The pace of technology part 1

I think the final breakthrough in the advance of technology came with the Internet. From that point on everything speeded up at a visibly increasing rate. Ideas and information were now being flashed around the globe at the speed of light.

Now there’s nothing new about ideas, the problem is usually that materials have to be developed to the point where the fruition of the idea becomes practical. Leonardo da Vinci is credited as the first person to think of hovering flight, but it wasn’t until the 20th century that alloys were developed that made the helicopter practical.

So it was with space flight. Sputnik one was the size of a football and orbited the earth making beeping noises. Everyone said it was a miracle. The first moon voyage took four days each way, partly because of lack of power. The whole thing depended on free fall once the correct speeds had been achieved using rocket power. The first trip to Pluto on the edge of the solar system passed the earth’s moon in four hours!

Fred Smith was an entrepreneur who made his money making high tech equipment for the space industry, but he had a dream. He’d always been a science fiction addict and the idea of matter transmission fascinated him. In some respects the results of matter transmission already existed based on the Internet. A customer could go on line, select the goods required from a supplier, pay on line and have them delivered to his door. Fred wanted to go one stage further and have the goods delivered instantaneously as well. The name of such a system already existed in the science fiction that he read so avidly. Once he’d made up his mind to put his not inconsiderable talent and money into the project, he patented the name for his own use. In future matter transmission systems would be known as the Smith Transmat.

It took a good few years, but by the time Fred had children of his own, the prototype system was up and running in the laboratory. Naturally there were a lot of failures. Boxes full of clothes would be sent from one terminal and arrive at the delivery port with the wooden crate swathed in rags. Sometimes the delivery appeared perfect, but on opening the crate nothing would be found inside. Fred knew every new invention had teething problems so he persisted, while the increasing pace of spacecraft technology kept him and his firm well equipped with funds.
Fred’s children eventually went into his business and their young minds began to come up with new approaches to the problem. When Fred finally retired, the Transmat had been perfected for the delivery of hard goods. The company was now trying out the next steps, ultimately aiming to send human beings from one point to another. It was argued that this would cure transport congestion forever. Fred died while the system was still only able to send unicellular organisms with any certainty.

Fred’s descendants continued, sending laboratory rats and mice with increasing success. The arrival of a mouse turned inside out, or with its tail growing from one leg was now a thing of the past. Eventually success was achieved and the Fred Smith Transmat went into operation, dealing the expected deathblow to all transport on the planet. Not completely true of course, since there were always die-hards who wanted to do things in the good old way, even if only for sport.