Paul GrahamVerified account

@paulg and that new technology was used to make old things marginally more efficient for many years before the same tech changed everything.

@paulg Adam Smith got his friend James Watt the job that started it off. Smith still didn't predict the IR though

@paulg Like airplanes before aerodynamics

@paulg some would say they are not really separate but rather on a blurry gradient.

@paulg The technology evolved by applying the scientific method. The underlying theory maybe had to wait clarification and definition.

@paulg "Science explains the world that is. Engineering creates the world that has never been." Sadly, most academic engnrs are scientists.

@paulg makes sense, you need things to happen to find the concept that explains it. No one talks about the doers leading the seers though.

@paulg do you mind giving a few examples?

@paulg Yes! The transatlantic telegraph cable was operational before we defined the Ohm.

@paulg pre-dates the industrial revolution, technologies for precise lens grinding led to microscopes and telescopes, biology and astronomy