No matter how far along we get in the technology age, I’m still kind of stuck back in the 70s, or 80s—or when did we first create the computer? It still blows me away that we can use mobile devices to send messages through the air and have them instantly received by someone else’s device thousands of miles away. I guess that’s telecommunications for you.
These days, most of the time I’m using telecom services it’s to look up local residential painters on the Internet, or great deals on cupcakes. I’m not even using it for the more advanced functionalities, and it still amazes me.
There a quote I saw the other day that I thought was pretty neat, which summed up my feelings toward technology. The line was: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke, a renowned scientist and science fiction author, said this in 1961 in an article called “Profiles of the Future”.
In a way, what Clarke says is untrue. Computer technology is not exactly wizardry. We know why most things happen. The workings of electrical circuits is not as absolutely mysterious as spells or sorcery.
Millions of people on the Earth understand how to create a computer, or a rocket. In another sense, the quote has a great deal of truth to it. While we may understand how to build a computer or a space rocket, we can’t explain the core underlying psychics behind many of these phenomena. Math works the way it does…because it does. Scientists can explain the laws of nature, but they can’t tell you why the laws of nature are what they are. We know why things happen, but not why they happen.
So back to me being blown away by text messages — I still can’t grasp how pressing send on my phone can ignite such fiery speeds on words in my smartphone. Maybe I’m just a hopeless case, but technology astounds me with the complexities of even its most basic processes.
To me, GPS satellite technology is magic, plain and simple. It may not have the mystical qualities of a levitating object but….well wait, satellites do hover in space. You see, if you look closely at technology it is pretty magical.
It’s easy to forget that, as inundated as we are in it, many of things we take for granted now would have been pure science fiction to people from the past. Perhaps that’s why it takes a sci-fi author like Clarke to point it out.