X-Message-Number: 32964
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 09:50:36 -0700
Subject: Charles Babbage analogy
From: MARK PLUS <>

In Cryonet #32949, Gerald Monroe writes:

http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=32951


>How many years typically passed between when writers and scientists of the past
accurately described a technology and when it was first prototyped?  For 
instance, Babbage's analytical engine was described in 1837 (refined until his 
death in 1871) and the first mechanical computer that was comparable was the 
German Z1, completed 1938. 101 years.

One, Babbage's machine would probably work because its design doesn't
make physically dubious assumptions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_engine

Two, Babbage's ideas didn't lead to a cult movement in the 19th
Century which wasted decades of other people's lives speculating about
the miracles his invention would bring about. Instead the technically
inclined people in the 19th Century directed their efforts towards
more immediately practical things like railroads, applied chemistry
and telegraphy. (I wonder how many "nanotechnologists" also consider
themselves economically sophisticated, yet don't see their own
diseconomic behavior?)

Three, what about comparing nanotechnology to more apposite cases
where the original conceptions led to new technologies quickly?

-- 
Mark Plus
Life is short: Freeze hard!

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