On this first Sunday of 2013…we think it\u2019s worth remembering where we are and where we\u2019ve come from….<\/p>\n
The fact that traveling from New York to California is now over a hundred times faster than it was 150 years ago is worth reflecting on. Between the invention of the wheel and that of the wheelbarrow, thousands of years passed; but between da Vinci\u2019s drawings of flying machines and the Wright brothers\u2019 first flight, only four centuries had gone by.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s in the nature of technological progress to accelerate, and the rate of acceleration has picked up in recent centuries. In 1900, automobiles weren\u2019t yet being mass-produced, nor had the Wright brothers achieved flight yet. The century wasn\u2019t seven decades in when car ownership reached a quarter-billion people worldwide, and men were traveling safely to and from the moon.<\/p>\n