(Music)
(Glazba)
Roughly 43,000 years ago, a young cave bear died in the rolling hills on the northwest border of modern day Slovenia. A thousand years later, a mammoth died in southern Germany. A few centuries after that, a griffon vulture also died in the same vicinity. And we know almost nothing about how these animals met their deaths, but these different creatures dispersed across both time and space did share one remarkable fate. After their deaths, a bone from each of their skeletons was crafted by human hands into a flute.
Prije otprilike 43,000 godina, mladi špiljski medvjed poginuo je u brdima na sjeverozapadnoj granici današnje Slovenije. Tisuću godina kasnije, mamut je uginuo u južnoj Njemačkoj Nakon par stoljeća, i bjeloglavi sup je uginuo na istom području. A mi ništa ne znamo o tome kako su te životinje dočekale smrt, ali sva ta različita stvorenja iz raznih vremena i prostora dijele jednu te istu, iznimnu sudbinu. Nakon njihove smrti, jednu kost njihovih kostura ljudske ruke su pretvorile u sviralu.
Think about that for a second. Imagine you're a caveman, 40,000 years ago. You've mastered fire. You've built simple tools for hunting. You've learned how to craft garments from animal skins to keep yourself warm in the winter. What would you choose to invent next? It seems preposterous that you would invent the flute, a tool that created useless vibrations in air molecules. But that is exactly what our ancestors did.
Razmislite o tome na trenutak. Zamislite da ste pračovjek, prije 40,000 godina Naučili ste se služiti vatrom. Izradili ste jednostavna lovačka oruđa. Naučili ste kako napraviti odjeću od životinjskih koža da bi vam bilo toplo zimi. Što biste sljedeće htjeli izumiti? Čini se nečuvenim da biste napravili sviralu, oruđe koje stvara beskorisne vibracije u molekulama zraka. Ali to je upravo ono što su naši preci učinili.
Now this turns out to be surprisingly common in the history of innovation. Sometimes people invent things because they want to stay alive or feed their children or conquer the village next door. But just as often, new ideas come into the world simply because they're fun. And here's the really strange thing: many of those playful but seemingly frivolous inventions ended up sparking momentous transformations in science, in politics and society.
Zapravo, ispada da je to začuđujuće uobičajena pojava u povijesti izuma. Ponekad ljudi izmisle stvari potrebne za opstanak ili za prehranjivanje svoje djece ili za osvajanje susjednog sela. Ali jednako često, nove ideje se rađaju jednostavno zato što su zabavne. Posebno je zanimljiva jedna stvar: mnogi od tih zabavnih, ali naizgled bespotrebnih izuma na kraju su pokrenuli trenutačnu promjenu u znanosti, politici i društvu.
Take what may be the most important invention of modern times: programmable computers. Now, the standard story is that computers descend from military technology, since many of the early computers were designed specifically to crack wartime codes or calculate rocket trajectories. But in fact, the origins of the modern computer are much more playful, even musical, than you might imagine. The idea behind the flute, of just pushing air through tubes to make a sound, was eventually modified to create the first organ more than 2,000 years ago. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of triggering sounds by pressing small levers with our fingers, inventing the first musical keyboard. Now, keyboards evolved from organs to clavichords to harpsichords to the piano, until the middle of the 19th century, when a bunch of inventors finally hit on the idea of using a keyboard to trigger not sounds but letters. In fact, the very first typewriter was originally called "the writing harpsichord."
