Eamonn F. Healy, Chemistry Department, Eamonn F. Healy, Chemistry Department,

St. Edward’s University, St. Edward’s University,

Austin TX 78704Austin TX 78704

The Unexpected Future

My pen is worn, mine hand heavy, mine eye even dimmedWilliam Caxton - 1474

An advertisement for a caxton book, circa 1480

The First Amplifier - 1947The benchtop of Bardeen and Brattain - Bell Labs, 1947

Books 1456-1502 Computers 1958-2002

1456 : Gutenberg & Schoeffer print 1958: Jack Kilby creates the first integratedtheir first Bible circuit

By 1502 anywhere between 8-24 1943 Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM,million books were in circulation states that: “..there’s a world market for

maybe 5 computers.”Until 1485 all printing was simply In 1977 the president of DEC states that:The counterfeiting of religious texts “there’s no reason people would want

computers in their homes”. In 1500 that the printer Brant wrote: ???“…thanks to the talent and industry of those from the Rhine… there is nothing nowadays that our children fail to know”

Keep thine mouth shutadvice to the miller Menocchio, 1594

"Salviati: But if this is true, and if a large stone moves with a speed of, say, eight while a smaller one moves with a speed of four, then when they are united, the system will move with a speed of less than eight; but the two stones when tied together make a stone larger than that which before moved with a speed of eight. Hence the heavier body moves with less speed than the lighter; an effect which is contrary to your supposition."

Galileo

The Crime of Galileo: Indictment and Abjuration of 1633

Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei, of Florence, aged seventy years, were denounced in 1615, to this Holy Office, for holding as true a false doctrine taught by many, namely, that the sun is immovable in the center of the world, and that the earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; also…, therefore…the two propositions of the stability of the sun, and the motion of the earth, were qualified by the Theological Qualifiers as follows: 1.The proposition that the sun is in the center of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical; because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scriptures. 2.The proposition that the earth is not the center of the world, nor immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal action, is also absurd, philosophically false, and, theologically considered, at least erroneous in faith. Therefore …it is Our pleasure that you be absolved, provided that with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, in Our presence, you abjure, curse, and detest, the said error and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome.

1633 A.D.

Science owed more to the Steam Engine than the Steam Engine ever owed to Science

Anon

Steam Engine : Savery (1698) Newcomen (1710) Watt (1776) Stirling (1816)

Technology : from the word technics; meaning an assembly of crafts and skills - First coined around 1700

Scientist - coined by analogy With the term artist - first appearsIn 1839

Boulton and Watt began making engines long after Thomas Savery made his first steam pump in 1698. The 18th-century steam work-horse was neither Savery's nor Watt's engine. It was the engine Thomas Newcomen built in 1711. Newcomen's engine had a power takeoff device so you could apply it to different jobs. When Watt

filed his first engine patent in 1769, almost 600 Newcomen engines had been built.

Modern Stirling Engine This machine works well under the condition that the temperature difference is around over 500 centigrade. The heat source is electric heater. When the heater temperature is about 600 centigrade, the fly wheel revolutes about 1000 rpm.

In this case, the temperature of cooling portion is about 100 centigrade.

Good God, he is aliveComment by a spectator on

August6, 1890, at Auburn prison, witnessing the first execution

by electric chair.

The first application of current, lasting 17 seconds, didn't complete the job. The smell of burned flesh caused spectators to become nauseous, but when theelectricity was turned off, they noticed a slight heaving of the victim's chest. "Good God, he is alive," one man said. A press representative fainted. A second current was applied that according to the New York Times account lasted anywhere from one minute to four-and-half minutes, since witnesses with watches had been too horrified to check them. This current had the intended effect. But in the aftermath it was disputed whether Kemmler died of electric shock or was simply "roasted to death." The Times described the event as "an awful

spectacle, far worse than hanging."

V (Volts) = i.R(Ohms Law)P (sJ-1) = V.iHeat (Cal) = i2.R.t

1890 - George Westinghouse recommended that the best way to transport Niagara Falls power to Buffalo would be by compressed air. Westinghouse was the champion of AC but the problem with AC was that it lacked a practical and efficient motor. The fierce and the stubborn champion of DC was Thomas Edison.

While Nikkola Tesla would eventually develop an AC motor the DC transmission problem was fundamental.

This did not prevent Edison from cabling --he was in Europe at the time--about the prospect of transmitting large-scale power from NiagaraFalls to Buffalo, wired back: "No difficulty transferring unlimited power. Will assist."

The War of the Currents

Thine alabaster cities gleam America the Beautiful- Katherine Lee Bates, 1893

1893 Chicago Columbian: Exposition: America's third

world's fair. The "fair to end all fairs” cost around half a billio dollars in todays currency. Yet the old photos show nothing of the coming century. The architecture is that of imperial Europe. The electrical hall is filled with telegraphs and telephones, electric railways, elevators, and lighting. But there's no hint of radio, and no one sees that small electric motors will soon transform both the home and workplace. The transportation building holds bicycles, railways, and steamships, but no automobiles. The most popular exhibit is a display of farm windmills. The fair summariings the condition of America in 1893 and reveals almost nothing of any future. The one accurate glimpse of the coming twentieth century was accidental. The women's building was designed by

21-year-old MIT graduate Sophie Hayden.

Miracles You'll See in the Next Fifty Years, Kaempffert, W., Popular Mechanics, February 1950, pp. 113-118,

He describes for us a fictitious Ohio town in the year 2000. The town center is an airport. Triple-decker highways radiate outward from it -express traffic on top, local traffic in the center, business vehicles below. The cars burn alcohol. The family helicopter pad is on top of the garage. To leave town, you can fly by rocket or jet plane. Supersonic rocket trips are expensive, so most of us use jets. Ocean liners are still in use, but now they use atomic power. In the home. Men shave with chemical crèmes. To clean your living room you simply take a hose to it -- everything's waterproof. Dishes are disposable. Microwave ovens have replaced conventional ones, and you buy most food precooked. Many foods are made synthetically from sawdust. The new TVs double as video telephones. The author sees solar and atomic power in competition. The author sees only one use for the new computers.They'll give accurate predictions of the weather by solving the equations for the movement of air.

The risk of a closed mind is a dull and unlauded career. The risk of a gullibility, meanwhile, is a ruined one

Philip Ball, Editor of Nature

... that blessed mood, … In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:--that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on,-- Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.

Wordsworth, capturing the intimacy between our mind and nature in his poem Tintern Abbey