🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:17:05 +0800, "Tom Potter" <tdp1001@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>
>"Robert J. Kolker" <bobkolker@comcast.net> wrote in message
>news:xrGdnT1f_cCBE1zanZ2dnUVZ_s2tnZ2d@comcast.com...
>> Tom Potter wrote:
>>>
>>> As I indicated,
>>> technology is driven by technology,
>>>
>>> and new technologies come about via serendipity.
>>
>> And understanding of the underlying processes. Which is why we did not
>> have working transistors until 1948.
>>
>> We did not have the makings of radio until Maxwell modified Ampere's law
>> with the displacment current term.  Without the theory, there would have
>> been no technology.
>>
>> We did not have atomic bombs until we had an atomic theory. All
>> engineering technology is guided by the available theory, although some
>> fortunate accidents may occur.
>>
>> The mother of modern technology is quantum field theory which is, in part,
>> based on relativity theory.
>
> Bob Kolker makes a good point when he points out that
>"We did not have atomic bombs until we had an atomic theory."
>the bible, Newton's Laws, Maxwell's Equations,
>the Magna Carta. and the American Constitution.
>
>Of course, we also did not have atomic bombs until
>someone noticed that some material was messing up
>their photo plates, and that particles were being emitted
>from heavy elements, and that the concentration of
>light elements increased and the concentration
>of  heavy elements decreased, and until folks
>measured the masses of the various elements and isotopes,
>and folks made radioactive watch faces, and understood
>that the light energy had to come from somewhere, etc.

Yes, you're right, etc.

w.