Voyage to the bottom of the sea

摘要

Ocean-bottom exploration is still in its infancy. A few years ago I attended a technology forum at Shell's then-new research facility on the west side of Houston, and Peter Diamandis gave a presentation about Xprize, a competition that puts out a significant technological challenge and asks teams to help solve the problem for a monetary prize. I honestly don't know what the challenge was that year, but one of the winners figured out a solution on a cocktail napkin at a bar in Las Vegas. Never underestimate the ingenuity of the human brain.