The evolution of the modern knife and fork from flint and stick, and the evolution of the spoon from the cupped hands and shells of eons ago, seem thoroughly reasonable stor es. But they are more than stories, constructed after the fact by imaginative social scientists; the way our common tableware has developed to its present form is bu a single example a fund mental principle by which al made things come to look and function the way hey do. hat principle revolv s about our perception of how existing things fail o do what we expect them to do as well and co v niently and economically as we think they should or wish they would. In short, they leave something to be desir d. But whereas the shortcomi gs of an existing thing may be expressed in terms of a ne d for improvement, it is really want rather than need hat drives the process of technological evolution. Thus w may ne d ai and wat r, but g erally we do not require air ond tion r ice water i any fundamental ay. We may find food indi pensable, but it is not nec ss ry to eat it with a fork. Luxury, rather than n cessity, is the mot er of invention. Every artifact omewhat wanting in its func ion, and this is what drive i s evolution. Here, then, is the ce tr l ide : the form of made things is a ways subject to change i respon to heir re l or p rc ived sh rtcomings, the r failures to funct on properly. This principle g verns all inv ti , innovation, ingenuity; i is what driv s inven ors, innovator , and engineers. And ther follows a corolla y: Since nothing f ct, and, inde d, since even our ideas of perfec o a e not st tic, everything is subject change over tim . ere can b no uch thing as a “p rf c ed” artif ct; the future perfec can only be a tense, o a th ng. If th s hypothesis is un versally valid and can xplain the evolut on of all made i gs, it mus apply t ny ar ifac of wh ch we can think. It us expla n the evolution o the z pper no less than the pin; the luminum c n no es n the hamburger package; the suspens o b dg n less han Scot h tape. The hypothesis fleshed out must also v h po ential for explaining why me ou most everyday things continue t look the way they do in spite f all their obvious sho tcomings. It must xplain why s e things change for the worse, and w y t ose thi gs aren’ m d n the good old way. Som backgr und from the writi gs f inventors and d sig ers and those who hink bou inventio a d des gn ca s t the stag f r the case studies tha will tes the hypothes s. The large numbe of things that have been evised nd made by humans throug ut ag s has been es ma e some rece ly publ s d b oks on th design and evolution f ar i ac s. Donald Norman, in Th Design f Everyday Thi gs, describes s tting at his desk and seeing about him hos of sp cializ d objects, including various writing d v ces (penc l , ballp i p , fo ain e , fe t- ip m kers, h ghlig ers, etc.), desk access ries (p p ips, ape, scis or , pads of paper, bo s, b okmarks c.), fas en rs (buttons, snaps, zipper , laces, tc.), e c. In fact, Norma count d over on hundred it ms bef e tired f he task. H s ggests th th re ar per ap twenty ousand everyday hing that we migh encounter in our liv s, and he q t s the p ychol gi t Irving Bied rman a estim t ng t a there are probably “30,000 readily d scr m able o j ct for adult.” The number was a d at b un ing he concr n uns a dic ry. G or e Bas lla, The Evol t on o Tech ology, uggests the grea “d ver ity of things de by hum n ands” ver th ast two hund ed y ars by poi ting out that f v m llion pa ents ha e b en issued n Am rica alone. (N very n w th ng is tented, of cour , and e n get m de of the en rm y of ur rearrangemen rocessi g of hing by oting at v r ten million ew chemi l ubs nc s w e r gistered in the Ame ca Chem l Socie y’ co puter data b se b twee 1957 and 1990.) Ba all also n s that, suppor f Darwi ’ lut ary theory biologist h ve dentified and named over one a d a a f milli n species of flora and fauna, us he c ncludes tha , if ch A rican p tent were “cou ed as the equival nt of an organic s eci s, n h echn ogical can be aid t hav a div rsity three ti great r than h orga ic.” H th int oduc s undame tal qu t ons f his study:
"Not until the seventeenth century did the fork appear in England."
(Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Useful Things. Alfred A. Knopf, 1992)
- From this dictionary entry alone, we can learn much about the fork. If its first appearance in the English language was in 1463, it cannot have been adopted much earlier. Pre-fifteenth century England could very well have been totally forkless. The fork's first mention is in a will: 'I bequeath ... my silver fork', so at this time a fork must have been a valuable object - not only valuable enough to pass on in a will but important enough to make out of silver.
"There on the tiny stoop sat Pecola in a light red sweater and blue cotton dress."
(Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970)
- Begins with a part of speech other than the subject. these inverted sentence patterns are used sometimes to delay revealing what the sentence is about and sometimes to create tension or suspense. Still other times, these patterns can be used to connect ideas b/w sentences more clearly.
