Continuity of progress – Page 2

Historic trends in the maximum superconducting temperature

The maximum superconducting temperature of any material up to 1993 contained four greater than 10-year discontinuities: A 14-year discontinuity with NbN in 1941, a 26-year discontinuity with LaBaCuO4 in 1986, a 140-year discontinuity with YBa2Cu3O7

Historic trends in chess AI

The Elo rating of the best chess program measured by the Swedish Chess Computer Association did not contain any greater than 10-year discontinuities between 1984 and 2018. A four year discontinuity in 2008 was notable

Effect of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin on historic trends in cotton ginning

We estimate that Eli Whitney’s cotton gin represented a 10 to 25 year discontinuity in pounds of cotton ginned per person per day, in 1793. Two innovations in 1747 and 1788 look like discontinuities of

Historic trends in flight airspeed records

Flight airspeed records between 1903 and 1976 contained one greater than 10-year discontinuity: a 19-year discontinuity corresponding to the Fairey Delta 2 flight in 1956. The average annual growth in flight airspeed markedly increased with

Historic trends in ship size

This page may be out-of-date. Visit the updated version of this page on our wiki. Trends for ship tonnage (builder’s old measurement) and ship displacement for Royal Navy first rate line-of-battle ships saw eleven and

Effects of breech loading rifles on historic trends in firearm progress

Published Feb 7 2020 We do not know if breech loading rifles represented a discontinuity in military strength. They probably did not represent a discontinuity in fire rate. Details This case study is part of

Historic trends in transatlantic passenger travel

The speed of human travel across the Atlantic Ocean has seen at least seven discontinuities of more than ten years’ progress at past rates, two of which represented more than one hundred years’ progress at

Historic trends in land speed records

Land speed records did not see any greater-than-10-year discontinuities relative to linear progress across all records. Considered as several distinct linear trends it saw discontinuities of 12, 13, 25, and 13 years, the first two

Historic trends in particle accelerator performance

Published Feb 7 2020 None of particle energy, center-of-mass energy nor Lorentz factor achievable by particle accelerators appears to have undergone a discontinuity of more than ten years of progress at previous rates. Details This

Historic trends in structure heights

Trends for tallest ever structure heights, tallest ever freestanding structure heights, tallest existing freestanding structure heights, and tallest ever building heights have each seen 5-8 discontinuities of more than ten years. These are: Djoser and