Quote:
Originally posted by MagiK:
quote:
Originally posted by andrewas:
It just dosent look like faster-than-light travel is a practical proposition.
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In the 1800's it was a known fact (when railroads were just coming into their own) that a human being could not survive the ungodly speed of 60mph...In the 1900's it was believed that the speed of sound could not be exceeded by any efforts of man.....Or to put it in more modern terms, As K was telling his new partner. 300 years ago, everyone knew that the earth was flat...100 years ago everyone knew...(the rest of the speil)....just imangine what you will know 15 minutes from now.
It is impossible to know what it is that you do not know, untill someone points it out to you.[/QUOTE]The problem with humans Magik is that our knowledge increases are exponential, not incremental. Back then science was a lot simpler and very few people found a necessity for it. Our potential was well ahead of our progress. Just living day to day in your 40-50 year life span was enough trouble for most, and schooling was seen as a waste of valuable work time. Now we live longer and have more time to learn, but the amount we have to learn is so much greater! What your average Joe with a moderate intellectual hunger knows today would have ranked as an elite education back in the day. When do we reach a saturation point? When does our progress catch up with our potential? When will we simply not live long enough or have the capacity to effectively absorb the prerequisite knowledge and skills to even make any advances? I wonder how we will contend with this. So far, specialization by science/engineering professionals has helped. Even today you can't have too broad of a knowledge and remain cutting edge.