Martin,
Necessity can be broadly defined by what is popularly needed in
a civilization. Since "Necessity is the Mother of invention", it stands
to reason that the path to any invention is paved by the civilization
from which it came.
The civilizations you mentioned were content with technical
developments that required only what was immediately available to them
from their environment. In my opinion that's something which our
ambitious culture hasn't yet been able to appreciate.
As E. F. Schuhmacher explained so effectively in his writing,
the so called "modern world" and it's technology has often taken us in
directions which does more harm than good.
It's presumptuous to quantify the progress of civilization by a
hand full of great inventors and assume that they have made the world a
better place. I say this as someone who has two engineering degrees, a
patent of my own and a wife who is a research scientist and a PhD. in
Chemistry.
I admire all the people mentioned in this thread plus many who
have yet to be mentioned. However, to put things in perspective, one
needs to ask if the work of particular inventors are a measure of
progress in a civilization (irrespective of politics):
Could any of these people have been able to do what they did
without the work of their predecessors and the civilization from which
they came? Should we be thankful for a passion which was beyond their
control and grew from their own natural curiosity?
Tesla and Edison represent two fundamental ideologies and a
broad range of innovative thinking. Tesla, a theorist, would have not
made the progress he did, without the work of people born (as much as
four hundred years) before him like Newton, Pascal, Fourier, etc.
Edison's assets surrounded him every hour of every day. He was inspired
by and built upon every technology to which he was exposed,
representative of every inventor which came before him.
I think it's also important to mention that technology evolves
with the priorities of our civilization. By that, I mean you
can't judge people like Jonas Salk, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Wright
Brothers or Richard Gatling until you've also judged those who used
their inventions and examined the inventor's justification for it's
development.
If I boiled all this down to a single question, it would be:
If we were able to measure the "success","progress",etc. of "the
modern world", who would get the credit?
Similar questions include:
How high is up?
How dark is gray?
-Redler
Question:
Why didn't most Native Americans, for example, master the wheel for
transportation on their own?
Why didn't the Chinese, for starters, invent internal combustion much
earlier than the opportunists who did?
And why didn't the Arabs, for instance, harness electricity much sooner
than the nitwits who stumbled onto it?
In other words: Why did it all take so dang long, and then all happen
seemingly at once?
-Martin K.
On Aug 21, 2006, at 10:28 AM, Kirk McLoren wrote:
> Political correctness is part of it I think.
> Tesla was a maverick and Edison a mainstream guy.
> When JP Morgan realized what Tesla was up to with his global
wireless
> power scheme he pulled the rug out from under Tesla. Even though
Tesla
> invented the induction motor he died poor and alone. I think
another
> factor is are they foreign. Perhaps Bose ran afoul of that one. We
> used to make fun of the Russians because any invention of worth
was
> credited to a Russian. I suspect we do the same thing. It is not
> apparent to someone within the culture as you hear no conflicting
> argument.
> I remember reading a citation once about a paper on the theory of
> relativity. It was published by an Italian 2 years prior to
Einsten
> (yes he was an immigrant - but- he was here). And as an amateur
> historian I know revisionism extends back through prehistory. Old
> anthro books have some fascinating archeology skipped by modern
books.
> The giants excavated from the Ohio River mounds for example.
Hundreds
> of skeletons shipped to the Smithsonian to disappear. Shades of
> Indiana Jones.
>
> I remember Bose by the way and saw photos of some of his
apparatus. An
> original thinker. Brilliant person.
>
> Kirk
>
> Joe Street wrote:
>> Yes and Jagadis Chandra Bose was experimenting with milimeter
waves (
>> 60 GHZ radio waves) back in the 1890's before Marconi and Otto
>> Lilienthal was flying under control hundreds of times in the
1890's
>> before the Wright Brothers......but history remembers only
certain
>> ones eh? What's up with that?
>>
>> Joe
>>
>> Michael Redler wrote:
>>> "Tesla invented the modern world far more than Edison or
>>> Westinghouse or Marconi."
>>>
>>> Damn! I didn't even know the modern world was invented.
>>>
>>> - Redler (average person)
>>>
>>>
>>> Kirk McLoren wrote:
>>>> I am not a fan of that Ramtha person. She is quite
egotistical.
>>>> But I would not dismiss the whole film out of hand.
Some
>>>> interesting comments were made that are valid.
>>>> Remember these people tried to explain the
"unexplainable" at least
>>>> using the frame of reference of the man in the street.
>>>> Try explaining the federal reserve to the average
person. They may
>>>> surprise you with the difficulty they have with some
far simpler
>>>> concepts than what "bleep" was trying to address.
>>>> As for Ramtha remember people dont want magic, they
demand it.
>>>> A successful club owner told me that. I think he is
correct.
>>>> Modern science is full of showmanship and
misrepresentation as well.
>>>> Edison gets credit for Tesla's work and so on. Tesla
invented the
>>>> modern world far more than Edison or Westinghouse or
Marconi. What
>>>> does the average person know though?
>>>> We arent a tenth as clever as we think we are.
>>>>
>>>> Kirk
>>>>
[snip]
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