Millennium progress?

Citation

Loughlin, C. (1999), "Millennium progress?", Assembly Automation, Vol. 19 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/aa.1999.03319daa.001

Millennium progress?

In this our final issue of the millennium it is appropriate to take a look both backwards and forwards in time and perhaps reach some conclusions about how we are doing "in the grand scheme of things".

I do not know if other countries have similar projects in progress but here in the UK there has been much talk of the "Millennium Dome" which is taking shape at Greenwich, London. Apparently it is the largest building of its kind in the world with a diameter of 320m and a height of 50m. All very impressive, but I was particularly taken by one additional statistic which claims that you could even fit the Great Pyramid of Giza inside it - so I decided to check it out.

The Great Pyramid was built in about 3000BC as the final resting place of Pharaoh Cheops. Each of the four sides of the base is 230m long and it rises to a height (when originally built) of 147m. Simple maths leads me to calculate that the internal volume of the Dome is 2.076 million cubic metres while the Pyramid checks in at 2.592 million cubic metres. Even if you knock off 10m from the height of the pyramid which has been lost to erosion and tourists, the Great Pyramid is still well in - and that ignores the labyrinth of underground structures. King Cheops should be proud.

For further humbling (if any were required), the design life of the Dome is just 25 years while the Pyramid is still going strong after over 5,000. Also calculations of weights leave the Dome looking featherweight in comparison. In fact if you dropped the Pyramid on top of the Dome it is doubtful that the passing tourists would even notice the increase in height, although they might marvel at the Egyptians' use of a Teflon damp-proof-course.

So if our present assembly efforts are looking so feeble can we really claim to have made progress? I consider that the answer is most definitely yes, and the reason is that the Dome has been built by use of knowledge and technology and signifies a new dawn for mankind, while the Pyramid used mainly slave power and glorified a single person.

Perhaps we can be most proud not that we do not or cannot build Pyramids, but instead that we no longer choose to do so?

But even here we are on dodgy ground. One of the reasons frequently given for studying history is that it enables us to learn from the mistakes of the past. Sounds good in theory but if you consider that the recent problems in Kosovo (to cite just one example from a long list) can be traced back to the First Battle of Kosovo on 28 June 1389 when the heavily outnumbered Christians (Serbs) were massacred by the Muslims, then it looks far more likely that history enables us to perpetuate the horrors of the past. Over the years the perception of "good guys/bad guys" has changed sides many times in the Balkans and countless other regions around the world. People had character defects in 3500BC and the intervening years look to have done little to improve them.

Henry Ford is well-known for his statement "history is bunk", and perhaps he had a point.

I consider that it is mainly in the areas of science and technology that we can justifiably claim to have made progress, and my wish for the next 1,000 years is that we use what we know and what we have yet to learn to overcome our less agreeable tendencies. However, we must also be careful that we do not exchange dictators for microchips and end up building pyramids to technology with us as the slaves.

Clive Loughlin