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Towards 2020 Science, sets out the challenges and opportunities arising from the increasing synthesis of computing and the sciences. It seeks to identify the requirements necessary to accelerate scientific advances -particularly those driven by computational sciences and the 'new kinds' of science the synthesis of computing and the sciences is creating. Already this synthesis has led to new fields and advances spanning genomics and proteomics, earth sciences and climatology, nanomaterials, chemistry and physics. Towards 2020 Science acts as a 'pathfinder' to new research directions in science and computing. It contributes to, and informs, national and international scientific debate and science policy. It is also meant as just a start, a catalyst for more discussion; something that readers will find useful, inspiring and provocative.

The "singularity"--in which technological change becomes so rapid and so profound that our bodies and brains will merge with our machines.\n The Singularity Is Near portrays what life will be like after this event--a human-machine civilization where our experiences shift from real reality to virtual reality and where our intelligence becomes nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than unaided human intelligence. In practical terms, this means that human aging and pollution will be reversed, world hunger will be solved and our bodies and environment transformed by nanotechnology to overcome the limitations of biology, including death. We will be able to create virtually any physical product just from information, resulting in radical wealth creation. In addition to outlining these fantastic changes, Kurzweil also considers their social and philosophical ramifications.