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From: rsk@j.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: James Burke
Message-ID: <3266@j.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: Mon, 16-Feb-87 13:47:36 EST
Article-I.D.: j.3266
Posted: Mon Feb 16 13:47:36 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Feb-87 06:48:20 EST
References: <2818@udenva.UUCP> <7008@ut-sally.UUCP> <937@mips.UUCP> <3083@j.cc.purdue.edu> <944@mips.UUCP>
Reply-To: rsk@j.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Wombat)
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Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
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In article <944@mips.UUCP> hansen@mips.UUCP (Craig Hansen) writes:
>In article <3083@j.cc.purdue.edu>, rsk@j.cc.purdue.edu (Wombat) writes:
>> In article <937@mips.UUCP> hansen@mips.UUCP (Craig Hansen) writes:
>> >... but the nice thing about technology is that even the bits
>> >of it that you don't understand will keep working the same way forever. 
>> 
>> Nonsense.  The technology we rely on fails...frequently.
>
>I think I'm being quoted out of context and misinterpreted. What I mean here
>is that "technology" doesn't disappear easily. Even the New York blackout
>was a temporary affair, and the attention paid to the problem resulted in
>significant improvements in the electrical distribution network. The folly
>of man is not to be underestimated, but mercifully, the laws of nature have
>been reasonably constant over the last few millenia.  The point is that even
>a catastrophic event doesn't destroy the "technology matrix" - electricity
>would still have been a well-known phenomenon even if the New York blackout
>had (quite frankly, unimaginably) lasted for weeks.

I did not intend to quote you out of context, and do not think I did
so.  However, that issue aside, I feel that your statement is untrue
regardless of the context.  Why?  Because I think you are blurring the
difference between science and technology.  It is certainly true that
physics continues to operate regardless of the extent of
physics-knowledge possessed by human beings (I herein ignore the
Heisenberg uncertainty principle, as I'm mostly concerned with
macroscopic phenomena), but it is not true that technology (in the large)
continues to operate when human beings forget how it works.

To map this into the New York blackout example: yes, electricity would
continue to be an observable and controllable physical entity, in spite
of the [extended] blackout.  However, things like turbines and generators
and power distribution equipment are technological items that *will* fail,
sooner or later, and will thus require human intervention for maintenance.
It is these items which will NOT "keep working the same way forever" if
they become "bits of it that you don't understand".

We have already seen examples of technology that has been lost; the
medieval art of making stained glass still holds secrets that have not
been re-discoverd.  There are many instances of ancient constructions that
were built with techniques that are still unknown--although many of
these are now being gradually deduced.  Physics hasn't changed; but
the technology doesn't work anymore because we simply don't know how
to make it work.

Maybe we're arguing a semantic issue; perhaps we need to draw a line
of some vague sort between science and technology.  (I would agree with
your original statement if it concerned science,  not technology.)

Rich Kulawiec, rsk@j.cc.purdue.edu, j.cc.purdue.edu!rsk