Instant Wisdom Newsletter - 1/2010
pictor
Motto:
Progress might have been alright once, but it has gone on too long.
-Ogden Nash
QUOTES ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
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Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
-Albert Einstein
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation.
-H. H. Munro (Saki)
A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a
person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as
possible. -Freeman Dyson
"Mach 2 travel feels no different." a passenger commented on an early
Concorde flight.
"Yes," Sir George replied. "That was the difficult bit."
-Sir George Edwards, co-director of Concorde development
Technology is a servant who makes so much noise cleaning up in the
next room that his master cannot make music. -Karl Kraus
If it's stupid but works, it isn't stupid.
The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The guy who
invented the other three, he was the genius.
Pessimists have already begun to worry about what is going to replace
automation. -John Tudor
The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he is one
who asks the right questions. -Claude Levi-Strauss
more quotes on science and technology:
http://wisdom.mondocolorado.org/topics/scitech.htm
JOKES
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Legend has it that when one of his neighbors
asked him to invent a way to get water from the
river to his fields, Archimedes said, "Don't ask
me. I'd probably just screw it up."
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Apple Computer reported today that it has developed computer
chips that can be implanted and play music inside women's
breasts. The music is in stereo, of course.
This is considered to be a major breakthrough because women
are always complaining about men staring at their breasts,
and not listening to them.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT - INVENTIONS
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Last year, British Science Museum put together a list of Top 10
inventions from their collection. The list is here:
Steam engine
V2 rocket engine
Electric telegraph
Stephenson's Rocket
X-ray machine
Model T Ford
Penicillin
Pilot ACE Computer
DNA double helix
Apollo 10 capsule
(if you are, like me, wondering at first why for example the printing
press,
exploitation of fire, exploitation of electricity aren't here, mind
that the
items were selected from the museum collection)
Here are some more comments and info:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8091753.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/5486113/Science-Museum-unveils-its-10-most-important-items.html
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/
Another list, named "Top 10 Inventions that Changed the World", put
together
by British Science Association experts, is here:
http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/the-top-10-inventions-that-changed-the-world/
To look on the other side, Time has assembled a list of 50 worst
inventions:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1991915,00.html
(this being a rather long list, the importance of various inventions
varies
from 'really harmful' to 'plain forgettable')
Let me top it off with something from my own experience. When at the
university,
I was a teaching assistant to a course named 'Engineering Responses to
Society'.
Among the assignments was to pick a controversial invention and write
a short essay
with arguments for both its positive and negative sides. The list of
the items
students picked is itself an interesting read, so I'm putting it here,
together
with a number of 'votes':
Controversial inventions
nuclear energy 15
atomic bomb, nuclear weapons 13
DNA manipulation, genetic engineering 7
computers 6
birth control 6
television 6
gasoline cars 5
synthetic parts in humans 5
space flights 5
guns 5
robots 5
pesticides 3
internet + WWW 3
cellular phones 3
stealth arms 2
in vitro fertilization 2
aerosol cans, CFC 2
artificial life support 2
fiberglass in cars, round earth, credit card, anthropology,
cryogenics, bone marrow transplants, hydropower plants,
missiles, drugs, skyscrapers, electronic censorship, electricity,
asphalt roads, workout machines, prenatal
testing, highways in the rainforest, agent orange, calculator,
microwave oven, compact disc, McDonald container,
printing press, greenhouse effect, electric car, incinerator, big
brother, military science, lead paint, vegetable
oil car, radar detectors and scramblers, fire, compass, telephone
- all 1 occurrence, in no particular order
(some of these are not inventions in the strict sense, but what the
heck)
Nuclear energy and weapons 'win' by a big amount... Also interesting
is to note that
computers and television are above guns and pesticides.
And what do you think? What are the most controversial inventions/
discoveries? Has
the progress gone too far? Is technology more helpful is is it more
like digging
a grave for ourselves? Please let me have your input. Next time we can
have a
newsletter with reader contributions (for a change)...
Jiri
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Instant Wisdom: http://wisdom.mondocolorado.org/