Parallels between 1925 and 2025 in the Worldview of the Future.
Alberto L. D’Andrea
When a century passes through its first twenty-five years, it does not yet display its most visible results, but it does define something more decisive: its foundations. The year 2025, as it closes the first quarter of the 21st century, makes it possible to observe this foundational process in perspective and to compare it with another structurally equivalent moment: the first twenty-five years of the 20th century.
Viewed retrospectively, those early years of the 20th century were not a mere accumulation of discoveries, but rather the construction of a conceptual and experimental framework from which, decades later, solid-state electronics, nuclear energy, rocketry, computing, cellular telephony, genetic engineering, biotechnology, and nanotechnology would emerge. These were not immediate applications, but principles that, over time, converged into complex technological systems.
Viewed retrospectively, those early years of the 20th century were not a mere accumulation of discoveries, but rather the construction of a conceptual and experimental framework from which, decades later, solid-state electronics, nuclear energy, rocketry, computing, cellular telephony, genetic engineering, biotechnology, and nanotechnology would emerge. These were not immediate applications, but principles that, over time, converged into complex technological systems.
It was only from the second half of the 20th century onward that this knowledge was translated into micro- and nanoelectronics, personal computing, and mobile telecommunications. The development of transistors (1947), operational amplifiers (1950s), integrated circuits (late 1950s), chips (1960s–1970s), and nanoscale devices (1990s–2000s) enabled computing and cellular telephony to become part of everyday life. Toward the end of the century, the integration of technology, information systems, and communication networks gave rise to an explicit convergence of technology, information and communication, identifiable as ICT convergence (Information and Communication Technologies), which prepared the ground for mass digitisation, the internet, and the current global algorithmic infrastructure of the 21st century.
From this perspective, the first twenty-five years of the 20th century can be understood as the incubation phase that laid the foundations of that century’s dominant technological paradigm: the control of matter and energy.
The first quarter of the 21st century presents a similar dynamic, though with different axes. The completion of the Human Genome Project (1990–2003) marked a turning point comparable to that of quantum physics a century earlier: life began to be understood as information through the reading and analysis of genes. From that point on, biotechnology, bioinformatics, personalized medicine, and gene editing became integrated within a single operational framework. In parallel, nanotechnology advanced toward functional applications (such as neurosynaptic nanochips), artificial intelligence consolidated as a transversal cognitive infrastructure, and neuroscience became articulated with computing.
It is in this context that the second major technological convergence, emerging around the year 2000, the NBIC convergence (Nano-Bio-Info and Cognotechnology), acquires centrality, not as a circumstantial label but as the initial structural feature of the 21st century in formation. Just as the 20th century was organized around the control of matter and energy, the 21st century has begun to organize itself around the convergence of life, information, and intelligence as an integrated system.
The parallel is reinforced on the geopolitical level. In both beginnings of the century, technological acceleration outpaced the capacity for social and political regulation. Today, competition for data, algorithmic capabilities, and technological resources, such as advanced chips and nanoscale technologies, redefines global power in much the same way that heavy industry and energy did a hundred years ago.
The deepest correspondence, however, is epistemological. In 1925, quantum physics called into question the idea of a fully determinable nature. In 2025, NBIC convergence is compelled to restructure itself into a third technological convergence: NIA (Nanotechnology and Artificial Intelligence), in order to clarify issues such as autonomy, intelligence, creativity, and identity. Uncertainty is no longer confined to matter; it now extends to artificial systems such as drones and gene-less humanoid robots that process information, learn, and make decisions in partially autonomous environments.
From this perspective, the closing of a century’s first quarter is not a final balance sheet but the identification of a threshold. The first twenty-five years of the 20th century made possible the technological world that came to dominate it. The first twenty-five years of the 21st century are configuring, still incompletely, a future in which NIA technological convergence redefines not only the prevailing technology, but also the conceptual frameworks of civilization and the very forms of production, validation, and circulation of knowledge.
From this perspective, the first twenty-five years of the 20th century can be understood as the incubation phase that laid the foundations of that century’s dominant technological paradigm: the control of matter and energy.
The first quarter of the 21st century presents a similar dynamic, though with different axes. The completion of the Human Genome Project (1990–2003) marked a turning point comparable to that of quantum physics a century earlier: life began to be understood as information through the reading and analysis of genes. From that point on, biotechnology, bioinformatics, personalized medicine, and gene editing became integrated within a single operational framework. In parallel, nanotechnology advanced toward functional applications (such as neurosynaptic nanochips), artificial intelligence consolidated as a transversal cognitive infrastructure, and neuroscience became articulated with computing.
It is in this context that the second major technological convergence, emerging around the year 2000, the NBIC convergence (Nano-Bio-Info and Cognotechnology), acquires centrality, not as a circumstantial label but as the initial structural feature of the 21st century in formation. Just as the 20th century was organized around the control of matter and energy, the 21st century has begun to organize itself around the convergence of life, information, and intelligence as an integrated system.
The parallel is reinforced on the geopolitical level. In both beginnings of the century, technological acceleration outpaced the capacity for social and political regulation. Today, competition for data, algorithmic capabilities, and technological resources, such as advanced chips and nanoscale technologies, redefines global power in much the same way that heavy industry and energy did a hundred years ago.
The deepest correspondence, however, is epistemological. In 1925, quantum physics called into question the idea of a fully determinable nature. In 2025, NBIC convergence is compelled to restructure itself into a third technological convergence: NIA (Nanotechnology and Artificial Intelligence), in order to clarify issues such as autonomy, intelligence, creativity, and identity. Uncertainty is no longer confined to matter; it now extends to artificial systems such as drones and gene-less humanoid robots that process information, learn, and make decisions in partially autonomous environments.
From this perspective, the closing of a century’s first quarter is not a final balance sheet but the identification of a threshold. The first twenty-five years of the 20th century made possible the technological world that came to dominate it. The first twenty-five years of the 21st century are configuring, still incompletely, a future in which NIA technological convergence redefines not only the prevailing technology, but also the conceptual frameworks of civilization and the very forms of production, validation, and circulation of knowledge.
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