If you think about it, almost all computer-technology is radio. Wifi, bluetooth, GPS, radar, and cellular are literally radio. Meanwhile everything else runs on transistor tech developed and refined… for radios.
Our modern economy couldn’t exist if people like Hertz and Maxwell didn’t get to toy with their useless hobbies. But we can’t rely on the curiosity of the leisure class anymore. Basic research is expensive, necessary, and a public good. I’m afraid that the Trump regime has already spoiled the secret sauce that makes America the technology leader of the world.
Even more than that, just proving Maxwell was right was a key stepping stone to all of modern physics. Maxwell, not Einstein, was the first to show that the speed of light is invariant, and Einstein’s Relativity was a framework for explaining how tf physics works if that’s actually true. Prior to Einstein, physists all just kind of assumed there was some flaw in Maxwell’s theorems to lead to this crazy speed invariance, but as the evidence just kept piling up in favor of Maxwell, they started having to wrestle with the uncomfortable thought that this could actually be true. In this sense, Hertz can also be thought of as an important step to Einstein and beyond, and almost all of our modern technology.
It’s getting pretty drafty up here. Giants on shoulders of giants all the way down. I can’t even see the bottom anymore.
Bottom is probably Newton. The guy was a machine.
Faraday, after demonstrating how moving a magnet through a coiled wire induced a current in the wire was asked by a visiting statesman what was the use of this.
Faraday responded, “In twenty years, you will be taxing it”
Similarly, at a demonstration of hot air balloons in France, Benjamin Franklin was asked “Of what use is this?”
Franklin replied, “Of what use is a newborn baby?”
Everything I’ve ever heard about Franklin makes him a boss. This is a new one.
Sounds like Faraday understood the… potential.
That’s a really cool Franklin quote. Visionary.
“Mr. Franklin, of what use is this hot air balloon contraption?”
“You can take ladies up in it with a bottle of wine and a blanket and you know, they can’t refuse, because of the implication. Think about it. She’s floating up in the middle of the sky with some dude she barely knows. You know, she looks around, and what does she see? Nothing but open air. 'Ahhhh! There’s nowhere for me to run. What am I gonna do, say ‘no?’”
That last bit is me when dealing with people who “aren’t impressed” by today’s AI.
I’m not impressed by today’s AI and I also fully understand that the tech is going to completely upend society and will eventually be a part of our picture of utopia, or our picture of actual hell on Earth.
The people who are screaming it’s wild wonders and benefits are at least as closed-minded as the people who think we’re going to be able to put the toothpaste back in the tube. The actual direction this tech moves is going to be far more like the discovery of radio, in that at the time of it’s discovery and early implementation, the people then had no idea the implications down the road and we’re at the same point. Except the big difference and why this is contentious is that radio was far less dangerous to society broadly.
Radio was a fundamental force that always existed around us, we learned to use it the way our ancestors used rivers and waters to move goods and people. AI is completely human-made and doesn’t exist without human engineering, so it’s not neutral, it’s a tool shaped by man to do whatever a man wants with it.
Ok boomer
Sorry my comment didn’t have Subway Surfers playing in the corner with a popular streamer reacting to it so you could actually read it and understand it.
Apology accepted
I’m unimpressed by the people who use it.
I agree. But don’t really care if people use it, I just cannot stand when people wave it around like a new teddy bear that gives them a smug sense of superiority for… checks notes …using a product that someone is selling to let stupid people do easy things.
I’m sure they have trouble sleeping over that
They’re destroying humanity both physically and mentally, so I certainly hope so.
I shake my fist at them!
I feel like I hear about this guy once every second
this type of science-discovery to usefulness-realization latency is the norm, pretty sure Curie didn’t envision nuclear power plants
She didn’t envision a lot of things
There’s a good NPR podcast in the same vein as this: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/06/21/533840751/episode-779-shrimp-fight-club
It’s about congressman talking about government waste and targeting the sciences. It’s like, you don’t get the “cool” applications without the “weird” research. I’m doing a horrible job describing it, but I thought it was a good listen.
Oh yeah. No one appreciates blue sky research. We don’t know where the question will take us, which is why governments fund the research. They can take on the 0.1% chance something useful is created 20 years later.
This post tickles a fond memory of mine. I was talking to a right-wing libertarian, and he said there should be no research done ever if it couldn’t prove beforehand its practical applications. I laughed out loud because I knew how ignorant and ridiculous that statement was. He clearly had never picked up a book on the history of science, on the history of these things:
- quantum mechanics. It would be a shame if the poor libertarian didn’t have semiconductors in his phone, or if he didn’t have access to lasers for his LASIK surgery (which he actually did have), both of which are technologies built by basic research that didn’t have practical applications in mind.
