Visions of Technology: A Century of Vital Debate about Machines, Systems, and the Human WorldRichard Rhodes Visions of Technology collects writings on events from the Great Exposition of 1900 and the invention of the telegraph to the advent of genetic counseling and the defeat of Garry Kasparov by IBM's chess-playing computer, Deep Blue. The book contains a worried editorial from 1931 by the journalist Floyd Allport, who presciently noted the community-destroying effects of technological advances such as the private car and the telephone, and reproduces any number of warnings from the likes of Aldous Huxley, Vannevar Bush, and Edward Abbey that humankind's scientific imagination far outstrips our moral capacity. It also includes Henry Ford on the horseless carriage, Robert Caro on the transformation of New York City, J. Robert Oppenheimer on science and war, and Loretta Lynn on the Pill. |
Contents
Preface to the Sloane Technology Series 19 | 1895 |
America in 1900 Mark Sullivan 29 | 1899 |
Praying to the Dynamo Henry Adams 36 | 1903 |
Copyright | |
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advance American areas atomic bomb atomic energy automobile become Bob Lund C. P. Snow century chemical civilization communication cost created culture earth economic effects electric electronic engineering ENIAC environment excerpt experience fact fuel future growth human idea important improvements increase industrial invention J. C. R. LICKLIDER kill knowledge laboratories launch less Lewis Mumford light living look machine man's materials means mechanical memex ment million modern motor Murphy's Law nature never NIGEL CALDER nuclear O-rings operations percent physical physicist plastics political population possible predict present problem production programs progress radio revolution RICHARD RHODES ROBERT OPPENHEIMER Robots scientific scientists seems social society solar space speed structure technical telephone television things tion United VANNEVAR BUSH VISIONS OF TECHNOLOGY weapons