The grand plan of using Yucca Mountain to store the waste fizzled. We have just postponed the cost to a future generation who'll have to deal with the waste we're producing today.
I wonder how they'll be able to tackle the problem while simultaneously dying from the lung and skin cancer they got from all that burned coal.
;)