[time-nuts] The forbidden question

[jimlux]

On 6/4/19 3:21 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
> --------
> In message <CANy2iXowYBPreNnbrjnU7_XLz=NJ5ZVaGVMT0PRmUD0=7BLf9A at mail.gmail.com>
> , "William H. Fite" writes:
> 
>> What I am asking is not the validity of the quest for better timing
>> but rather its tangible applications.
> 
> Tangible for who ?
> 
> For the average pedestrian there are no *current* tangible applications
> where cesium level time-keeping isn't plenty.
> 
> However, the same would have been said about chronometers and quartz
> clocks at various times in the past.
> 
> To answer your question we would need to look about 20-30 years
> into the future, which seems to be the median time for better
> timekeeping to break through to the wider public, even if they do
> not know it has happened, (ie: longitude navigation, digital telephone
> networks, GPS.
> 
> Peeking 20-30 years into the future is an unsolved problem, so I
> would argue that your question is unanswerable at this time.
> 
30 odd years ago, I heard a speech from a guy at AT&T who said that by 
definition, you cannot predict technology that will result in a 
revolution ahead of time.

He was commenting on the incredibly rapid drop in transoceanic 
communication costs (and in networking costs in general). He said that 
nobody in the 1950s or 1960s could have *accurately* forecast what 
having 100 Mbps to the desktop would mean. At the time he said this 
(1993), the cost of a "voice call" worth of bandwidth (50-60kbps) across 
the ocean was a few dollars (capital and some amount of operating cost) 
- he said that was totally disruptive to an industry that based its 
entire pricing model on dollars per (miles*minutes). The cost of a voice 
channel in an optical fiber was literally "too cheap to meter".

He also commented that when electric motors came out, nobody could have 
predicted how pervasive they would be.  The replaced steam engines, 
water wheels, and animal treadmills in applications like power looms, 
machine shops (think common shaft with all those belt driven machine 
tools).  Later, appliances used to advertise "contains an electric 
motor" (imagine a washing machine that you had to manually actuate with 
foot pedals and a crank for the wringer - or a sewing machine.. my 
grandmother had a sewing machine that had both a foot treadle and a 
retrofitted electric motor).

Now, the average car has dozens of motors in it, and nobody even 
mentions it, nor advertises it "The new sports car, now with 72 motors". 
  Heck, in my car, the rear view mirror has 3 motors, and there's 3 
mirrors. And how many motors in the seats, and the HVAC, and actuating 
various and sundry other things.