Abstract
The penultimate period that we will tackle is the Space Age. For me, born in 1967, this still looms large as an age of exciting, grand achievements: landing humans on the Moon; the Space Shuttle; and space craft sent to the outer reaches of the solar system.
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Notes
- 1.
Image Credit: http://www.uspto.gov, Public Domain. Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/meet-marion-donovan-mother-who-invented-precursor-disposable-diaper-180972118/.
- 2.
The point of the documentary, of course, is that there are many such solutions to the problems of global warming and climate change. In fact, they are not only correct, but also strong in performance and appropriateness. Together, that seems to make them highly relevant and effective, aside from any other characteristics of creativity that they might possess. If they aren’t being implemented, that suggests that the blockage lies elsewhere. Presumably, politics!
- 3.
The image depicts raw golden yellow aramid fibre (Kevlar). The diameter of the filaments is about 10 µm. These fibres are used to produce the woven Kevlar fabric. Image Credit: Cjp24, Creative Commons 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode.
- 4.
For example, Amabile, T. M. (1983). The social psychology of creativity. New York, NY: Springer.
- 5.
The connection to a fuel shortage lies in the impact that tires have on fuel consumption. Larger, heavier tires increase fuel consumption, as does the tire’s rolling resistance. These tire properties are strongly tied to the strength, mass, stiffness, and other physical characteristics of the tire. In the USA alone, it is thought that as much as 15% of fuel consumption is related to the rolling resistance of car tires.
- 6.
See A Century of Innovation: The 3M Story: http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/171240O/3m-century-of-innovation-book.pdf.
- 7.
Fluorochemicals, simply chemicals derived from the element fluorine, are big business. Coming in various forms—fluorocarbons (some of which, like CFC, were phased out after their ozone-depleting properties were discovered), inorganic fluorides (used for water fluoridation), and fluorine gas (used in uranium enrichment)—some 3 million metric tonnes are produced each year.
- 8.
Image Credit: https://www.marlentextiles.com/feb2017.html, Public Domain.
- 9.
The logic here is that the faster a substance is removed from our blood plasma, the less harm it can do. The scientific consensus seems to be that there is no conclusive evidence that these substances cause harm to humans. However, it seems to be a wise precaution to minimise the potential risk.
- 10.
If you are interested in a deeper discussion of this, I’ve written a discussion based on Ernst Mach’s (of Mach number fame) 1896 paper On the Part Played by Accident in Discovery and Invention, which he published in The Monist. See: Cropley, D. H. (2019). Do we Make Our Own Luck? Reflections on Ernst Mach’s Analysis of Invention and Discovery. In V. P. Glaveanu (Ed.), The Creativity Reader. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
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Cropley, D.H. (2020). The Space Age (1950–1981): The Rise of the Modern Creativity Era. In: Femina Problematis Solvendis—Problem solving Woman. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3967-1_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3967-1_11
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