2009, a Review

I think no one can honestly say that 2009 was an “empty” year. There were significant developments around the world, politically, economically, socially and scientifically. Undoubtedly, the year was marked by the economic crunch, by people losing their jobs across the world, but the upside to this is that many people learned the true value of money, and stopped spending what they did not have. As far as Science goes, the past 12 months have been remarkable. The pace of progress has quickened, and fortunately it looks like it will continue to do so over the coming year as well.

Politics

This field saw some pretty heavy turmoil this year. In the United States, Barack Obama became the first Black president, after promising change to his people. If he succeeded or not is a matter of ongoing debate, but the main idea is the fact that there were a lot of people in the country who gave their vote for his ideas. Also related to Obama, he was the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, amid controversies and questions as to why the award went to him. What is certain is that at least 50 years will pass before the committee that made the decision will release the reasoning behind the decision to the general public.

In Greece, the year ended in disarray, with street protests that again brought to the public eye the fact that the country was politically unstable. Similar protests took place against the COP 15 meeting in Copenhagen, a summit of UN countries that was supposed to come to an agreement on fighting climate change. None of the objectives were achieved, nothing is legally binding, and the opinion of the NGO and of the general population was completely disregarded for state interests. Also interesting to note is the fact that the ability of the United Nations to actually take concrete measures in the field of politics is constantly diminishing.

Economy

For most of the world, the economic crisis hit the hardest in 2009. While the United States, and a few other developed nations started experiencing negative side-effects as far back as 2008, Europe and Asia as a whole bore the full brunt of the blow this year. Countries had to take measures that they would have otherwise avoided at all costs, and some nations had to sign new agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The rate of unemployment spiraled through the roof, with developed nations suffering the hardest. In the case of Germany, for example, the globalization that its politicians propose appears to have stricken back at them.

Undoubtedly, 2010 will be a better year for economics. Still, authorities around the world caution people against thinking that it's all over. The world still has a long way to go before finally reverting the level it was at in 2007, and still many years to work on exceeding that level. Certainly, some markets will start fairing better by the end of next year, but not all sectors will experience these improvements. Governments will still be lacking funds to aid their own industries, and cooperation or loans will be the only means to get by for a while.

The political and economical aspects of the discussion are, as they say, the dark side of the world, for most of those who are not directly involved in ruling the world. I have no doubt that leading a people is a difficult job, but I am convinced that a little more selflessness would not hurt anyone. As it was evidenced over the past three years at the UN summits on climate change, if each country plans to keep only its best interest in mind, then a compromise is highly unlikely.

What I find peculiar is the fact that even the leaders of the developed world, who are traditionally capitalist, agreed, at least in statements, that we needed to work together, pool our resources, and go forward into a cleaner, brighter future. These are, for all intents and purposes, Socialist ideas, and they are shunned in the US, where Obama is accused of being a left-wing extremist. I tend to agree that cooperation is key, but I think that people should learn to put fewer labels on things. Some get really rallied up when hearing a certain word, and then politicians can't do anything about it, for fear of not inciting the masses, or losing their support.

Science

In my favorite area, Science, things only went uphill in 2009. Significant progresses in all areas of research were recorded, ranging from space exploration to nanotechnology, and from electronics to physics and chemistry. In astronomy, several new telescopes were launched this year, including the European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel and Planck, alongside NASA's WISE and Kepler missions. The venerable Hubble Space Telescope was also fixed, and a large number of communication, weather, military and spy satellites were launched from the US, Japan, Russia, China, and South America.

Progress was also the word of the day in robotics. Large-scale machines exhibited at dedicated conferences brought praise to their owners for the multitude of functions they could perform, and also for the high-tech gadgets that were their primary equipments. Related to this, computer scientists are making considerable headway in creating software that would allow robots to analyze their surroundings on their own, and act accordingly. Others are working on locomotion systems, memories and advanced cameras that would make the machines even more autonomous.

