Technology is dead
'Everything that can be invented has been invented.'Charles Duell, US Patent Office Commissioner,1899
Technology is dead!Virtually every stock market analyst, after the dotcom bubble collapsed and you lost all your money.
My sons were playing in a soccer game today in another town. I went on-line, typed in the name of the school in Google, and got the school's web page. From there, I got the address and typed it into MapQuest. I chose the 'driving to' option, typed in my address, and got detailed directions to the field. I cut and pasted the directions onto my Palm desktop, then hotsynced my Visor, and off I went.
While driving, I realized I needed to leave a message with my kids, so I plugged my phone module into my Visor, and called the house. I left a message on the answering machine, and continued on to the game.
The game got ugly quickly, so I used my phone module to go online, and check my e-mail. I answered a couple of messages, saved a new Atkins recipe, deleted some junk mail, then logged off to watch the rest of the game.
When we got home after the game, I started up my desktop, and logged on to the internet. Weather bug informed me that there was a tornado watch until 0100AM this morning in the county where I work. I pulled up a local radar image , and verified that the county where I live was not in the path of the storm system. I watched my son play EverQuest with 1700 other people, then left for work.
Technology is not dead; it isn't even sick. It pervades every segment of our lives to the point where we've become so used to miracles in our everyday life that we don't even see them as miraculous anymore. New technologies are springing to life everywhere you look. My grandfather was born in 1910. What changes did he see through his lifetime?
Transportation From the days when the horse and buggy still dominated transportation, he watched as cars went from curiousity to commonplace to ubiquitous. Each generation became more comfortable, more affordable, more powerful, and more reliable. Trains went from belching black coal smoke to running on deisel, then electricity, then finally on a magnetic field. He saw the invention of the airplane, and watched its evolution from a box kite with a motor bolted on it to the first multi-engine planes, to the first jets to the F-18 Hornet. In the ultimate extension of transportation (so far), he saw the first rockets blast off, the first satellite placed into orbit, the first man in orbit, the first men on the moon, the construction of the first space station. He saw satellites sent out to the furthest reaches of our solar system.
Communications When he was born, telephones were still fairly rare, approximately 3,000,000 installed, and the overwhelming majority still relied on a crank to signal a switchboard operator. Dial phones would not become common for another decade or so. Long distance was limited to about 1500 miles. The first transcontinental line was not installed until 1915, and the first Bell automatic switches allowing dial phones were not installed until 1921. A dial tone was not introduced until 1951, and transatlantic calling was not commonly available until 1956, when the first transatlantic cables were laid. True number calling was not fully implemented until 1958, and then only on a limited basis, only becoming widespread in the early 1970s. 1963 saw the touch tone phone, and 1965 saw the first communications satellites. (Phone history courtesy of Tom Farley.) From there we progessed to radio phones, mobile phones, cellular phones, and satellite phones. All the while the phones kept getting smaller, smarter, and clearer. We now have the equivalent of the Star Trek communicator.
Phones are just the tip of the communications iceberg. How about television? First made practical in 1927, broadcasting did not begin until the Worlds Fair of 1939. The first color broadcast was in 1951 but it wasn't until 1955 that color sets began selling well. TV stations began to use videotape in 1956. (Facts via TVHistory) In 1962, Telstar 1 is launched, allowing the possibility of live braodcasts from remote locations. This capacity is realized when Neil Armstrongs moonwalk is broadcast live from the moon in 1969. In 1975, HBO shows that cable is something more than an alternative antenna. In 1996, digital satellite dishes hit the market, and satellite television becomes a viable alternative to cable.
Medicine> The growing belief in antisepsis and Listerism. The discovery of penicillin! Discovered in 1929, but not available until 1943, penicillin changed the world forever. What once were fatal illnesses became mere nuisances.
Heart transplants. Kidney transplants. Liver transplants. Bone marrow transplants. Pacemakers. Artificial hearts. The eradication of small pox. Chemotherapies for cancer. Radiation therapies for cancer. Micro-surgery. X-rays CAT scans. PET scans. MRIs. Minimally invasive surgeries, like lithotrypsy, and arthroscopic surgery. Remote surgery. In vitro fertilization. Genetic testing. Gene therapies. Stem cell therapies. Cloning.
These are the technologies my grandfather saw develop during his life. What new things will we see?
Finally, in an ironic twist, the quote attributed to Charles Duell has been shown to be false, just one more urban legend.
Posted by Rich at May 2, 2002 4:43 AM