She mentioned Height-Ashby. That launched the conversation into a history lesson, beginning with the question: What is the curve of discoveries over the past 150 years? Linear? Exponential? Flat?  The surprise to me was how difficult it was for the graduate students (ages mid-20's to mid-30's) to name inventions. Their lack of a deep modern time scale and of milestones along that scale leaves them without a past that exceeds their first Facebook post. This has some of us as faculty worried, concerned. Why?

What's the value of knowing when the telephone was invented? Or the silicone chip? And how long was that after the transistor radio had been invented? Or, how long before the internet was created? What difference does it make to decision making or the development of scholarship to know when the birth control pill became available in the U.S.? And how long was that before the beginning of the AIDS epidemic?

It matters that they don't know Walt Whitman or Woody Guthrie. It leaves them with a diminished appreciation for the amount of suffering, effort, sweat, and failures it took to get to the amenities, the freedoms, and the opportunities of today. It distorts the distribution of effort across historical figures and those on the edge of their shadows. It makes shallow our culture, rather than deepening it. It leaves us all with fewer and weaker cultural references. Weaker too in the sense of not understanding nor appreciating the distance, differences over time.

The big inventions (e.g., nuclear fission) and the small inventions (e.g.,gram stains) have collectively changed how we as humans live, especially those of us who live in wealthier, more developed countries. That change in living logistics comes with changes in culture, relationships, and expectations about the future. And, therein lies the rub...