Whoa! Hold it! Let's get out of the extreme cases. We're not talking
about specialized knowledge such as how to build a vacuum tube that only
specialists knew even in the heyday of the vacuum tubes. We're taling about
evveryday practicle things such as how to remove the cylider head of an
engine and replace a valve or how to use something as simple as a single
transistor. Sure we've lost the knowledge of how the Egyptians moved blocks
to built the pyramids but it hardly matters. What worries me is that fact
that I see almost no one growing up today that can repair ANYTHING other
than plug-n-play much less design anything. It's the same case in simple
mechanics, electronics, programming (how many college students today can
program in machine langauage or even Fortran?) and probably every other
technical field.
Joe
At 07:01 PM 6/20/04 -0700, you wrote:
>
>On Sun, 20 Jun 2004, David V. Corbin wrote:
>
>> >Does it matter that some knowledge is lost as generations go on?
>>
>> I think it does matter. Thinking "Those who forget the past are doomed to
>> repeat it".
>
>Are we really "doomed" to re-invent the vacuum tube? ;)
>
>> There were many "errors" made during the development phase of
>> each earlier generation technology. People learned from these mistakes and
>> finally made a workable technology for their generation. If the information
>> is truly lost, then time/effort/etc will again be wasted. In some case this
>> waste may incude enough overhead to cause perfectly good ideas to be
>> abandoned just before "the breakthrough".
>
>Again, I'm thinking in terms of vacuum tubes, and I can't see how losing
>the knowledge of how they worked is going to affect the future, or even
>the present for that matter. We're so beyond them technologically that
>they are irrelevant today.
>
>If we knew we were going to be plunged into another Dark Age (becoming
>likelier every day at the rate things are going) and somehow all knowledge
>subsequent to when vacuum tubes were state of the art is going to be lost
>then sure, I can see how teaching vacuum tube theory would be useful.
>But, as pessimistic as I am about humanity right now (or at least the
>future of the US) I don't think it's very realistic to assume this will
>happen.
>
>We still have historical records of how they were made. We still have
>(with some glaring holes) historical records of how all manner of
>technology for the past 5000 years has been accomplished, and we can
>re-learn and resconstruct old technology as we wish (mainly for hobby, but
>there are examples of utility, though rare).
>
>It would be neat to know how the Egyptians built the pyramids, but we have
>cranes and stuff for that today, so even if we knew their methods, is it
>really practical to teach them in engineering school?
>
>So one question might be: do we really need to overload EE students with
>theory about vacuum tubes when they'll probably never use them, much less
>come across them in the real world today? Or is it sufficient to have
>historical records on file for posterity?
>
>> I am remembering a book I read many years ago [can't place the title or
>> author right now, but it may have been a "short" by Isaac Asimov]. The
basic
>> premise was:
>>
>> 1) Information was being lost, so a special class of people were set up to
>> be caretakers [it was a high honor]
>> 2) Time passed, knowledge grew, the caretakers grew, until there were more
>> caretakers and "regular" people.
>> 3) Civilization began to depend totally on the caretakers, who specialized
>> in "old" knowledge.
>> 4) Civilization became stagnant
>>
>> Alas, perhaps it is necessary for information to become lost.......
>
>It's called "progress".
>
>> [Not even pretending to know the answer to this one]
>
>Me niether, but I think I have a good idea as to what it is :)
>
>--
>
>Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
Festival
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Received on Mon Jun 21 2004 - 07:43:31 BST