I stand in awe of the people out there in the world who can design and make the real things that make the real world work, while the rest of us take it all for granted as we pursue other things.
There is an entirely unjustified arrogance, I think, often found in those of us who have more purely abstract work and interests, as if there were something lesser about building things that make trains run. There is surely some insecurity hiding behind that superiority - the insecurity of knowing eternal Shakespeare perhaps, but not having a clue about magnetic detection of invisible flaws in rails - or even about how trains really work.
Like me, many of us would be lost and helpless - thrown back into the stone age - if the everyday, underpaid and underappreciated practical geniuses disappeared.
The Sperry Rail-flaw detector is my case in point today. You could not run a safe railroad without these funky yellow machines, which you can see around regularly, perched on sidings, if you ride rails. Nowadays, they use ultrasound probes. Photo of an older one below, and details of Dr. Elmer Sperry's remarkable career here. As you can see, his useful company - one of 8 manufacturing businesses he created - is still in business in good old Danbury, CT, once the hat-manufacturing capital of the US (and the home of Charles Ives). Thanks, C., for the inspiration.
