Scientific American's Top 50

dptalia writes "It's that time of year again, where everyone is putting out their best of 2006 lists. Last week, Popular Science did it, and today, Scientific American has released their top 50 list. Of note are improvements in RFID technology, discoveries in nantechnology, and net neutrality."

Comments

Slashdot's Top 10

[Archangel Michael]

Why not have a /. top 10 news stories of 2006, as slashback retrospective of the year 2006? Or something.

Then we can have a poll of the top five, to let the readers decide which one is the top story of 2006.

And I want my 15 min of slashfame for suggesting it.

Summaries

[UbuntuDupe]

Is it too much to ask that a summary say what this is a Top 50 of?

Pure sciences

[metlin]

So, is there a reason that advances in pure sciences (e.g. Theoretical Physics and Mathematics) are not mentioned in these lists?

While some of those projects are science, most seem to be technology projects. The irony of this of course is that business and policy makers are given recognition, rather than some scientists and mathematicians, who probably make more significant contributions (e.g. Grigori Perelman).

What's ironic, of course, is that these magazines are called Scientific American and Popular Science. /Rant

Re:"Scientific American" missed one.

[MyLongNickName]

Wow. What a cranky old man. And one that replies to an unrelated post just to get to the top of the comment list.

Why don't you read the article? There are plenty of examples of messing around with fundamentals in the article. Try reading the one about "beginning to see the light". Two dimensional light waves able to take pictures smaller than the wavelength of the originating light. Quite amazing stuff.

Hate to break this to you, but fundamental shifts in science don't happen every day. If they did, they would not be so amazing. Often they come on the back of generations of hard work.