But the real battle in this field was at the nanoscale. Universities and research institutes raced to create more and more advanced robots, some just nanometers in size. Experts have tried to construct machines that navigate the human body on their own. While this objective has remained largely elusive, in the sense that even prototypes are in short supply, many science groups now have the necessary know-how to pick up their work with increased vigor in 2010.

Real breakthroughs however came from nanoparticles. Researchers learned how to produce them in various shapes and sizes, and out of very different types of materials. The metallic varieties showed great promise in navigating the human body, and also in penetrating the biofilms that bacteria created around themselves. This was thought impossible, but it proved to be doable, when experts simply pulled the nanoparticles through using magnets.

Other scientists learned how to create small, nanoscale boxes, and how to fill them with drugs. These drugs are now protected from the action of the immune system, and can be delivered to the necessary spot in the body with greater accuracy. On the outside walls of the nanoboxes, scientists learned to affix proteins that binded directly to a tumor, for example, which ensured that the drugs were delivered only where they needed to go.

Nanoscale objects also proved to be of remarkable use in the electronics industry. Using nanowires and nanotubes, based on silicon, carbon, gallium arsenide, or other materials, specialists were able to create 3D circuits, which may constitute the basis for future, 3D computer chips and processors. In addition, other materials were inserted in the equation as well, such as silk. This allowed teams to produce biodegradable circuits that only endured in the human body for a preset period of time.

New methods for producing more advanced and heat-efficient processors were also developed. These new devices promise to make our computers, laptops and mobile phones faster, more silent, and less energy-intensive than ever before. But the largest progress in this field of research was registered in quantum computers. Experts at universities around the globe managed to demonstrate confinement, entanglement and superposition, the basic principles that will underlie these machines of the future.

Stable quantum bits were also achieved, and experts are currently working on ways of making them last for longer, and be more stable. The same quantum principles were also used to set the basis for quantum networks, which will be able to carry information stored in photons, in the most safe type of encryption possible. Practical, large-scale applications for these breakthroughs will only be possible in five to ten years, maybe even more, but scientists say that the groundwork needs to be laid now.

Moving on to physics, undoubtedly the event of the year was the reopening of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest particle accelerator and physics experiment in the world. After more than a year in repairs, the Collider is now online, and delivering scientific results. Proton beams will continue to be constantly accelerated inside until, in 2011, they will reach their maximum energy output of 7TeV each, for a combined energy of 14TeV. The Higgs boson is therefore at hand, many think.

Also in physics, laser researchers managed to take their field to new heights, creating both massive and extremely small lasers, in most wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. Some of these devices are used to create plasma for nuclear fusion research, while others create “earthquakes” in nanostructures, or even make materials invisible in certain wavelengths. Invisibility cloaks are also getting nearer at the large scale, as metamaterial research is accelerating and getting more advanced.

As for space exploration and studies, the year marked a very important milestone. 2009 was declared the International Year of Astronomy (IYA), which means that many research groups and universities joined forces in participating in costly endeavors, or in exploring other stars, planets and moons. In addition to the wealth of newly launched telescopes, many new, ground-based ones were opened, some of them dedicated to observing the Sun, while the others to looking for exoplanets or the origins of the Universe. The Big Bear Solar Observatory and the Grand Telescopio Canarias are just two examples of the next generation of telescopes, currently in the works around the world.

In the related field of astrophysics, experts managed to gain new and deeper insight into a large number of previously unexplained phenomena, such as what went on inside binary star systems, how black holes operated, or where space radiation came from. Using high-energy radiation readings from X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes, astrophysicists were able to map the entire sky in several wavelengths, and discover extremely rare objects, such as quasars, blazars, and rare gamma-ray bursts (GRB).

A host of new exoplanets, some of them spinning backwards around their stars, were also found. The new discoveries bring the total number of known exoplanets to well over 400, with more certainly on their way. We also know more about our own solar system, our stellar neighborhood, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, the inner and outer asteroid belts, dwarf planets, Mercury, Venus and the Earth-Moon system. Long-lasting missions such as the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, as well as the NASA/ESA space probe Cassini endured for another year, each with their hiccups, but able to communicate with their mission managers.

In conclusion