“Yet hundreds of millions of people who use the technology and benefit from it are completely unaware of it, take it for granted, except to complain about what it costs.”
In a way I feel sorry for those people. There is a joy and awe that they are missing out on due to their unawareness. It’s similar to someone not being able to appreciate great works of art, literature, music.
Yes, I agree. I feel the same way.
There are many hidden back roads of modern technology, less stellar inventions than the transistor or the laser, but still important, vital enabling technologies that are buried deep in the chips and modems and materials that have transformed our world... less stellar perhaps, but still deserving of recognition because their invention and commercialization consumed the working lives of very intelligent, passionate, and determined individuals.
On the current subject, it occurs to me that this optical-capacitor nanoparticle invention could — I repeat could — make it possible to make optical elements having optically variable indices of refraction.
This could in turn lead to truly remarkable things, especially when combined with quantum entanglement effects.