Uzmimo za primjer jedan od najvažnijih izuma modernih vremena: Računala koja se mogu programirati. Uobičajena priča kaže da su računala proizvod vojne tehnologije, budući da su mnoga rana računala bila osmišljena posebno za razbijanje ratnih šifri ili za izračunavanje putanja projektila. Ali zapravo, porijeklo modernih računala je puno više vezano uz igru, pa čak i uz glazbu, nego što bismo pomislili. Smisao svirale, ispuhivanje zraka u cijev da bismo dobili zvuk, s vremenom se promijenio da bi se proizvele prve orgulje prije više od 2000 godina. Netko se dosjetio sjajne ideje proizvodnje zvukova pritiskanjem malih tipki našim prstima, i tako je izmišljena prva glazbena tipkovnica. Zatim je tipkovnica prerasla s orgulja na klavikord, pa čembalo i zatim na piano, do sredine 19. stoljeća, kad je grupa izumitelja konačno došla na ideju upotrebe tipkovnice ne za proizvodnju zvuka, nego za slova. U biti, prvi pisaći stroj se originalno zvao "pisaći čembalo".
Flutes and music led to even more powerful breakthroughs. About a thousand years ago, at the height of the Islamic Renaissance, three brothers in Baghdad designed a device that was an automated organ. They called it "the instrument that plays itself." Now, the instrument was basically a giant music box. The organ could be trained to play various songs by using instructions encoded by placing pins on a rotating cylinder. And if you wanted the machine to play a different song, you just swapped a new cylinder in with a different code on it. This instrument was the first of its kind. It was programmable.
Svirale i glazba dovele su do još značajnijeg otkrića. Prije tisuću godina, na vrhuncu islamske renesanse, trojica braće u Bagdadu izradila su napravu koja je predstavljala automatske orgulje. Nazvali su ga "instrument koji sam svira." Taj je instrument zapravo bio ogromna muzička kutija, Takve orgulje su mogle odsvirati razne pjesme putem korištenja naredbi zabilježenih postavljanjem iglica na rotirajuće valjke. Ako biste htjeli da stroj odsvira drugu pjesmu, jednostavno biste uzeli drugi valjak, s drugačijim podacima. Bio je to prvi stroj svoje vrste. Stroj koji se mogao programirati.
Now, conceptually, this was a massive leap forward. The whole idea of hardware and software becomes thinkable for the first time with this invention. And that incredibly powerful concept didn't come to us as an instrument of war or of conquest, or necessity at all. It came from the strange delight of watching a machine play music.
Idejno, to je bio ogroman skok unaprijed. Čitava ideja hardvera i softvera ovim je izumom po prvi put postala zamisliva. Taj nevjerojatno moćan koncept nije se pojavio kao oruđe rata ili osvajanja, ili bilo kakve potrebe. Proizašao je iz čudnog oduševljenja zbog gledanja kako mašina svira glazbu.
In fact, the idea of programmable machines was exclusively kept alive by music for about 700 years. In the 1700s, music-making machines became the playthings of the Parisian elite. Showmen used the same coded cylinders to control the physical movements of what were called automata, an early kind of robot. One of the most famous of those robots was, you guessed it, an automated flute player designed by a brilliant French inventor named Jacques de Vaucanson.
Zapravo, ta ideja o mašinama koje se mogu programirati preživjela je samo zahvaljujući glazbi punih 700 godina. U 1700-tima, mašine koje sviraju postale su igračke pariške elite. Zabavljači su koristili iste kodirane valjke kako bi kontrolirali pokrete onog što su nazivali automatama, rane verzije robota. Jedan od najslavnijih takvih robota bio je, pogađate, automatizirani svirač flaute, odličnog francuskog izumitelja Jacquesa de Vaucansona.
And as de Vaucanson was designing his robot musician, he had another idea. If you could program a machine to make pleasing sounds, why not program it to weave delightful patterns of color out of cloth? Instead of using the pins of the cylinder to represent musical notes, they would represent threads with different colors. If you wanted a new pattern for your fabric, you just programmed a new cylinder. This was the first programmable loom.
Dok je Vaucanson smišljao svog robota svirača, pala mu je na pamet druga ideja. Ako možeš programirati mašinu da izvodi ugodne zvukove, zašto je ne programirati da tka prekrasne uzorke boja na platnu? Umjesto da iglice na valjcima predstavljaju glazbene note, predstavljale su niti različitih boja Ako ste htjeli novi uzorak za svoju tkaninu, samo ste programirali novi valjak. To je bio prvi tkalački stan na programiranje.
