The Atrium of Thought

8/12/2019 The Atrium of Thought

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THE

ATRIUMOF

THOUGHT

50 IDEASTHAT SHAPED THE WORLD 1911-2011

CURATED BY: PAYAL PURI


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50 IDEAS THAT SHAPED

NOT ALL IDEAS ARE BIG. OR FEASIBLE. OR

GAME-CHANGING. OR MEMORABLE. OR, FOR

THAT MATTER, GOOD. THE ONES THAT ARE,

THOUGH, CHANGE THE WORLD. SOMETIMES

IMMEDIATELY, SOMETIMES NOT FOR DECADES

AFTER THEIR INCEPTION.

THE LAST CENTURY HAS BEEN A PRETTY

REMARKABLE ONE ON THE IDEAS FRONT

IN MANY WAYS, IT HAS BEEN ONE OF THE

MORE EVENTFUL CENTURIES IN RECORDED

HUMAN EXISTENCE. WEVE INVENTEDTOOLS TO MAKE OUR LIVES EASIER AND

IDEOLOGIES THAT COMPLICATE IT. WEVE

MADE LEAPS IN OUR UNDERSTANDING OF


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THE WORLD1911-2011

OURSELVES AND THROWN IT AWAY WITH

DESTRUCTIVE INTENT. WEVE EXPLORED

A WORLD BEYOND OUR OWN BUT

ROUTINELY DISREGARDED WHAT WE HAVE

HERE. WEVE CREATED TECHNOLOGIES THAT

UNITE AND PHILOSOPHIES THAT DIVIDE.

IN EACH OF THESE CASES. THERE WAS AN

IDEA INTELLIGENT, FUTILE OR AUDACIOUS

EVEN THAT KICKED OFF THE PROCESS AND

EVENTUALLY, SHAPED THE WORLD AS WE

KNOW IT TODAY.THINK IS ABOUT IDEAS WE START BY

CELEBRATING 50 OF THE PAST CENTURYS

MOST REMARKABLE ONES. ENJOY THE RIDE.


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01HUMANGENOMETHE POTENTIAL TO REMOULD HUMAN LIFE ITSELF

DNA structures, mapping of the human genome andcloning are different stages, and manifestations, of a singlecompelling question: how do we become who we are?The study of genetics has brought us closer to answering

baffling questions of creation. Why is this important?Gene studies has the potential to replicate life and curepreviously incurable diseases by altering defective genes;while understanding traits of heredity and inheritance hasa far-reaching impact on understanding the human mind.Together, they can transform our physical and mental health

like nothing else.


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02REPRODUCTIVECONTROLGIVING WOMEN THEIR BODIES BACK

The social impact of the Pill is probably as significant, ifnot more, as giving women the vote: it kicked the womenssexual liberation movement into high gear and changed theway they perceive their bodies and their equation with

men, forever. The expanding reach of abortion howevercontentious an issue between pro-life and pro-choiceactivists undeniably did the same, giving women controlover child-bearing and therefore over their place in thesocial structure. It also left the ball of sexual pleasure in thewomens court.


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03WORLDWIDE WEBTHE WEB THAT BINDS

If the airplane shrank distances from days to hours,the Internet has made the concept of distance itselfmeaningless. Uniting the world under an invisible web, ithas virtually limitless power, limited only by our imagination.

It started out as a productivity tool but today, everythingfrom trade to sex to revolution relies on the Internet forreach. Above all, it is arguably the worlds greatest weapon offreedom giving you access to everything you want, legalor illegal, provocative or prudish, utilitarian or useless, with afew effortless clicks.


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04GLOBALISATIONCREATING OPPORTUNITY, ACCENTUATING LOSS

When communications, transport, economics and cultureall collude to diffuse boundaries, you end up with the20th centurys seemingly favourite word: globalisation.The dominant form of globalisation has been economic,

with transformative growth in international trade andmanufacturing think Made in China on your Apple iPodand Made in India on your Banana Republic sweatshirt and it has created a class of world citizens. On the flipside, ithas also vastly amplified the numbers of the dispossessed.An interesting cultural side-effect has been fusion. Ironically,

were drawing stronger physical boundaries around nationsthan ever before even as we show rare cultural flexibility,with language, films, art, fashion, design and architectureblending influences from across the world to create wholenew paradigms.


