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https://freedium.cfd/https://medium.com/teatime-history/two-technologies-that-were-way-ahead-of-their-time-349874c2a12a>
"What would you say are the most important inventions in world history? Once
you start adding to the list, it's hard to stop. Medical inventions like
vaccines and antibiotics have saved billions of lives. Vehicles — cars,
airplanes, and trains — globalized the world and enabled humans to move freely
around the planet. Mass communication inventions like radios, televisions, and
the internet created our culture. Weapons, from the gun to the atomic bomb,
transformed conflict.
When we talk about the history of innovation, we often focus on the inventors
who developed new technologies, and, sure, the Thomas Edisons and Alexander
Graham-Bells of the world are important. But creating a new technology is just
one part of the equation. People also need to understand how to use an
invention. For some innovations, these two insights happened simultaneously —
the invention itself and how to use it. In other cases, they were separated by
centuries.
So, let's look at two of the world's most significant technological
might-have-been. Why were these crucial inventions — the steam engine and the
printing press — invented hundreds or thousands of years before they
transformed the world?"
Sometimes the inventor themselves sees the possibilities but is unable to
convince others, or the infrastructure to use the invention at scale isn’t
available yet. For example, the Babbage computing engines required precision
manufacturing of gears that was at the limits of the available techniques of
the time.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