Answers & Comments
The evolution of the modern knife and fork from flint and stick, and the evolution of the spoon from the cupped hands and shells of eons ago, seem thoroughly reasonable stor es. But they are more than stories, constructed after the fact by imaginative social scientists; the way our common tableware has developed to its present form is bu a single example a fund mental principle by which al made things come to look and function the way hey do. hat principle revolv s about our perception of how existing things fail o do what we expect them to do as well and co v niently and economically as we think they should or wish they would. In short, they leave something to be desir d. But whereas the shortcomi gs of an existing thing may be expressed in terms of a ne d for improvement, it is really want rather than need hat drives the process of technological evolution. Thus w may ne d ai and wat r, but g erally we do not require air ond tion r ice water i any fundamental ay. We may find food indi pensable, but it is not nec ss ry to eat it with a fork. Luxury, rather than n cessity, is the mot er of invention. Every artifact omewhat wanting in its func ion, and this is what drive i s evolution. Here, then, is the ce tr l ide : the form of made things is a ways subject to change i respon to heir re l or p rc ived sh rtcomings, the r failures to funct on properly. This principle g verns all inv ti , innovation, ingenuity; i is what driv s inven ors, innovator , and engineers. And ther follows a corolla y: Since nothing f ct, and, inde d, since even our ideas of perfec o a e not st tic, everything is subject change over tim . ere can b no uch thing as a “p rf c ed” artif ct; the future perfec can only be a tense, o a th ng. If th s hypothesis is un versally valid and can xplain the evolut on of all made i gs, it mus apply t ny ar ifac of wh ch we can think. It us expla n the evolution o the z pper no less than the pin; the luminum c n no es n the hamburger package; the suspens o b dg n less han Scot h tape. The hypothesis fleshed out must also v h po ential for explaining why me ou most everyday things continue t look the way they do in spite f all their obvious sho tcomings. It must xplain why s e things change for the worse, and w y t ose thi gs aren’ m d n the good old way. Som backgr und from the writi gs f inventors and d sig ers and those who hink bou inventio a d des gn ca s t the stag f r the case studies tha will tes the hypothes s. The large numbe of things that have been evised nd made by humans throug ut ag s has been es ma e some rece ly publ s d b oks on th design and evolution f ar i ac s. Donald Norman, in Th Design f Everyday Thi gs, describes s tting at his desk and seeing about him hos of sp cializ d objects, including various writing d v ces (penc l , ballp i p , fo ain e , fe t- ip m kers, h ghlig ers, etc.), desk access ries (p p ips, ape, scis or , pads of paper, bo s, b okmarks c.), fas en rs (buttons, snaps, zipper , laces, tc.), e c. In fact, Norma count d over on hundred it ms bef e tired f he task. H s ggests th th re ar per ap twenty ousand everyday hing that we migh encounter in our liv s, and he q t s the p ychol gi t Irving Bied rman a estim t ng t a there are probably “30,000 readily d scr m able o j ct for adult.” The number was a d at b un ing he concr n uns a dic ry. G or e Bas lla, The Evol t on o Tech ology, uggests the grea “d ver ity of things de by hum n ands” ver th ast two hund ed y ars by poi ting out that f v m llion pa ents ha e b en issued n Am rica alone. (N very n w th ng is tented, of cour , and e n get m de of the en rm y of ur rearrangemen rocessi g of hing by oting at v r ten million ew chemi l ubs nc s w e r gistered in the Ame ca Chem l Socie y’ co puter data b se b twee 1957 and 1990.) Ba all also n s that, suppor f Darwi ’ lut ary theory biologist h ve dentified and named over one a d a a f milli n species of flora and fauna, us he c ncludes tha , if ch A rican p tent were “cou ed as the equival nt of an organic s eci s, n h echn ogical can be aid t hav a div rsity three ti great r than h orga ic.” H th int oduc s undame tal qu t ons f his study:
Examples and Observations
"Not until the seventeenth century did the fork appear in England."
(Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Useful Things. Alfred A. Knopf, 1992)
- From this dictionary entry alone, we can learn much about the fork. If its first appearance in the English language was in 1463, it cannot have been adopted much earlier. Pre-fifteenth century England could very well have been totally forkless. The fork's first mention is in a will: 'I bequeath ... my silver fork', so at this time a fork must have been a valuable object - not only valuable enough to pass on in a will but important enough to make out of silver.
"There on the tiny stoop sat Pecola in a light red sweater and blue cotton dress."
(Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970)
- Begins with a part of speech other than the subject. these inverted sentence patterns are used sometimes to delay revealing what the sentence is about and sometimes to create tension or suspense. Still other times, these patterns can be used to connect ideas b/w sentences more clearly.