---
title: "2000s in science and technology"
chunk: 1/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_in_science_and_technology"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:38:07.510758+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

This article is a summary of the 2000s in science and technology.

== Science ==

Using the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, scientists studying the universe measured that its age is 13.77 billion years; "solidly supported" that it has been expanding and cooling since the Big Bang; and calculated that the universe is composed of about 4.6% atoms, 24% dark matter, and 71% dark energy.
The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Mission successfully reached the surface of Mars in 2004, and sent detailed data and images of the landscape there back to Earth. Whilst NASA's original mission timeline of three months was incorrectly speculated, the mission was tremendously successful overall in the long term, as the MER Mission continued until 2018, lasting nearly 25 times the projected length.
The Human Genome Project was completed in 2003.
The National Geographic Society and IBM funded The Genographic Project.
In 2002, Perelman posted the first of a series of eprints to the arXiv, in which he proved the Poincaré conjecture,
2004 – The astrophysicist and radio astronomer Naomi McClure-Griffiths identifies a new spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy
On 29 July 2005, the discovery of Eris, a Kuiper Belt object larger than Pluto, was announced. In August 2006 Pluto was "demoted" to a "dwarf planet" after being considered a planet for 76 years. Other "dwarf planets" in the Solar System now include Ceres and Eris.
Space tourism/Private spaceflight began with American Dennis Tito, paying Russia US$20 million for a week-long stay to the International Space Station.
The Voyager 1 spacecraft entered the heliosheath, marking its departure from the Solar System.
Scientists discovered water ice on the Moon in 2009.
AFIS and CODIS became the main forensic tools for fingerprint and genetic code investigation in the industrialized world and some developing countries.
Infraluciferin became the go-to luciferin for in vivo imaging and threatening to replace natural luciferin entirely.

== Technology ==

=== Information technology ===

There was a huge jump in broadband internet usage globally - for example, it constituted only 6% of U.S. internet users in June 2000 and one mid-decade study predicted 62% adoption by 2010. Yet, by February 2007, over 80% of US Internet users were connected via broadband and broadband internet became almost a required standard for quality internet browsing. There were 77.4 million broadband subscribers in the US in December 2008, with 264 million broadband subscribers alone in the top 30 countries at that time.
There was a boom in music downloading and the use of data compression to quickly transfer music over the Internet, with a corresponding rise of portable digital audio players, typified by Apple's iPod, along with other MP3 players. Digital music sales rose, accounting for 6% of all music sales in 2005.  Digital music options were integrated into other devices such as smartphones and the popular PlayStation Portable (PSP). By the latter half of the decade, generic MP3 players were starting to mimic the features of the extremely popular iPod and Zune.
As a result of the widespread popularity and social impact of Google Search, the word "google" came to be used as a verb.
Adobe Flash technology reached the point of being able to make video players. As a result, YouTube, a website which allows uploading and viewing videos, was created. YouTube's popularity grew explosively and it was acquired by Google.
Data storage prices continued to drop, going from approximately US$7 per GB in early 2000 to US$0.07 per GB in 2009.
Due to an increase in capacity, USB flash drives rapidly replaced Zip disks and floppy discs (by Iomega) and 3.5-inch diskettes.
The first 2 TB hard drives were developed and beginning to be used.
Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2003 became ubiquitous in personal computer software, although their successors Windows Vista and, by the end of the decade, Windows 7, saw increasing market penetration.
Open-source and free software continued to be a notable but minority interest, with versions of the Linux kernel gaining in popularity, as well as the Mozilla Firefox web browser and the OpenOffice.org productivity suite.
Blogs, portals, intranets and wikis became common electronic dissemination methods for professionals, amateurs, and businesses to conduct knowledge management.
Wikipedia began and grew, becoming both the largest encyclopedia, and the most widely read wiki in the world.
Wireless networks became ever more commonplace in homes, education institutes and urban public spaces.
Peer-to-peer technology was used in a major way, such as internet telephony (Skype), file-sharing. The Internet became a major source of all types of media, from music to movies, thanks initially to file-sharing peer-to-peer programs such as Kazaa and LimeWire. The debate continued over the ethics of file sharing. Legal music download services such as iTunes and streaming services such as Spotify opened up new markets.
The video game industry's profits surpassed the movie industry's in 2004.
The US tech bubble burst for the most part in early 2000s and after three years of negative growth the technology market began its rebound in 2003.
Social networking websites like Myspace and Facebook and microblogging platforms like Twitter gained in popularity.
Smartboards in schools gained acceptance and were adopted rapidly during the middle years of the decade.
E-book readers using electronic paper technology were developed, and enjoyed modest popularity.

==== Software development ====
The Agile Manifesto was launched and agile project management approaches such as Scrum grew in popularity. However, due to factors such as inflexibility in procurement processes, and lack of expertise among civil servants, government computing projects continued to fail with regularity, notably in the United Kingdom.
A large number of software development and software testing jobs in rich nations were offshored to less wealthy countries such as India and Russia, mirroring a globalisation trend that had already occurred in physical manufacturing.
There was also a trend of offshoring software development work to cities like Dubai and Singapore - where Western developers rubbed shoulders with other foreign workers - and "offshoring" within the EU (including nearshoring).

=== Video ===