Now, the cylinders were too expensive and time-consuming to make, but a half century later, another French inventor named Jacquard hit upon the brilliant idea of using paper-punched cards instead of metal cylinders. Paper turned out to be much cheaper and more flexible as a way of programming the device. That punch card system inspired Victorian inventor Charles Babbage to create his analytical engine, the first true programmable computer ever designed. And punch cards were used by computer programmers as late as the 1970s.
Nažalost, valjci su bili preskupi i preteški za izradu, ali pola stoljeća kasnije, drugi francuski izumitelj Jacquard dosjetio se izvrsne ideje korištenja bušenih papirnatih kartica umjesto metalnih valjaka. Pokazalo se da je papir puno jeftiniji i jednostavniji način programiranja uređaja. Bušene kartice nadahnule su viktorijanskog izumitelja Charlesa Babbagea za izradu njegove analitičke mašine, prvog pravog računala koje se moglo programirati u povijesti. Računalni programeri su koristili bušene kartice sve to 1970-ih.
So ask yourself this question: what really made the modern computer possible? Yes, the military involvement is an important part of the story, but inventing a computer also required other building blocks: music boxes, toy robot flute players, harpsichord keyboards, colorful patterns woven into fabric, and that's just a small part of the story. There's a long list of world-changing ideas and technologies that came out of play: public museums, rubber, probability theory, the insurance business and many more.
I sad se zapitajte sljedeće: Što je bilo to što je omogućilo pojavu modernih računala? Da, vojska i njene potrebe su bitan dio cijele priče, ali u nastanak računala ugrađene su još neke cigle: muzičke kutije, robot-igračka koji svira flautu, klavijatura čembala, živopisni tkani uzorci, a sve to je još uvijek samo mali do priče. Postoji dugačak popis ideja i tehnologija koje mijenjaju svijet, a koje su proizašle iz igre: javni muzeji, guma, teorija vjerojatnosti, osiguranja i još mnogo toga.
Necessity isn't always the mother of invention. The playful state of mind is fundamentally exploratory, seeking out new possibilities in the world around us. And that seeking is why so many experiences that started with simple delight and amusement eventually led us to profound breakthroughs.
Potreba nije uvijek izvor nekog izuma. Zaigrano stanje uma je u svojoj osnovi istraživačko, jer traži nove mogućnosti u svijetu oko sebe. I ta potraga je razlog zbog čega brojna iskustva koja su počela kao oduševljenje i zabava na kraju dovode do temeljnih otkrića.
Now, I think this has implications for how we teach kids in school and how we encourage innovation in our workspaces, but thinking about play and delight this way also helps us detect what's coming next. Think about it: if you were sitting there in 1750 trying to figure out the big changes coming to society in the 19th, the 20th centuries, automated machines, computers, artificial intelligence, a programmable flute entertaining the Parisian elite would have been as powerful a clue as anything else at the time. It seemed like an amusement at best, not useful in any serious way, but it turned out to be the beginning of a tech revolution that would change the world.
Mislm da je sve ovo bitno za naš način podučavanja djece u školama i poticanja inovacija na radnim mjestima, ali shvaćanje ovog značenja igre i oduševljenja također nam pomaže da se pripremimo za ono što slijedi. Zamislite ovo: da ste sjedili ovdje 1750. i pokušavali zamisliti velike promjene koje će zahvatiti društvo u 19. i 20. stoljeću, razne uređaje, računala, umjetnu inteligenciju, ona flauta koja se može isprogramirati i zabavljati parišku elitu bila bi jednako bitna smjernica kao i bilo koja druga iz tog vremena. Činila se kao zabavna stvar u najboljem slučaju, i ništa ozbiljno niti korisno, ali se ispostavilo da je to početak tehnološke revolucije koja je promijenila svjet.
You'll find the future wherever people are having the most fun.
Otkrit ćete budućnost ondje gdje se ljudi nabolje zabavljaju.