- electromagnetism. It would be a shame if the poor libertarian was having his LASIK surgery and the power went out without there being a generator, a technology built by basic research that didn’t have practical applications in mind.
- X-rays. It would be a shame if the poor libertarian didn’t have x-rays to check the inside of his body in case something went wrong, a technology built by basic research that didn’t have practical applications in mind.
- superconductivity. It would be a shame if the poor libertarian didn’t have superconductors for an MRI to check the inside of his body in case something went wrong, a technology built by basic research that didn’t have practical applications in mind.
- radio waves. It would be a shame if the poor libertarian didn’t have radio waves for his phone and computer’s wifi and bluetooth to run his digital business, technologies built by basic research that didn’t have practical applications in mind.
When talking with libertarians you should keep in mind they have completely different axiomatic values. It is often the case that they understand a certain policy would be on net bad for everyone, they simply don’t care. They are rarely utilitarian about those issues.
I get along much better with libertarians who justify libertarianism with values extrinsic to just “muh freedom” – they are usually much more willing to yield ground in places where I can convince them that a libertarian policy would be net negative, and they have also moved me to be more open minded about some things I thought I would never agree with.
Those are much rarev in my opinion.
Was he the guy that started that rental car company?
/s
His customers lamented that driving was so boring and they wished there was some magical way for the cars to play music.
Oh well. Nothing to be done there.
Just straight lazy… Shame.
I feel like this is a very “scientisty” thing - the theoretical aspect is so fascinating and being able to fit all the pieces into a model that is mathematically accurate is the reward.
Considering the practical application of the model and how it can benefit society (or in other words, be marketed for profit) takes a different set of skills.
I absolutely detest the equivocation of “benefits society” and “marked for profit”.
Plenty of things have been discovered to have practical applications which can benefit society yet are shelved or have its implementation frustrated because it cannot be exploited for profit or threatens the profits of a preexisting application which it would replace.
This may be an even better example than the positron. Originally a theoretical antimatter form of the common electron, with no practical application.
Turned out to be a vital tool for medical imaging. If you or someone you know has ever had a PET scan, now you know what the P stands for.
We stand on the shoulders of giants etc etc. But it seems odd to me that they wouldn’t think about using this for communication at least.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radio
By August 1895, Marconi was field testing his system but even with improvements he was only able to transmit signals up to one-half mile, a distance Oliver Lodge had predicted in 1894 as the maximum transmission distance for radio waves.
I suppose beyond the engineering know how required they were looking at possible transmission ranges and thinking it simply wasn’t practical, square law and all that.
This.
There are often actual limits to what can be done, and there are practical limits. Especially in the early days of a technology it’s really hard to understand which limits are actual limits, practical limits or only short-term limits.
For example, in the 1800s, people thought that going faster than 30km/h would pose permanent health risks and wouldn’t be practical at all. We now know that 30km/h isn’t fast at all, but we do know that 1300km/h is pretty much the hard speed limit for land travel and that 200-300km/h is the practical limit for land travel (above that it becomes so power-inefficient and so dangerous that there’s hardly a point).
So when looking at the technology in an early state, it’s really hard to know what kind of limit you have hit.
It’s not always immediately obvious to what end you can use a new innovation. For instance, the Romans discovered and built a steam engine. But nobody connected the dots that it could be used to power a train.
To me, it showcases the main reason why we need to collaborate. Only together, we can exponentially increase the potential of everything we build.
I LOVE SIGNAL PROCESSING
Imagine if he had to apply for funding
“these waves have the potential to transform how we communicate and will likely find world wide usage”
He would actually be right unlike all the other funding applications which are largely oversold.
Hilariously, light is an electromagnetic wave.
So, yes, we can see electromagnetic waves… Just, only a very small segment of them.
How wrong he was. Now we use EM daily for everything… Communicating via Wi-Fi, listening to music in the car (FM broadcast), or via Bluetooth and using LTE… Even heating our food. Not to mention medical applications like X-rays…
There’s a shitload of stuff we use EM for without even thinking. It’s all around us, all the time, like the matrix. I love EM science.
This goes to show you that, just because someone discovered a thing, doesn’t mean that they have any idea what to do with that discovery, or that the discoveries end there…
Before, reality was just what humans could touch, smell, see, and hear, but after the publication of the charged electromagnetic spectrum, we now know that what we can touch, smell, see, and hear, is less than one-millionth.
And Mantis Shrimp still continue to baffle me in the amount of EM range they can sense/see.
I think new research says otherwise.
If only he knew his discovery would lead to the worst car rental company he problem wouldn’t have published
Dr Venture type science
Not really, he’s not stealing something his dad made, using modern tech to smooth over the 60s parts and presenting it as his own invention.