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05SOLARENERGYSELLING SUNSHINE MIGHT FINALLY SAVE THE WORLD

It is sustainable, renewable, and has no adverseenvironmental impact. That alone makes three compellingreasons for its advancement. But solar energy has a wealthof other advantages: it has no ongoing maintenance or

production costs, is entirely silent and unobtrusive, andif youre using thermal solar power producers, it allowsyou to even store the electricity generated for use later.Were hardly the first century to discover the suns energypotential. Were not even the first to harness it. But with thespread of solar technology and reduced costs of installation,

this is the first century when it has started to seem atruly viable and liberating option for residential andcommercial use.


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06CELLULARPHONESCONNECTIVITY ON THE RUN, IN 10 DIGITS

Barely three decades ago, it was the stuff of sci-fi.Now, 28 years after the first mobile phone was madecommercially available, there are 4.6 billion of them in useon the planet. The most disconnected ends of the earth

are now linked; being alone is now a luxury rather thancompulsion, and across the world, we can now make friends,break up, cheat, love, work, play, fight, report, eavesdrop andinform at the push of a few buttons. Productivity has goneup or down -- depending on what you use your cellphonefor; mobiles can accommodate needs as critical as disaster

management and relief, and as trivial as solitaire while youwait for your flight.


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07UNIVERSALFRANCHISETHE ACCEPTANCE OF EQUALITY

The right of all citizens of a country above a certain age,irrespective of gender, caste, colour or religion, to vote is aright we take for granted in contemporary democraciesbut is one that was a bitterly fought battle. The 20th century

saw the movement make quantum leaps, with womenamong the last to get the vote in most parts of the world.This marked the end of traditional social hierarchies globally with far-reaching impact. The universal right to vote haschurned societies; pulled many voiceless communities out ofvictimhood and placed them in seats of power themselves.

While, in practice, power may remain with a small elite, thevote is the most powerful check invented by man.


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08ANTIBIOTICSTAMING INFECTION

Today, we cant imagine bacterial infections leading to deathexcept in a freak, horrifying case. Back in 1928, though,there was nothing freakish about death by infection itwas, more or less, the norm. Enter Alexander Fleming and

his discovery of penicillin and diseases that had seemed ascourge in the past now became entirely curable. Smallpox,which killed 500 million people in the 20th century alone,was entirely eradicated. Immense advancements have beenmade in medical science since, but antibiotics continue tohold a hallowed place in the treatment of everyday infection

and preventing wasteful deaths.


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09GPSMERGING SURVEILLANCE AND SURVIVAL

The Global Positioning System was clever enough as amilitary technology, but when GPS became available to therest of us it changed the way we navigate and probablymade a lot of mapmakers redundant. Its utility goes way

beyond finding your way around town; think locationtracking, disaster relief and emergency services, marinenavigation, animal tracking, weather data, earthquake-monitoring, navigation and cellphone technology, apartfrom its multiple military uses. Thanks to GPS, were faster,safer, quicker, more responsive, less accident-prone and,

hopefully, better drivers than weve ever been in history.


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10JET ENGINETRANSFORMING TRAVEL, COLLAPSING TIME

Its essentially an internal combustion engine with arotary air compressor powered by a turbine. While variouspermutations of a jet engine have existed from previouscenturies, the first successful attempts to use gas turbines to

power jet engines were made in the 1920s, makinglong-distance travel a reality. Today, 1.5 billion people flyeach year. Advanced versions of the jet engine are now atthe heart of cruise missiles, unmanned aircraft, and evenspace flights. Above all, though, theyve transformed ournotions of distance, shrinking the world in the most

tangible way possible.


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1 1X-RAYSCRITICAL DIAGNOSTIC TOOL THATS

TRANSFORMED MEDICINE

The X-ray was discovered entirely by accident by Germanscientist Wilhelm Roentgen in 1895 but it wasnt until1913 that the first X-ray tube was designed specifically formedical purposes by American chemist William Coolidge. It

was a discovery that transformed medical science and howinternal ailments were diagnosed, and though incredibleadvancements have since been made in internal medicine,the X-ray remains a critical diagnostic tool. It allows youa look inside the human body without having to cut itopen, radically minimising invasive surgery and resulting

complications. Uses today go way beyond medicine, tosafety equipment, archaeology and astronomy but nowhereis the X-ray more compelling than in a doctors able hands.


