Often as an engineer I catch myself thinking that given enough research, engineers can 'system-out' an understanding to almost anything. I expect to be doing that for the rest of my life; non-stop learning is part of the profession.
It does make me wonder (and this is the question I'm throwing out there) -- what do you all think the next divide is going to be? Do you think there's a technology you'll look at in 20 years time, with the same bewilderment that 'non-engineers' look at us with, while your kids who have grown up with it can't fathom why you can't understand it?
The closest I can think of for me is quantum computing; that seems different. I've read a fair bit about it and yet it still seems fundamentally alien to me. With regular programming, I can 'run the program in my head'. With quantum computing, I can't even seem to create a mental model of how it works or what you'd do with it.
So, what do you think the next fundamental shift in technology and thinking will be?