Firefighting Innovation That Startled Me, Plus 31 Other Innovations That Will Change Your Life
An article from the NYTimes last Friday, a roundup up of technological innovations on the horizon. This one startled me:
"You need a lot of water to put out a sizable blaze, and the chemicals used in fire extinguishers can be toxic (halons, the most effective chemical fire suppressant, create holes in the ozone layer). So the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Pentagon has developed a hand-held wand that snuffs out fires, without chemicals. According to the program’s manager, Dr. Matt Goodman, an electric field destabilizes the flame’s underlying structure rather than blanketing the fire to smother it. Eventually, the technology could be used to create escape routes or extinguish fires without damaging sensitive equipment nearby." (#27)
Will it be possible to someday install these electrical field generators in buildings and if you have a fire, you flip a switch to extinguish it? Call me small-minded, but it never occurred to me there are other ways to put out a fire than material objects like water and chemicals or a physical covering of some sort. (This is why I am not making the big bucks working for DARPA.) Fascinating. But also startling, because wasn't this part of the premise of Fahrenheit 451? Firefighters started book burns in part because they were no longer needed to extinguish fires. As a middle schooler, my response was "Pshaw! How could that happen that we don't need them to put out fires?" So...wow. Mea culpa, Ray Bradbury. (Of course, other parts of this book have already become reality: the huge screens, the entertainment matter, etc.)
I'm definitely NOT saying firefighters will start burning books!! Firefighters do many other life-or-death important things too, so even if we develop technology to extinguish fires without water or chemicals, we'll still need firefighters. I don't think we can live in a world without firefighters, nor should we try.
"You need a lot of water to put out a sizable blaze, and the chemicals used in fire extinguishers can be toxic (halons, the most effective chemical fire suppressant, create holes in the ozone layer). So the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Pentagon has developed a hand-held wand that snuffs out fires, without chemicals. According to the program’s manager, Dr. Matt Goodman, an electric field destabilizes the flame’s underlying structure rather than blanketing the fire to smother it. Eventually, the technology could be used to create escape routes or extinguish fires without damaging sensitive equipment nearby." (#27)
Will it be possible to someday install these electrical field generators in buildings and if you have a fire, you flip a switch to extinguish it? Call me small-minded, but it never occurred to me there are other ways to put out a fire than material objects like water and chemicals or a physical covering of some sort. (This is why I am not making the big bucks working for DARPA.) Fascinating. But also startling, because wasn't this part of the premise of Fahrenheit 451? Firefighters started book burns in part because they were no longer needed to extinguish fires. As a middle schooler, my response was "Pshaw! How could that happen that we don't need them to put out fires?" So...wow. Mea culpa, Ray Bradbury. (Of course, other parts of this book have already become reality: the huge screens, the entertainment matter, etc.)
I'm definitely NOT saying firefighters will start burning books!! Firefighters do many other life-or-death important things too, so even if we develop technology to extinguish fires without water or chemicals, we'll still need firefighters. I don't think we can live in a world without firefighters, nor should we try.
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