Thoughts on breaking barriers

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Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 3:17 pm

October 14 marks the 61st anniversary of the breaking of the sound barrier. When I was reminded of this, I started thinking of all the barriers that have been broken in my lifetime and in the decades preceding my arrival here.

In 1969 I watched a man walk on the moon. Impressive in itself, but I was in the same room with my father, who had been born in 1903, and grandfather, born in 1880. These two men were absolutely enthralled with the idea that in their lifetimes mankind had progressed from footpower to being able to leave earth and step onto another heavenly body.

How many other barriers have been broken in the past century or so? And how many remain to be broken? Barriers of medicine – heart transplants are almost routine today, and people are surviving illnesses and injuries once thought to be totally incurable. I am alive today only because modern medicine intervened and saved me. Social barriers are coming down – they’re not all gone, but they are being chipped away at. Technological barriers seem no longer to exist. What was incomprehensible a few years ago is part of our daily lives now.

In an interview about his achievement, Yeager said, “There wasn’t anything keeping us from flying past the sound barrier but our own ignorance.” And it is only ignorance that keeps us from breaking any other barrier we encounter.

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 7:05 pm

In most cases, things are thought to be unachievable because people think they cannot be achieved! I will look for a famous type quote to back that up.

My parents were told I would not live beyond the age of 8. I have exceeded that projection by 6.6 times. Very Happy

Edit to add:
It always seems impossible until its done.
Nelson Mandela

We, the unwilling,led by the unknowing,are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much,for so long,with so little,we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Mother Teresa

We have to do the impossible, but it is possible.
Kevin Garnett (NBA player)

[and spelling issue]

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 8:20 pm

The fall of the Iron Curtain and, more specifically, the Berlin wall being teared down, i.e. 1989... I was a kid then and had grown up thinking there would always be people dying while trying to cross an inner-country border.
Technically, it´s hard to mention anything specific. Internet, of course. That´s broken down many barriers.
If you mean the whole 20th century, the question is much too hard to handle. You should rather ask then what´s still the same in 2000 as in 1900...

Would be a good idea for a strategy board game, by the way...you start with 1000 dollars in 1900 and try to make the most of it until 2000....wow...this mindplay might leave me sleepless for tonight Very Happy

Are trunkboxes prone to inflation or currency change? Are security companies safer than banks that break down?
(takes hat and leaves...) Cool

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 12:38 am

Do bee do bee do
Frank Sinatra
grabs hat and runs.

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 1:41 am

An Australian lady recently celebrated her 112th birthday and while obviously frail she is still firing on all cylinders where it matters. It occurred to me that during her lifetime she has witnessed the advent of so many things we now almost take for granted such as electric power and light and domestic appliances, telephones, TV, radio, the internal combustion engine, flight, the jet engine, space travel, computers, the internet, the discovery of penicillin, organ transplants... the list goes on. She has also been alive during the Russian Revolution, First World War, Second World War, Cold War, fall of Communism in Europe, the Beatles (!) plus countless other events that have changed the course of history one way or another. All that in just one person's lifetime. I sometimes scare myself thinking about what my children and grandchildren are going to witness as the pace of technology is compressed into such an increasingly short timeframe.

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 10:00 am

Just this week, the 16,000 post was broken by Scam Patroller. THAT'S impressive. Smile

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 1:40 pm

The single biggest change I ever think I will experience in my life is the invention of the internet (thanks Al!). Hoenstly, IMO, the greatest invention ever. It puts unlimited resources at your fingertips. It has revolutionized this world more than anything I can think of, in such a short time.

Master Baiter Joined: 07 Oct 2008 Posts: 116

The internet was not only a barrier broken, it was a revolution.

My son broke a barrier in 1992 when he decided, along with many other nonverbal people with autism, to use typing as a way to communicate.

Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:35 am

Sachin Tendulkar beating Brian Lara's cricket test score record.

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