The geniuses of history and the boredom of modern days
I often long for the day when we can upload our thoughts - voluntarily, mind you - when we are no longer hindered by the keyboard and mere words in expressing our ever-so fleeting thoughts. I envy those endowed with high WPM numbers. Typing is like a chore to me, especially when I feel symptoms of the dreaded Carpal Tunnel Syndrome creeping along the edge of the ball of my right hand's palm. It makes for uncomfortable typing. Yes, yes, I know, ergonomics will solve my problems. I need an extreme home makeover. Or a wife/partner(s) of the opposite sex.
The day when we are able to have our minds read will certainly come very soon, much sooner than you'd think. Just take the advent of next-generation limb prosthetics controlled purely by brain waves. You got me right, by thought alone. It is just a matter of trivial processes in order to couple the field of sign language recognition to the burgeoning field of brain-computer interfaces. Whenever I sign (say) something, the gray matter up there will generate distinct brain waves according to the gross movements of my body parts (arms, hands, fingers, face etc). Sign language will generate certain brain-wave patterns which requires sign language recognition technology to decipher. Alas, that's something that Gallaudet should do now. Before it is too late!
But, I digress. I want to steer this rumination back towards my original motivation for creating this post- essentially a book review. That'd then bring meaning to the title of this posting! I just read Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon, a true classic, I'd have to say. I am still awowed by the 1865 literary piece. The fact that it was written in that year, just right after the Civil War just adds to the awesomity of the book. I am really glad that I never read any of Jules Verne's works in school! It's a different type of inspiration when you discover things on your own, rather than in the classroom. Gems of wisdom are one of the best kinds of discoveries to be made, especially when you are an autodidact like me.
Jules Verne invented science fiction. It's as simple as that. He inspired countless others, such as H.G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke of 2001, A Space Odyssey fame, Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocketry, just to name a few. Verne opened up the minds of the people, effecting "groupthink out of the box" on a massive scale. This book, one mere stack of papers 181 sheets thick, inspired scientists like never before. The culmination? 104 years later, man walked on the moon.
Jules Verne is just yet another example of the multiudes of historical figures who have had a profound impact on me. That's one of the little secrets of the universes- the learned masters are few if you limit yourself to the times of modernity. You start to find many of them when you look for them in the 4th dimension. In other words, you will always learn something if you read original works of the Giants of history. For more on that, read some of my previous posts. I intend to elaborate more on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Galileo Galilei, Nikola Tesla and some others in the upcoming blogoposts.
Some of the tidbits I picked up from Jules Verne:
The day when we are able to have our minds read will certainly come very soon, much sooner than you'd think. Just take the advent of next-generation limb prosthetics controlled purely by brain waves. You got me right, by thought alone. It is just a matter of trivial processes in order to couple the field of sign language recognition to the burgeoning field of brain-computer interfaces. Whenever I sign (say) something, the gray matter up there will generate distinct brain waves according to the gross movements of my body parts (arms, hands, fingers, face etc). Sign language will generate certain brain-wave patterns which requires sign language recognition technology to decipher. Alas, that's something that Gallaudet should do now. Before it is too late!
But, I digress. I want to steer this rumination back towards my original motivation for creating this post- essentially a book review. That'd then bring meaning to the title of this posting! I just read Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon, a true classic, I'd have to say. I am still awowed by the 1865 literary piece. The fact that it was written in that year, just right after the Civil War just adds to the awesomity of the book. I am really glad that I never read any of Jules Verne's works in school! It's a different type of inspiration when you discover things on your own, rather than in the classroom. Gems of wisdom are one of the best kinds of discoveries to be made, especially when you are an autodidact like me.
Jules Verne invented science fiction. It's as simple as that. He inspired countless others, such as H.G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke of 2001, A Space Odyssey fame, Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocketry, just to name a few. Verne opened up the minds of the people, effecting "groupthink out of the box" on a massive scale. This book, one mere stack of papers 181 sheets thick, inspired scientists like never before. The culmination? 104 years later, man walked on the moon.
Jules Verne is just yet another example of the multiudes of historical figures who have had a profound impact on me. That's one of the little secrets of the universes- the learned masters are few if you limit yourself to the times of modernity. You start to find many of them when you look for them in the 4th dimension. In other words, you will always learn something if you read original works of the Giants of history. For more on that, read some of my previous posts. I intend to elaborate more on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Galileo Galilei, Nikola Tesla and some others in the upcoming blogoposts.
Some of the tidbits I picked up from Jules Verne:
- You can make a substance with much more explosive power than gunpowder if you soak cotton in nitric acid (yes, cotton!) for 15 minutes and then dry it out. That makes nitrocellulose
- one quart of gunpowder, when ignited, expands to 4,000 quarts' worth of fiery gaseous matter. Speak of some explosive power!
- The orbital speed of planets decreases as you go by the planets: Mercury spins around the sun fastest, and Pluto the slowest. It is Verne who so clearly stated the obvious for everyone to understand:
Neptune moves at the rate of 12,500 miles per hour; Uranus at 17,500; Saturn at 22,145; Jupiter at 29,190; Mars at 55,030; Earth at 68,750; Venus at 80,080; and Mercury at 131,300. Some comets have a velocity of 3,500,000 miles per hour at their perihelion! As for us in our projectile, we will be loafing along at a leiursely pace of only 24,400 miles an hour at the beginning, and our speed will be constantly decreasing! Is that anything to be excited about? Isn't it obvious that all this will be surpassed some day by still greater speeds, whose mechanical agents will probably be light or electricity?
We have harnessed the mechanical agent of electricity for the means of travel, but not yet light. Thanks, Jules Verne! I'm going to work on that remaining problem- propulsion by means of light.
If we're to believe certain narrow-minded people - I don't know what else to call them - mankind is enclosed in a circle from which there's no escape, and doomed to vegetate on this globe without ever being able to soar into interplanetary space! It is not true! We're about to go to the moon, and someday we'll go to the planets or the stars as easily and quickly as we now go from New York to Liverpool! The oceans of space will soon be crossed as the oceans of the earth are crossed today! Distance is only a relative term, and it will eventually be reduced to zero.
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