subject: What Is The Reason For the Invention Lag? [print this page] What Is The Reason For the Invention Lag?
The hang glider is a pretty simply gadget. It is basically a giant kite in which a person can use the wind currents to, in relative safety, soar high above the earth. And yet it is only recently, 'after' the invention of the airplane in fact, that hobbyists in large numbers have taken to the sky in their hang gliders and paragliders.
But most of us know that humans have always dreamed of flight and that, technically and on paper at least, the hang glider was invented ages ago. I find it inexplicably odd that it wasn't until this age that we have begun parachuting and hang gliding in earnest. Surely centuries ago there were people brave enough to test one out- it's not like testing hang gliders was any less dangerous than it was in this last century after all. But it was in the last century that we saw airplanes fly and finally became convinced beyond a doubt that we could, on the power of wind, fly too.
A cursory survey of inventions throughout history reveals an amazing array of devices that we take for granted today but never 'got off the ground' so to speak in their own time. People just gave up or didn't consider them worth the effort of pursuing I suppose. Conversely, we find in history many marvels of technological achievements that even today we cannot explain.
As I look around our world today, I find the pace of technological progress and the number of new inventions absolutely dizzying. On the surface, much of what is popular may seem trivial or trite, but fad gadgets are only superficial expressions of the tremendous wealth of new technology behind them. The inventions of the future- the near future- will come in rapid-fire succession and will completely alter our lives as we know them.
