Engineers’ Achievements - Pushing the Limits: New Adventures in Engineering - page 166

Internet
Imaging
Household Appliances
Health Technologies
Petroleum and Petrochemical Technologies
Laser and Fiber Optics
Nuclear Technologies
High-performance Materials
The list is a striking reminder that the world of the late 1890s and early 1900s was quite different
from that of 2000. Engineers' dreams had turned into engineers' realities. Chances are that our an-
cestors then did not yet have electricity in their homes; did not have a car; had not even heard of an
airplane; drank untreated water; had no electronic devices for calculation or amusement; and had
yet to hear a radio broadcast or see a television show. If they lived on a farm—as so many then
did—they would not have had a tractor or other labor-saving machinery. If they had heard the word
“computer,” it referred to a person—usually a woman—who carried out calculations by longhand.
A telephone was a luxury, and even at mid-century long-distance calls were reserved for emergen-
cies and very special events. There was no air-conditioning or refrigeration as we know them today.
Highways were muddy, rutted roads in which wagons frequently got stuck. Spacecraft were science
fiction; the Internet was not even that; and imaging meant the mysterious new X-rays. What house-
hold appliances there were were powered by strong backs. Health technologies were primitive by
today's standards. The petroleum industry was in its infancy; plastic convenience items were rare
and expensive. Lasers and fiber optics, nuclear power, and high-performance materials like nylon
and Kevlar were undreamed of.
Predicting the technological future has always been risky business, for the world of invention
and engineering never ceases to push the limits of technology to come up with surprises that sur-
prise even the experts. In 1899, it has been reported, the U.S. commissioner of patents expected
his office to soon be obsolete, supposedly believing that “everything that can be invented has been
invented.” In 1901, Wilbur Wright confessed to his brother Orville the belief “that man would not
fly for fifty years.” In 1903, a bank president advised Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in the Ford
Motor Company, arguing, “The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad.”
As late as 1967, Lee De Forest, considered a father of radio, asserted that man would never reach
the moon, “regardless of all future scientific advances.” And in 1977, the president and founder of
Digital Equipment Corporation stated, “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in
their home.” Fortunately, not all inventors and engineers listen to predictions, even those made by
experts; they just push the limits of technology farther and farther into the future.