subject: Are all ideas for the present, or are they destined for the future? [print this page] Are all ideas for the present, or are they destined for the future?
Technology these days is so advanced that sometimes I wonder how the human mind was capable of producing such magnificence, however some technologies that are popular these days, have surprisingly been around since the early nineteenth century, and yet we have only just realised their true potential.
For example the air source heat pump was invented in 1800, but the refrigerator which uses the same system only backwards was produced five year after this. The refrigerator is in almost every home and what was once considered a luxury, how now become a simply necessity to all.
Air source heat pumps are becoming increasingly popular, with the threat of global warming looming over our heads, and every news channel broadcasting natural disasters, pin pointing the blame to every change in weather conditions. However is it all just too little too late? Why if it was invented over 200 years ago, did we not attach them to every new house being built then? That way we might have had possibly a greater chance of protecting our dying planet.
Generally we have survived on the process of problems reaching the corners of our mind, and then stealth fully creating a solution, which could have inevitably been created years beforehand, therefore eliminating the overall problem occurring. For instance, we have been consuming natural energy resources for centuries, and yet we have only just drummed solutions into society now that the natural resources are nearing an end. Surely if we are capable of masterminding such inspirational inventions, then at least one person would have thought to have proposed the question: what are we going to do when the oil runs out?
The simplicity of the question makes it more difficult to understand the ignorance: curiosity may have killed the cat, and yet lack of curiosity in this case will eventually kill us.
Although air source heat pumps may have only just been commercialised for us to see, perhaps it is safer and more reliable to use now than in comparison to the nineteenth century. The original refrigerator involved using poisonous ammonia gas as the coolant, which would seem extremely dangerous and considerably reckless these days, but in 1805, it was just a problem to an otherwise ingenious invention.
"Perfection takes time" this is what my parents have ingrained in me since I was old enough to understand what was meant by it. Like other small children, patience was not my strongest point back then.
It is this phrase which sums up my theories nonetheless; it has taken almost 200 years for heat pumps to become popular but back then we did not want or perhaps even need the air source heat pump. Like a patient snake, it has waited in the grass for 200 years in order to be successful now. In order for this heating system to be considered desirable and even needed, we had to continue to use up natural resources as if they were never going to end.
Air source heat pumps will no doubt follow in its cousins footsteps, like the refrigerator, it may appear a luxury for now, but give it a mere 10 years and it will certainly become the norm.
