Arthur C. Clarke is one of my favorite science fiction authors. He is also the author of one of my favorite quotes:

 “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” (Arthur C. Clarke; British science fiction author; 1917–2008.)

Of course, you have heard the statement that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. “ Somewhat similarly, magic is in the eye of the beholder.

Imagine being present when the electric telegraph was first being invented. A lot of related progress occurred before Samuel B. Morse, in 1835, demonstrated that signals could be transmitted by wire. That was magic for people 175 years ago, and now is close to being forgotten magic. The (wired) telephone in 1776 was not quite as magical, because it could be thought of as an extension of the telegraph.

During the early years of radio (1887 to about 1920), this form of communication was called wireless telegraphy. It was a new magic, and it was somewhat understandable if tied in with the telegraph and telephone magic that had become commonplace.

And so the story goes. I have lived long enough to be amazed by the magic of black and white television, color television, digital computers, transistors, earth-orbiting satellites, touch screens ,cell phones, portable devices to download and play music, etc., etc., etc.

For several years I have used noise cancellation earphones as I watch television and work out on a treadmill. For me, that was an excellent example of the magic of technology. I can sort of wrap my grain around the idea of creating sound waves that cancel out incoming sound waves, and doing this so rapidly and accurately that the incoming waves are “cancelled out.” The technology was based on analog signal processing.

Here is still more recent information. We now have digital noise cancellation earphones. Quoting from http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/technology/technology/theme/noise_01.html:

Noise canceling headphones sample ambient (surrounding) noise through a microphone and use signal processing to generate signals that cancel ambient noise. Emitting these cancelling signals as sound through a driver unit provides the user with a quiet listening environment. The signal processing system at the heart of noise canceling headphones has conventionally been based on analog technology because of issues relating to processing speed. By introducing digital signal processing, Sony has succeeded in creating a system that offers unique advantages, as described below.

The point is, technology marches on, and I continue to be amazed.

Food for Thought

When you are a child just learning about the world, you do not view the world through “magic versus non-magic” eyes. Your brain is designed to learn about the environment in which you live.

This has created an interesting phenomenon. Many of the changes we adults experience—some of which seem somewhat overwhelming and perhaps magical— are not changes for our children. They are just the way the world is.

The result is some (or, perhaps a lot) of technology-based dissonance between the way children view the world and the way adults view the world. The way I see it, we have an adult-created school system that is growing more and more out of touch with the everyday world of our children.

I have a number of grandchildren. It is really fun to watch one who is now six years old, watching his masterful use of an iPad.  He masters game after game at a level I will never achieve. To a very large extent this is done in a self-instruction mode. The games involve problem solving, dexterity, learning patterns, and often they require quick reaction time. He remembers what he has learned and quickly switches among games that seem relevant to him at a particular moment.

He is just now finishing kindergarten, and he has made good progress in learning to read and in number skills. … Well, I won’t say more about how proud I am.

Rather, I think about his next fall in an average first grade classroom with the average amount of technology and the average amount of teacher knowledge of the technology and …