What technology has evolved the fastest? the slowest?
And by that I mean from it’s first incarnation to its current one in the shortest/longest amount of time.
An Apple Powerbook is radically different from the ENIAC. A Ferrari Enzo is worlds away from a Model T.
A modern cathode-tube color TV, however, is not radically different from its 1950’s counterpart apart from design. Both function in much the same way other than one having vacuum tubes and the other microchips and transistors.
This one may be more specific than you are looking for but I think it is cool anyway. The United States primary long-range strategic bomber is the B-52. It was designed after World War II and was built in the 1950’s. It is not scheduled to be retired until at least 2040 when the basic design will be almost 90 years old and the actual planes still in use will be in their 80’s. That is pretty good for something that important to defense.
Another example may be the pumps that are responsible for keeping New Orleans dry. They were invented for the city and some date from the 1920’s. They are being put right back into service as fast as they can get them up.
Among the slow examples would be stringed instruments. You could make a lot of money if you could show how to build a violin that exactly matched those of 350 years ago.
I happen to think the move from vacuum tubes to transistors is a pretty major change, so I disagree that televisions are pretty much the same.
An incadescent light bulb is virtually unchanged (except for the filament now being made of tungsten) over the last 100 years. The telegraph is virtually unchanged since the 1840s. Even a rotary-dial telephone made in the 1920s will still work if you put a modular plug on it.
As for the technology that’s advanced the fastest, IMHO it’s medicine. 75 years ago there were no antibiotics, insulin had only just been discovered, the only treatment for tuberculosis was to live in a cool, dry climate and the future President of the United States had only barely beaten back polio. Fifty years ago my mother had an operation to replace the stapes bones in her ear. At the time it was so rare her case was written up in a medical journal. There have been something like 16,000 since then.
The main railway station in Toronto is still using the same mechanical track-switch and signalling control system that was installed when it opened in 1927… thoigh they’re talking about replacing it.
While they haven’t changed, the incadescent light bulb is nearing the end of its existence. They will be replaced, for the most part and probably not entirely, by LEDs. In fact most of Edison’s gizmos are on the verge of being replaced.
Actually I think you could expand that to lots of firearms. The design of many popular guns dates back to the earliest 20th century. There are plenty of rounds like the 30-06 (developed in 1906) that are still among the most popular today. The Colt 1911 (built before 1907) is still regarded as one of the best handguns ever produced and there are tons of originals and replicas in service. You can still buy surplus ammunition from before WWII to use today.
Natural language translation software. It seems like this technology is deficient and every advance is only minimally better. Probably will always be limited by the nature of language.
Csharp wins. I always want to call them a keep-dry, to match their complete lack of exciting innovation. “Umbrella” sounds far too interesting. You want to keep dry? Here, here’s a mobile nylon roof to carry around!
It must have to do with how long-lasting the pedagogy and repertoire are for the bowed strings. Updating the instrument would be like restyling the Mona Lisa’s gown.
OTOH, the clarinet is almost as old as the violin, but way down in the orchestral pecking order. It’s gone through countless changes since its invention. At first it just had finger holes and a key or two. By and by different competing key systems evolved in France and Germany (everybody but Germany now uses the French system). And just in the past 50 years the acoustics have been changed (via the inner bore), creating darker-sounding clarinets.
Definitely. To put it the way one of my lecturers did:
Twenty years ago the patients that are treated as outpatients would be inpatients. The patients that are on hospital wards would be in intensive care units. And the patients that are in intensive care units would be dead.
