Eamonn F. Healy, Chemistry Department,

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• Eamonn F. Healy, Chemistry Department,
• St. Edwards University,
• Austin TX 78704

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The Unexpected Future
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My pen is worn, mine hand heavy, mine eye even
dimmed William Caxton - 1474
An advertisement for a caxton book, circa 1480
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The First Amplifier - 1947 The benchtop of
Bardeen and Brattain - Bell Labs, 1947
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Books 1456-1502 Computers 1958-2002
1456 Gutenberg Schoeffer print 1958 Jack
Kilby creates the first integrated their first
Bible circuit By 1502 anywhere between
8-24 1943 Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, million
books were in circulation states that ..theres
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 theres 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
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Keep thine mouth shut advice 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
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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,
thereforethe 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.
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Science owed more to the Steam Engine than the
Steam Engine ever owed to Science Anon
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 appears In 1839
Steam Engine Savery (1698) Newcomen (1710)
Watt (1776) Stirling (1816)
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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.
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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.
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Good God, he is alive Comment 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 the electricity 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."
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V (Volts) i.R(Ohms Law) P (sJ-1) V.i Heat
(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 Niagara Falls
to Buffalo, wired back "No difficulty
transferring unlimited power. Will assist."
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The War of the Currents
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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.
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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.
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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
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Wordsworth, capturing the intimacy between our
mind and nature in his poem Tintern Abbey
... 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.