giveitawhril2008@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> There are a number of examples of ancient peoples having a potentially
> practical technology or knowledge in hand, yet who did nothing
> practical with it. One famous example is the Chinese and gunpowder.
> Another is the ancient Greeks and steam power.
>
> This post is not about steam power ONLY, but I'll go with that
> example. (In fact, this post isn't about the ANCIENTS, only! It's
> about US not repeating the mistake of ignoring something useful that
> is in hand or known about, and refusing to develop it.) I know
> Archimedes boiled water in a closed vessel with two open holes,
> suspended on a rod above a fire, which would turn on its axis. I also
> heard that the ancient Greeks could open the doors of the temple of
> the goddess Diana with steam power, however slowly. They would run
> this device to impress foreign visitors with the belief that the
> goddess liked their offerings.
>
> Now, what if they had thought this through, and developed at least
> steam-powered ****ps back in those times!? Can you imagine if ancient
> naval campaigns were fought with steam ****ps? How much more advanced
> might all kinds of technology be today if the ancients had decided to
> pursue the R&D of knowledge and technology which they actually had!
> There are many other examples, including use of a light beam as
> information carrier as far back as something like 1870.
>
> Well, I'm wondering what kind of stuff like that could be happening
> NOW? Maybe we are missing no avenue of approach to technological
> advance these days. But what if, theoretically, centuries or millenia
> distant, they could look back at us and wonder why we didn't develop
> such-and-such?
>
> What things might we be putting too little R&D into, relative to their
> promise? Antimatter propulsion for spacecraft, maybe? Massively
> parallel AI machines, a la HAL 9000, maybe? Geothermal? What? Are you
> sure we aren't missing a thing?
>
> I understand NASA has an office for dealing with this concern. Do
> other agencies, companies, industries, and even individuals do enough
> contemplating of this?
New technologies are introduced either by demand-pull or
technology-push. The examples you mention would have been
technology-push if they were developed as you suggest.
Demand-pull is always much more rapid and more effective.
Steam power was finally used in practical ways when there
was a need to be filled.
To take a more recent example, the laser found almost no
practical use for years after it was introduced. Surveying
finally offered a market, but a small one. Big markets
waited for uses like optical memory devices, as in CD and
DVD readers.
In medical parlance, technology-push is sometimes described
as a cure looking for a disease.
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