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In article <2ABA4ACF.24957@ics.uci.edu> mludwig@ics.uci.edu
(Michael Scott Ludwig) writes:
>=>How can anyone, competent enough to use Usenet, seriously
>=>expect that technology will stagnate for the next 100 years, so that the
>=>problems faced 100 years from now will be exactly those we face today,
>=>except that the oil will have been exhausted?

Because science is the basis for technology, not magic.  And science
has taught us a few basic ideas: the Conservation Laws, Thermodynamics,
etc.  Maybe 100 years will find that we could trisect any angle with compass
and ruler.

>Or meybe it's related to a complaint I heard about the automobile industry -
>that even though engines as in most cars today are inefficient and it
>wouldn't take tons of work to come up with a more efficient engine, these
>companies, in the half-century or more that they've been around, haven't
>tried at all to come up with such an engine until the last few years.  Is
>that it?

See if you can find a March 1992 copy of Discover.  While I am not a
fan of popular science publications like this, there is an interesting
article about Paul MacCready (of the Gossamer XXX vehicles) meeting
auto engineers.  He firmly believes these guys don't design for efficiency,
have no real idea of aerodynamics, and engines far more powerful than needed.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
  Acting Associate Editor, Software and Publication Reviews
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