Chapter 24 The Marvel of Mans Inventions.
In the last essay, I suggested that you should be inventing things someday. Now let us admire what man has created through the ages. In 1976, I visited the pyramids in Egypt. They consist of thousands of blocks of stones, each the size of your classroom, lifted and piled up neatly to form the perfect pyramidal shape! This is incredible. They were built a few thousand years ago, long before the arrival of cranes and tractors, and it would take about 500 men to lift each block of stone. The pyramid remains one of the wonders of the world.
Several people who contemplated flying in olden days were considered insane. Then in 1903, the first plane built by the Wright brothers flew for 12 ecstatic seconds, reaching the height of a car-garage. Now, merely 90 years later, the latest Boeing 747 400-series airliner can fly 11,000 km for 13 hours at 11,000 metres! 400 passengers in an aircraft of 350 tonnes are lifted effortlessly into the air. Some modern jet fighters can whisk across at 3,000 km per hour, almost 3 times the speed of sound. Fastness is achieved on land too, the rapid magneticlevitation trains, which can match the swiftness of small planes are now being tested. Magnetic systems allow the train to „fly a little above the track without the drag of touch and friction.
In 1817, a German called B. Drais connected 2 wheels with a wooden bar, to make the first bicycle. The rider had to propel himself by kicking the ground! The first automobile did not even look remotely like a car, neither did it have the smoothness and speed of the latest Lexus or Jaguar. Nowadays, the air-bag in a luxury car is activated in a fraction of a second to cushion you in a collision, such things were beyond the imagination of our forefathers. G. Daimler made the first petrol-powered car; he was one of the founders of the Daimler-Benz Company that makes Mercedes cars (named after a daughter of one of the founders).
The computer has only been around for some 40 years. Now the super computer can do 250,000,000 calculations in a second! The ordinary diskette we use can carry all the words in a book, while the hard disc can store the entire set of encyclopaedias! Isnt science amazing? I cannot wait to see what we will have in 20 years time. The TV reached the public in the U.K. in 1936, and the first coloured ones emerged in the U.S. in 1956. Now the satellite in space can „collect and cast live TV shows instantly around the globe, to be enjoyed by millions. At home, the laser „shines on the discs to give you splendid music and movies, and it is used further to perform surgery in hospitals, replacing the awkward and scary surgical knives.
Science is also rapidly filling up our houses with gadgets which are embarrassingly smarter than we are. Look at the microwave and all the remotecontrol electronics. In the coming decade, micro-machines will sound an alarm when there is pollution, or when little Tom falls into the swimming pool. Lights, air conditioners or heaters will come on at the wave of your finger. A few robots will scurry around to fill your bathtub, and warm your TV dinner for you. Elsewhere in earthquake-prone areas, micro sensors could detect an impending quake and quickly disconnect all your electricity, water and gas, to prevent damage and injury. The time will come, when you will hardly need to drive your car or mow the lawn!
All these big inventions and wonders of science may appear formidable, or beyond the grasp of young minds, but if you spend years studying computer or laser technology, and gradually take them apart, the complexity will soon disappear. All great scientific products had rather simple beginnings, boosted by gradual improvements over the years, and coupled with occasional surprises and discoveries that enhanced their powers and sophistication. All these developments strengthen our conviction that nothing is beyond us, nothing is beyond powerful human enthusiasm and inquisitiveness.
Those of us who aspire to be creative, productive and successful, must therefore appreciate all the inventions over the years, including all the ordinary everyday things. New ideas and better products continue to evolve from these things. These small and common items also provide better relevance and attainability for young people. Corn flakes for example, were invented quite accidentally years ago, by the Kellog brothers. Matches first appeared in 1927. Before that, pellet matches were exploded by a hammering device! Pencil first started with liquid lead, and in olden days, the pen had to be dipped in ink. Then came the fountain pen, and in 1937, L. Biro patented the first ball-point pen. Isnt it cute? A tiny ball at the tip of the pen, rolling along with a reservoir of ink behind it! The combination lock on your bicycle may look simple, but 25 numbers in 3 turns offer thousands of different combinations!
The history of inventions teaches us to constantly find fascination, and foster imagination in things around us. Motion pictures for example, started because of peoples interest in animal movements. Then they discovered that when 40 or 50 pictures were run quickly on the screen, they merged to give a live picture; hence, the birth of movies! Cartoons were initiated by artists, and entered the screen after the arrival of motion pictures. In early days, messages were signalled by fire, or gestured from high towers! Then electricity was used to communicate, using 26 wires for 26 alphabets. Samuel Morse invented the Morse code, and in 1838, he needed only one wire instead of 26, to signal the codes. The telephone, however, evolved through trials and perseverance. In 1875, Alexander Bell found that the steel rod, while vibrating over the magnet of a telegraphic machine, caused a current of varying strength to flow through the wire. Many great products had crude and humble beginnings, others had accidental births.
All our inventions are increasingly shaping and colouring our lives. By thinking big and thinking small, and with fertile imagination and advancing technology, scientists and even dreamers are expanding and enriching our future. An exciting universe awaits us. Now play your part with creativity and calibre, and join humanitys concerted efforts to build a better world.
"You see how things are, and you ask 'Why?' But I dream of things that do not exist, and I ask 'Why not?'" - George Bernard Shaw.
"Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable." - Jung.
"We all have creativity, but very few know how to use it." - Akio Morita.