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12CINEMATHE TALKIES REINVENTED CULTURE

This is the century of the talkies, where moving picturesand sound married to create magic on screen, and a wholenew way for the world to interact with each other. Themovies are not just entertainment though. Theyre escape

and information all at once. They reflect culture and shapeit. In fact, theyve been key to the overwhelming culturalcross-pollination of this century, spreading ideas andmerging influences from across the world, allowing for anew, often shared, culture to emerge where previously onlyvery distinct ones existed. Think AR Rahman singingJai Ho

on the Oscars stage and youll know exactly what we mean.


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13LEISURE/PLEASUREPURSUING PLEASURE

Emperors may have kept harems and scarfed champagne,but for the rest of mankind, pleasure has conventionallybeen a dish too pricey to order. No longer. For the firsttime in recent history, the middle class is celebrating doing

nothing. Leisure is an idea that has changed moderncommerce. Spaces, events, services, products, technologies a host of things that never existed before are nowat work to help us put our feet up. Spa breaks, weekendgetaways, retail therapy, lounge bars, fine-dining, cruises,adventure trips, martinis on the beach and villa rentals,

vacation homes and massage chairs, hedonism has becomeour defining pursuit and a key economic driver.


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14XENOPHOBIATHE CENTURYS GREATEST SHAME

History is replete with destructive ideas. But none, perhaps,has been as devastating as xenophobia, the most shatteringexample of which was the Holocaust and the exterminationof 6 million Jews. Its not an isolated example. The genocide

in Rwanda and Darfur and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia showthat implacable hatred of communities by dictatorial forcescontinues to exist, and has the power to bring the world tothe brink of devastation more easily than we imagine.


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15NEW-AGESPIRITUALITYBAND-AID FOR THE MODERN SOUL

Its a bit of everything eastern and western religioustenets, psychology, holistic health, metaphysics, and more.Gone are the traditional saints. The new evangelists of ourtime are self-help pros theyre geared to help an anxietal

age stress-bust and feel calmer. New-Age Spirituality beganas an amalgam of the best from Buddhism, Hinduism,Taoism, Chinese folk philosophies, Islam and Sikhism minus the rituals. Its first movements had roots in theesoteric writings of writers like DH Lawrence and WBYeats, psychologist Carl Jung, theologian Edgar Cayce and

philosopher Walter Russell. But somewhere along theway, its been leached of some of its deeper impulses andbecome merely soul-comfort movements, spawning massiveand financially rich spiritual corporations around one centralcharismatic figure.


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16PERSONALCOMPUTINGTHE ELECTRONIC MIRACLE

Today, we cant imagine life without it. Whether in itssmartphone avatar, as the ubiquitous laptop, the cutting-edge tablet, or the humble desktop, personal computers tiethe complicated threads of our lives together. Theyre tools

of work and play, creativity and organisation, storage andcommunication; they help store mountains of data thatearlier required physical space, and have changed the waywe live more comprehensively than most other innovationsof this century. The new talk is about Singularity whenArtificial Intelligence will outstrip biological intelligence,

putting evolution on a whole new track.


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17IVFBEATING BIOLOGY

Not too long ago, having a child was considered a miracle;the inability to conceive, a curse. Today? You can choosein-vitro fertilisation, have your eggs frozen to put offprocreation for a later date, use a sperm donor or a

surrogate mother, and generally confound nature in a dozenways. Its not easy, its not cheap, but it is, finally, possible.When Louise Brown, the worlds first test-tube baby gavebirth to her own child in 2006, medical science passed itsfinal test of intervention. Even with the most cutting-edgescientific advancements, childbirth is still a miracle but

we can now nudge the miracle along just a little. For thealmost 150 million estimated infertile couples worldwide,thats as godlike as medicine can get.


