No single basket wins the game: The evolution of anti-lock braking systems was a group effort
Monday, 12 October 2009 00:00
Dick Morley
Most inventions stand on the innovations of the past. They aren’t usually solo efforts — they require group participation. For example, Edison — the electric-light guy — had a large, talented staff. Together they discovered “1,000 ways not to make an electric light.” Who was the “true” inventor of the electric light? Arguments abound. We seem to think the last point made in a basketball game wins the game. We make the player who made the shot a hero when it is all the players, coaches, owners and fans who are the heroes. Electricity...
Beyond the leading edge: Technology in the new millennium
Monday, 21 September 2009 00:00
Dick Morley
Welcome to the Y2K millennium. Whatever happened to the Y2K bubble? We seem to have more bubbles and hype than we need, and we worry too much. For instance, ants – like most of the animal kingdom – don’t worry; they deal with the present very well and solve their problems without stress. While we, the dominant carbon life form, worry about everything. We worry about politicians, weather, spousal infidelity and the price of gasoline. We seldom can improve anything with stress and worry. Most of the talking heads on television tend to try to predict the future. It can be for...
Modern sensing: It's a system-oriented sensing and measuring world out there
Monday, 08 June 2009 00:00
Dick Morley
Since Manufacturing AUTOMATION has a readership in the automation business, I tend to write about manufacturing and automation in my columns. I do, however, have other interests. I wander off into venture capital, chaos, autonomous agents, supercomputers, rapid transit, movies and biology. Most of these subjects have a lot in common. They are “self-similar,” meaning that the processes of control resemble each other, but are described with different jargon. The sensing processes for automation, buildings, hunting dogs and physics all seem self-similar. Sensing means to be aware of...
|
Class is in session: A short history of wireless
Monday, 04 May 2009 00:00
Dick Morley
Wireless works anywhere, at any time. Wireless means communication without wires. When you look at it that way, the human species has been wireless for most of its existence thanks to voice, odor, sight and reading. As we got smarter, we used smoke signals and relayed light signals from mountaintop to mountaintop. Halfway through the 19th century, electricity was born when Faraday and Maxwell discovered the quantum effects of electrons. This led to wired communication for the first time in human species. We could get distance and speed for transmission of information (e.g. the telegraph and...
Ice caps: Surviving the storm of the century
Monday, 06 April 2009 00:00
Dick Morley
The Northeast United States had an ice storm in December; the worst ever. I thought I would take a break from a technical focus this month to let you all know how I survived the storm. We live in a remote area of Southern New Hampshire and are inured to storms. Our snowfall varies between zero to 12 metres a winter. We are technically not on the power grid. We get power from a long extension cord plugged into a socket two towns away. If any incident occurs to the feed to our section of town, we lose power. The power cannot be switched to another feed. Short...
Chinglish to English: My Chinese adventure
Monday, 02 February 2009 00:00
Dick Morley
China is in the throes of change. Many years ago, I visited Beijing, and when I was there, we tried to land, I thought, in a farmer’s field. Not so. They just didn’t turn on the electric lights in the airport at that time. This was a decade or so ago when electric power was in short supply. Times have certainly changed. When I travelled there recently, I was greeted by a modern, bustling city and an airport with bright lights. Our trip was part business and part vacation. The vacation part was my bride’s responsibility. She had to run around and see all of the sights...
|
