It’s been an interesting summer, but I haven’t written
very much. I have been reading though. The three-volume biography of Winston
Churchill by William Manchester and Paul Reid has been occupying much of my
reading time. I finished reading it this morning, all 2,911 pages (OK, I
skipped the notes at the end, which brings it down to a more manageable 2,600
or so). Churchill was born during the reign of Queen Victoria and died 90 years
later, when Elizabeth II was queen, spanning a time from when steam power and
horses dominated, and ending when atomic power and rockets had been developed.
He was a fascinating man, full of insights and ideas, some of which were
amazing while others bordered on lunacy.
One
of Winston’s big ideas developed as a result of the static trench warfare
experienced during the First World War. The major weapons in trench warfare
were artillery (which Churchill always called “cannons”), machine guns and
rifle-toting infantry. A typical offensive action would start when one side
started firing their artillery toward the other guys’ trenches. After the
typically massive bombardments, the attacking infantry would scramble from
their trenches and race toward the enemies’ trenches. The enemy would pop out
of their holes after the shelling stopped and open fire with their heavy
machine guns, usually resulting in massive casualties for the attacking force.
Overall, neither side gained much ground. A big idea was needed.
Churchill
held several posts in the British government during the war, including First
Lord of the Admiralty, or the government’s man in charge of the Royal Navy,
which was the world’s largest at the time. For trench warfare, he conceived of
a warship on land, and led the development of tanks (the name “tank” was chosen
to disguise what they were really building, in case the enemy broke their
codes). They were designed to run over and through trenches, deflecting the
enemies’ machine gun bullets and protecting the infantry that would follow
safely behind. It is said that the generals are always fighting the last war,
meaning that they have difficulty adjusting to new technology. The main problem
for the tank was that the generals fighting the war didn’t want the tanks, and
didn’t really know how to use them. Many times, the infantry was put in front
of the tanks for an attack, which defeated the purpose. Finally one general got
it right and let the tanks lead the way, with the infantry following behind.
The attacking force gained miles instead of the yards of distance that were the
norm. Then for some reason, he had the tanks stop and ordered the infantry to
surge ahead, where the enemy machine guns cut them to pieces, as usual.
Toward
the end of the war, and during the peace before the next one, Churchill also
learned to fly airplanes, and had visions of their importance for the future of
warfare. But foremost in his heart were the huge, fast, heavily armored and
heavily gunned battleships, which were the pride of the Royal Navy. He wanted
more of them built when he became the British Prime Minister during World War
II. The only problem was that the Royal Air Force already proved that these
behemoths of the sea were obsolete. Using rather old and slow torpedo bombers,
the RAF attacked and sank a large portion of the Italian fleet while they were
anchored in the safety of their home harbor. However, Japan took notice of the
British success, and used the same tactics to attack Pearl Harbor, where they
destroyed or incapacitated all of the US battleships. Fortunately, all of the
American aircraft carriers, which were the ships that really mattered, were
safely out to sea.
During
World War II, tanks became an important factor in ground warfare when they were
finally massed in an assault force of their own and coordinated by radio
commands. The aircraft carrier became the primary weapon for naval forces, with
attacking aircraft replacing the huge guns on battleships. On land, airplanes
were used in support of ground troops, again called-in and coordinated by
radio. But all of these things were envisioned and developed by other people
than the ones who first conceived of the breakthrough developments in the first
place.
It
is rare to find someone who comes up with a great idea to solve some problem
and then continues to adapt that solution to solve other problems. The same
situation is observed with the development of the computer. The original use of
modern computers was for calculating the trajectory of artillery shells. They
were then adapted for use by other government and business groups that required
lots of data storage and calculations. When I started college, we learned to
use a computer that had its own room in the Computer Science building, and we
wrote our programs on stacks of punch cards (yes, I know, I’m practically a
fossil). By the time I was leaving Graduate School, personal computers were
just starting to show up. They were useful for creating documents, databases
and doing calculations, but little else.
When
Jobs and Wozniak created the first Apple computer, they thought its main appeal
would be for home hobbyists, basically geeks such as themselves. Microsoft’s
Bill Gates didn’t initially see the importance of connecting computers with the
Internet, and concentrated his efforts elsewhere. It took Steve Jobs decades to
realize that the computer itself shouldn’t be confined to a machine used on a
desk or even a lap, but could instead be combined with a cell phone and carried
in a pocket.
Big
ideas and technological breakthroughs are important to our growth as a society.
However, we must never view them as being a final product. Don’t restrict your
view to tunnel vision, but always open your eyes fully in order to observe all
of the possibilities that they offer. We must strive to focus on the potentials
offered by the evolution of our thoughts and ideas. Maintaining rigidity in our
beliefs may sound like a strong moral position, but it will lead nowhere except
to stagnation and death of the system that has brought us to a greatness that we
are already beginning to squander.
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