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19NUCLEARENERGYTHE FORCE THAT CONTROLS US

Game-changing, life-altering, potentially the force that candestroy the world as we know it or transform it, with itsability to generate clean, efficient, practically unlimitedpower. In its most destructive avatar, as at Hiroshima and

Nagasaki and more recently, at Chernobyl, it is a weapon ofdevastation on a previously unknown scale. But its potentialfor mutual devastation may well be the reality that hasprevented the world from facing a third world war nomean achievement in itself.


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20BARCODETHE EFFICIENCY TOOL THAT TRANSFORMED RETAIL

Those ubiquitous black-and-white stripes may be no morethan a patch on your packaged goods but for the retailtrade, they changed the dynamics forever. Access productdetails, pricing, stock availability, special deals and more at

the sweep of a laser over this tiny strip, making it possibleto shop swiftly and now thanks to augmented reality andvirtual stores without even physically being at a store.It made possible large-format retailing with thousands ofpeople being served at a fraction of the time needed to doit manually. And today, with 10 billion scans of a barcode

around the world daily, its about much more than shopping barcodes help you board planes and track packages,help researchers collect data and diabetics calibrate theirglucose meters, and do a dozen other things we totallytake for granted.


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21REFRIGERATIONTHE DOOR TO FOOD DURABILITY. AND COMFORT

Imagine a world without refrigerators, frozen food, andproduce that can be stored for months. Imagine a worldwithout leftover pizza the morning after. Imagine a worldwithout refrigeration in other forms no refrigerated

trucks to transport milk and dairy; no cooling systems forair conditioners; no ice. While commercial refrigeration wasavailable in the latter part of the previous century, it wasin 1922 that the first absorption refrigerator for home usewas invented, and set the foundation for an appliance sofundamental to our lives, the urban world cant imagine a

time without it.


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22SUBCONSCIOUSNEW PARADIGM FOR MENTAL HEALTH

& HUMAN BEHAVIOUR

When Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis,suggested our behaviour is not always ruled by ourconscious thoughts, he founded the idea that individualscan make a study of their own minds. He also made it

possible to understand mental disease an irrevocablestigma till then and take the first steps towards its cure.Freud believed people could inadvertently let out ideas fromtheir unconscious in dreams or through slips of the tongue hence the term Freudian slip. His ideas have permeatedpop culture so widely that much of what we understand

about the sexes, relationships and ourselves can be seen asreflected through a Freudian mirror.


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23CLIMATECHANGETHE FIGHT TO SAVE THE EARTH

Forests are depleting, animal habitats being destroyed,indigenous communities forced out of their homes, sea-levels rising, marine life shrinking. Manifestations of climatechange have already started to appear floods, droughts,

earthquakes, melting glaciers, heatwaves, extraordinaryrain... This has sparked off a massive global effort to findcheap, non-polluting sources of energy: Geo-thermal,biomass, wind, clean coal, nuclear energy, nanotechnology.Human intervention in the natural order created the crisis.It now seeks creative solutions; one of the most compelling

needs driving scientific research around the world today.


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24CONSUMERISMYOU ARE WHAT YOU BUY

It sounds like a fancy name for compulsive shopping butconsumerism isnt about what you buy, its about the beliefthat consuming more, and producing more, are the bestindicators of personal success and economic progress.

This idea has accelerated the pace of life unrecognisablyas people and governments chase after newer andnewer goalposts of material success. It has catalysedunprecedented individualism, displaced old value systemsand triggered hectic international trade -- our apples arenow from New Zealand, cars from Germany, tea from China.

Shipping these goods across the planet is seen as a positive,increasingly dissolving boundaries. But consumerism isleaving an unsustainable footprint on the world, impactingit in all sorts of challenging ways.


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27DURABLEMATERIALSALTERED THE REALM OF PHYSICAL PRODUCTS

Theyre so ubiquitous, we almost dont notice themanymore, and yet stainless steel and plastic are the twinfoundations on which much of the developed world isconstructed. Theres good reason for that. Stainless steel

is corrosion-resistant, 100% recyclable and, as the namesuggests, stain resistant. And, with over 150 grades available,it can be milled into any shape you choose, from sheetsand plates to coils, wires and tubes. Thats also what makesplastic so seductive, despite its terrible environmentalfootprint it frees us from material constraints. Withsynthetic versions like nylon, Teflon, polypropylene, polyesterand acrylic to choose from, theres virtually nothing thatcant be crafted out of these two game-changing materials.


