Today, technology has something to tell us. The
University of Houston's College of Engineering
presents this series about the machines that make
our civilization run, and the people whose
ingenuity created them.
Technology is a form of
communication. That's right! Technology is one way
we talk to each other. Suppose you want to tell a
friend how to go from Houston to Detroit. You could
write out the sequence of roads and turns she'd
take to get there. Or you might prepare a map. You
might do something more abstract -- you might tell
her what it feels like to drive to Detroit -- about
the ride and sights you see on the way.
The engineers in Detroit have another way of
describing the trip. They design the machine we use
to make it. They create the experience of the trip
-- give it its form and texture. Those engineers
are using the automobile to tell you their own
concept of what that experience should be. The feel
of it, the sense of motion, the beauty of the auto,
the way the car lies in your life and shapes it.
These are all things the designer consciously says,
in a remarkably efficient and compact way.
This was impressed on me the other day when my wife
and I found a prefab furniture item we needed. The
box had been damaged by a forklift, and the as-is
price was next to nothing. But it was a big,
complicated, three-element item, with 10 pages of
assembly instructions. It was not a job for
sissies.
We bought it, and when we opened the box, the
instructions were gone. Thirty precut pieces of
wood, a couple of hundred metal and plastic
fittings, and no instructions.
At first I was devastated. Then I decided to
consult the designer directly. How did I do that?
Easy -- I just looked at the parts and listened to
the clear logic they represented. Why was this
piece notched and drilled the way it was? Why did
some fittings have little ribs while others didn't?
In the end, I was relieved of the tedious and
confusing intermediary of written instructions.
When I worked from inside the designer's head, the
whole thing went together smoothly. I walked away
with a real respect for this anonymous fellow --
this person I'd come to know and respect for his
essential sense of simplicity and elegance.
We're perfectly happy to acknowledge other
nonverbal forms of communication -- pictures,
music, body language. But technology is the largest
such presence in our lives. And it speaks to us
with a powerful clarity and directness. Sometimes
it speaks of venality and greed. But good
technology speaks of beauty and form and order. And
that's because the most effective makers and
builders of things aren't driven by fame or gain.
They're driven by the need to share with us a
vision that's formed itself in their minds.
I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston,
where we're interested in the way inventive minds
work.
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