Submitted 15 hours ago by The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world to science_memes@mander.xyz
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Faraday, after demonstrating how moving a magnet through a coiled wire induced a current in the wire was asked by a visiting statesman what was the use of this.
Faraday responded, “In twenty years, you will be taxing it”
Similarly, at a demonstration of hot air balloons in France, Benjamin Franklin was asked “Of what use is this?”
Franklin replied, “Of what use is a newborn baby?”
That’s a really cool Franklin quote. Visionary.
Everything I’ve ever heard about Franklin makes him a boss. This is a new one.
Here’s a little known fact that is not true, which will bring some nuance to the previous anecdote, Benjamin Franklin ate babies.
He probably would have figured it out had he had time to evolve into Megahertz.
He might have won the very first Nobel Prize, had he not passed away just a few years prior, and much too young, wasn’t he in his late-30s or early-40s?
In fact, I believe that had Hertz remained alive and won his prize, the Nobel Committee would not have felt obliged to give it to Marconi a few years later.
Marconi was a back-stabbing asshole who became one of the wealthiest men in the world by abusing the gentlemanly trust of others, and coasting on someone else’s technology - particularly the way crystals oscillate, and some of them serve nicely as a sort of “translation point” between electromagnetic waves and the physical apparatus that transmits and/or receives the signal.
Then ascended to become pure EM spectrum as his final Gigahertz form.
With great power comes great corruption and tyranny. So begins the dark era of Terahertz
If you think about it, almost all computer-technology is radio. Wifi, bluetooth, GPS, radar, and cellular are literally radio. Meanwhile everything else runs on transistor tech developed and refined… for radios.
Our modern economy couldn’t exist if people like Hertz and Maxwell didn’t get to toy with their useless hobbies. But we can’t rely on the curiosity of the leisure class anymore. Basic research is expensive, necessary, and a public good. I’m afraid that the Trump regime has already spoiled the secret sauce that makes America the technology leader of the world.
Transistors were mostly developed for telephone systems (the ones with wires) as a replacement for tubes. And the modern tech used for radios is very different from that used for computers.
Ithink you could be more charitable in your reply. Transistors were developed to replace tubes in telephone systems… Okay but the tubes had been developed to where they were because of their usefulness in radio.
And while computers don’t inherently rely on radio, it’s radio communication that’s taken computers from one in every office to one in everyone’s pocket. Right? The main thrust of the previous commenter is true.
Even more than that, just proving Maxwell was right was a key stepping stone to all of modern physics. Maxwell, not Einstein, was the first to show that the speed of light is invariant, and Einstein’s Relativity was a framework for explaining how tf physics works if that’s actually true. Prior to Einstein, physists all just kind of assumed there was some flaw in Maxwell’s theorems to lead to this crazy speed invariance, but as the evidence just kept piling up in favor of Maxwell, they started having to wrestle with the uncomfortable thought that this could actually be true. In this sense, Hertz can also be thought of as an important step to Einstein and beyond, and almost all of our modern technology.
It’s getting pretty drafty up here. Giants on shoulders of giants all the way down. I can’t even see the bottom anymore.
I feel like I hear about this guy once every second
Whatever you do, love Hertz
I mean, it would be some 25 years until the radio was invented. And Hertz’ machine required a 30kV spark on a 2.5m meter long antenna with 2 solid 30cm zinc spheres, and his transmission range was something like “barely down the hall”.
Not the most practical method.
At least physics will never get patched. The spark device with zinc spheres will always do that thing.
FCC: And get you arrested
Fun fact: The german word for using a radio is “funken”; literally “to spark”. A radioman is, or was, a “Funker”. When you are talking over the radio, you are doing it “Über Funk”.
Those practical methods would never have existed if not for Hertz’ experiments. Those were 25 years of other scientists, having seen that this new concept exists, refining his contraption into what eventually would become the machine that we know as a radio.
So like Bluetooth?
But somehow more reliable.
Yes, except you need to buy each bit in a big glass jar
Was he the guy that started that rental car company?
/s
His customers lamented that driving was so boring and they wished there was some magical way for the cars to play music.
Oh well. Nothing to be done there.
Just straight lazy… Shame.
This post tickles a fond memory of mine. I was talking to a right-wing libertarian, and he said there should be no research done ever if it couldn’t prove beforehand its practical applications. I laughed out loud because I knew how incredibly ignorant and ridiculous that statement was. He clearly had never picked up a book on the history of science, on the history of
Bullshit. Lasers have been intended to gain interplanetary superiority since the dawn of time. We just didnt know they could also be used to read music from a circle
When talking with libertarians you should keep in mind they have completely different axiomatic values. It is often the case that they understand a certain policy would be on net bad for everyone, they simply don’t care. They are rarely utilitarian about those issues.
I get along much better with libertarians who justify libertarianism with values extrinsic to just “muh freedom” – they are usually much more willing to yield ground in places where I can convince them that a libertarian policy would be net negative, and they have also moved me to be more open minded about some things I thought I would never agree with.
this type of science-discovery to usefulness-realization latency is the norm, pretty sure Curie didn’t envision nuclear power plants
I suppose it’s like asking a biologist what type of dishes would they do with a plant species they just discovered
She didn’t envision a lot of things
There’s a good NPR podcast in the same vein as this: www.npr.org/…/episode-779-shrimp-fight-club
It’s about congressman talking about government waste and targeting the sciences. It’s like, you don’t get the “cool” applications without the “weird” research. I’m doing a horrible job describing it, but I thought it was a good listen.
Planet Money has some really good episodes. Unfortunately, a lot of filler as well.
I feel like this is a very “scientisty” thing - the theoretical aspect is so fascinating and being able to fit all the pieces into a model that is mathematically accurate is the reward.
Considering the practical application of the model and how it can benefit society (or in other words, be marketed for profit) takes a different set of skills.
I absolutely detest the equivocation of “benefits society” and “marked for profit”.
Plenty of things have been discovered to have practical applications which can benefit society yet are shelved or have its implementation frustrated because it cannot be exploited for profit or threatens the profits of a preexisting application which it would replace.
I LOVE SIGNAL PROCESSING
Half of the field is viable thanks to a single algorithm: FFT
FFT was a DARPA project. It alone probably makes all their funding worth it.
This may be an even better example than the positron. Originally a theoretical antimatter form of the common electron, with no practical application.
Turned out to be a vital tool for medical imaging. If you or someone you know has ever had a PET scan, now you know what the P stands for.
I always thought it stood for “pepperoni.” So, you’re saying “PET” stands for “Positrons, Endives, and Tomatoes”?
No it stands for animals you keep at home.
PET scan, its powered by hamsters.
And this is why science shouldn’t be beheld to the whims of politicians and capitalists
I mean, why would a guy that started a car rental company know anything about radio waves?
Gotcha!
I thought he was a baker. When I was a kid people would always be talking about “Hertz donuts”. Then they’d punch me. I never knew why.
Aperture Science! We do what we must because we can!
Did it Hertz when he realised the opposite, or did that happen after his time?
No, Hertz never lived to see applications of his discovery. Guglielmo Marconi (was a fascist) started working on radio telegraphy in 1894, shortly after Hertz’ death.
Oof! One of those moments which kinda’ make one wish there wasn’t an afterlife…
Thank you for the tidbit, though, and fuck Fascists regardless!
Dr Venture type science
Not really, he’s not stealing something his dad made, using modern tech to smooth over the 60s parts and presenting it as his own invention.
You don’t understand that’s just Hanseatic understatement.
Anti_Face_Weapon@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
We stand on the shoulders of giants etc etc. But it seems odd to me that they wouldn’t think about using this for communication at least.