It's Magic

Arthur C. Clarke, the man who envisioned the use of geostationary satellites for communication purposes, is reported to have said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."¹ I can think of a few technologies that approach the "magic" threshold for me...things that are so far beyond my ability to understand them that I just have to accept the fact that they exist, and leave it at that. Nanotechnology is just one example. But the more that I study interactive media and the technologies that make them possible, the more comfortable I become with the physics and electronics that enable them.

Recently I read a post by Shelly Palmer in which he told a story about Thomas Edison's invention of the phonograph. People who had no comprehension of recording technology were convinced that it was a trick. According to Palmer,

Edison used to charge people 25 cents to try to "fool the machine." A person who spoke Latin (a dead language) would speak Latin into it and, of course, it would speak Latin back to the person. People wondered how Edison was able to teach a machine to speak Latin. A person would speak Chinese into the machine and it would speak Chinese back to them. Again, people would wonder how the "Wizard of Menlo Park" taught the machine to speak Chinese.

As we consider the history of interactive media the lesson remains. We have to allow ourselves to break out of our preconceived notions about how things work and make every effort to understand the foundational technologies. Otherwise it will just look like magic. And while it may be entertaining to watch the "magic" show, we'll never begin to benefit from the new technology until we understand it well enough to put it to use in our own lives.

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¹Note: This is the third of Clarke's Three Laws of Prediction. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws