Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to re: The Burning Bush

Same message, proper formatting added
TB — (archived)

After all, would even the best physicists and engineers of 1950 be able to make any sense of a modern personal computer without a detailed description written specifically with their knowledge base in mind? A circuit board or integrated circuit, even a lone transistor, would be incomprehensible to them. They would probably think a PC was some kind of typewriter.

Actually, you might be surprised. An integrated circuit on the level of a modern microprocessor would be a bit much all by itself, particularly since it functions only inside a complex system that is designed to work with it, but tell them that a transistor is just a different kind of "valve" and they'd run with it.

Now add the documentation for these things, never mind all the mechanical devices of our age, and I think things could get pretty far.

Guess I'm a "glass half full" kind.

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