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> We have made great strides since then, of course, but it does feel like 90% of the fundamental aviation technology we have today was created just in the first
by ISL 4y ago
> We have made great strides since then, of course, but it does feel like 90% of the fundamental aviation technology we have today was created just in the first few decades.
That's because the seminal work rapidly evolved into something that's good-enough, and in some cases, close to optimal.
If you look around, wherever you're sitting, you'll find plenty of other human-engineered objects from a similar design-trajectory.
My coffee mug looks a whole lot like cups from Mesopotamia and earlier.
- soperj 4y agoOn the other hand snowshoes though look nothing like snowshoes from 50 years ago.
- djmips 4y ago'nothing like' is quite the hyperbole - but yes even airplanes and computers are quite a bit more advanced than F-8 Crusaders and Whirlwind machines of 1955. Probably at least as much more than snowshoe advances. It's just the basics are all still there.