Does War Influence Ingenuity?


	Does War Influence Ingenuity?

Rustee

4-1-2008 8:47 PM

279 views

tags:

science, history, war

Rustee says:

We're told that "necessity is the mother of invention," but history doesn't really bear that out. The true mother of invention is our powerful driving internal need to invent. We invent because we want to invent. It's freedom that's the real mother of invention.

Add a Comment

Login to Comment. Not a member yet? Sign up

The Other Humans

Artist Builds Temple of Science

I'm Going for a PHD in Alchemy

Telling A 15 Billion Year Story In 3 1/2 ...

New Solar Cell Easy As Pizza To Make

Future 'Top 10' Hot Careers in 2012

More clips from Rustee

Reason in Politics

Enable Chrome's Best Features on Firefox

Fool's Mate - Fastest Possible Checkmate

Today's Top Clips

visit the Top Clips page

View the Top Clips from April 1, 2008

Embed This Clip In Your Site...

<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/6308a556-4e4a-4d8c-a82b-43285b6f4be5/F59F705D-E503-4F8E-96BC-A81EC4623F0B/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi35.htm" href="http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi35.htm" style="font-size: 11px;">www.uh.edu</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi35.htm"><div align="center"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/www.uh.edu/img/49B2827F-9220-45C2-B6CB-3107D651AA81" alt="Engines of Our Ingenuity" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi35.htm"><P>
                <FONT size="+3">T</FONT>he common wisdom tells us
                that war speeds up invention -- that airplane
                performance, ship technology, and engine design all
                raced ahead during WW-I and II -- that governments
                can speed the creation of ideas. But there's good
                reason to ask if this is really true.
              </P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi35.htm"><P>
                I'll use airplane speeds to show why I have doubts,
                but any other technology would show the same thing.
                Airplane speeds are a good thing to look at because
                we know how badly everybody wanted to speed up
                their planes during WW-I and II.
              </P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi35.htm"><P>
                The remarkable fact is that throughout its history
                the speed of flight has doubled every nine years.
                The rate of increase has been dead steady from the
                first primitive airships in the 1880s right up
                until orbital flight made speed a non-issue. That
                nine-year doubling has been absolutely untouched by
                war, depression, or presidential proclamations.
              </P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi35.htm">
                What government commitment does increase during war
                is production.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi35.htm">But human ingenuity is quite a different
                creature. </blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi35.htm"><P align="center">
                <A href="http://www.kuhf.org/programaudio/engines/eng35_64k.m3u">
                <B>Click here for audio of Episode 35.</B></A>
              </P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/F59F705D-E503-4F8E-96BC-A81EC4623F0B/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

Clipmarks: Home; New Clips; Top Clips; Dashboard

Popular Topics: News; Life; Science; Technology; Entertainment

Get Started: Sign Up; Install Clipping Tool; How Clipping Works; Clip-to-Blog™; ClipSearch

Tools and Resources: FAQ; ClipWeek; Top Clippers; Top Tags; Site Map

About Clipmarks: About Us; Contact; Blog; Copyright; Privacy; EULA

Search Options

Related Clips

More clips from Rustee

Today's Top Clips