he happy interaction of speed and scale has played out repeatedly. New products undergo constant improvements, becoming cheaper and more available. That spurs demand, more refinements, and, usually, further price cuts. It could be said that the mass market was one of the most critical developments of the 20th century, one that allowed countless others to bear fruit.
Of course, it would be arrogant to argue that change has never been more dramatic than in this century. After all, the eyeglasses crafted in 15th century Italy enabled individuals to overcome the handicap of myopia or presbyopia and become more
productive. In the late 19th century, electric light lengthened the day's usable hours, enhancing both work and leisure. Calculating the economic product created by the adoption of eyewear and illumination is difficult, but their contribution was great.
It is clear that the gains from innovation in this century have grown by several orders of magnitude. Speed and scale had much to do with that. So, too, did the persistent drive to understand and tame Nature, to view progress through science as the "endless frontier" that President Franklin D. Roosevelt's science adviser, Vannevar Bush, wrote about in 1945. Why sharpen vision with artificial lenses when it's possible to reshape the cornea with lasers or even replace it entirely? Why build radios and computers with bulky, power-hungry vacuum tubes, when thousands of solid-state tubes, or transistors, can be etched on the head of a pin—er, microchip?
In 1965, Gordon E. Moore, a co-founder of Intel, predicted that microchip power would escalate geometrically, and thus far, the march of technology has proved him correct, with semiconductor power doubling every 18 months. But the triumph of Moore's Law hasn't precluded the occasional application of Murphy's Law. This century has not been without its technological mistakes and missed chances. The Hindenburg exploded, the Spruce Goose lumbered awkwardly, Sony fumbled the ball with Betamax. The century has also had its share of technological horrors, often because of a military imperative. Chemical warfare felled French troops during the Great War, V-2 rockets rained down on Londoners during the Blitz, two atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese, and napalm devastated villagers in Vietnam.
The knowledge at the root of science and technology may be value-free. But Lewis Mumford, the great American social critic, believed that people both shape and are shaped by technological change. If innovation reflects who we are as much as where we are going, then these closing days of the century provide an interesting if complex portrait. The globe may be one mass market, but the World Wide Web and E-commerce have shown that it is infinitely divisible into interest groups, tribes, and market niches. People value speed more than ever, so new chips and glass fibers are accelerating the transfer of information. And today, the scale of humankind's explorations varies dramatically—from the vastness of space to the infinitesimal sequences of the genetic code. It's a world away from the turbines that whirred at the Paris Exposition in 1900. In 100 years, science and technology have advanced further than Henry Adams could ever have imagined. Take a look for yourself.
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