October 8, 2015 (Thursday)
Great things can come from small beginnings. D. Everett, in The Columbian Orator, 1797, wrote, “Large streams from little fountains flow, Tall oaks from little acorns grow.”
This is certainly true of the marvelous and exciting world of technology in which we live.
It started with a light bulb. One day someone discovered that the heated element in a light bulb was emitting a tiny amount of electricity in the form of electrons.
Then another somebody devised a device called a vacuum tube, a light bulb without light, you might say, designed to regulate the flow of those pesky little electrons. That one capability made possible little circuits of electricity that soon resulted in a little something known as radio. The tube, along with capacitors, resistors and coils opened up a whole new world of electronics and paved the way for all the technologies at our disposal today.
After reigning as king of electronics for a long period of time, the vacuum tube was supplemented, then replaced, by the transistor. The transistor worked on a chemical process, was many times smaller than the tube and ran much cooler. After a while, the researchers came up with a little bitty black box-looking thing that resembled a square spider with a lot of metal legs that they called an integrated circuit. Then they made it smaller..and smaller..and..well, you get the idea. You have many of these things in your house and car.
The scientists kept working until they successfully miniaturized every electronic component ever invented and boom, one day you held in your hand a miracle “machine” that serves as a phone, a computer, a camera, a recorder, a timer, and much, much more.
And it all began when somebody took the time to take a closer look at a light bulb.
Who knows what’s in the future?
Somewhere out there in this wide world, a little kid is taking a closer look at a toy, an appliance, or a plant in the yard, or..you name it–it could be anything, and one of these days that child will ask, “why?” about something we all take for granted. The result will be..well, no one knows now what the result will be, but it could well be earth-shaking in its impact. I hope I live long enough to see it.