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28OUTSOURCINGCLOSING THE GAP

Its a business in which everyones a John Doe. Millions ofcollege graduates across countries like India and China takeon a new identity every day as they solve customer servicecomplaints from the other side of the globe, a surreal reality

made possible by the massive leaps in communicationstechnology. Cheaper labour and land costs, a surfeit ofgraduates and few labour laws have caused back-endoperations to be outsourced across the planet, creatingmillions of jobs in the developing world even as protests risein the West. The movement owes a lot to KP Singh, head ofDLF Industries, who influenced GE CEO Jack Welch to useGurgaon, a New Delhi suburb, for back-end operations forhis company.


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29MICROFINANCEFUNDING THE DREAMS OF THE POOR

A revolutionary financing system that makes moneyavailable to those who need it most the poorest ofthe poor, who have no access to conventional bankingsystems and typically borrow from village moneylenders at

prohibitive, destructive terms. Via microfinance, loans ofsmall amounts are offered to groups of people at a collectiveinterest rate; non-payment by one member increases theinterest rate for all, ensuring peer pressure on the defaulter.Microfinance has already revolutionised the lives of millionsin Africa, India and Bangladesh, releasing them from a cycleof debt and bondage for the first time in generations. Butominously now, the ills of conventional banking have begunto set in here too.


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30CONSERVATIONRESCUING LIFE AND HISTORY

Progress does not necessarily have to be at odds withpreservation. Over the last century though, we have revelledin wiping out the old to make way for the new. This hasmanifested itself most in the shrinking of our natural

resources, in the near-extinction of animal species vital toour planet; in the depleting rainforests and natural habitatsthese animals need to survive. But we have wiped outmore than natural resources historic art and architecturehave suffered the same fate. In a slow but firm movement,conservationists a new, committed breed of professionals have come together to protect what the world standsto lose. From environmental conservation efforts to thecreation of World Heritage Sites under the protection ofUNESCO, were finally learning to strengthen our links to thepast instead of destroying them.


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31SPECIALNEEDSDESTIGMATISED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE

For centuries, they were harshly rejected as handicapped.Or worse. It has taken decades to create an attitudinal shift.Today, children afflicted by learning or physical disabilitiesare considered as having special needs, an attitude that

makes a subtle but powerful distinction between defectsand differences. This has powered a change in educationpatterns, societal acceptance and support, and in drivingscientific research. It has moved the cheese from shame tocelebration. You only have to think of South African doubleamputee Oscar Pistorious, the fastest man on no legs, tounderstand how game-changing that can be.


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32SEX CHANGEOPERATIONSTHE ULTIMATE LIBERATION

Imagine being born male but identifying all your lifewith how women feel. Imagine looking like a woman butnot thinking like one. Imagine going through life with theemotions and needs of one gender with the form of the

other. Now imagine the freedom to change that. Sex-changeoperations may matter to only a fraction of us but they offera freedom unparalleled in science: to change a fundamentalfact of human existence. For the transgender community,it isnt a cosmetic procedure its freedom from a life ofangst, subterfuge and distress. For the first time in history,gender is a choice. Many may not need that choice, but itsthe existence of the choice itself that marks the incrediblenature of the achievement.


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33GREENREVOLUTIONENGINEERING FOOD SECURITY

In the early 1960s, the International Rice Research Institutein the Philippines released a semi-dwarf, high-yield varietyof rice that, in conjunction with high-yield wheat, usheredin the Green Revolution worldwide, saving a potential one

billion people from starvation by increasing yields perhectare of land. The idea of hybrid seeds, irrigation canals,chemical fertilisers and pesticides transformed agriculturethe world over. For some decades, it was seen as a miracle.Now the costs have kicked in: salinated lands, spirallinginput costs, diminishing yields and health side-effects.The argument over genetically modified crops is still toplay itself out.


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34AMERICANATHE EMPIRE BUILT ON SOFT POWER

Americana, not English, is the dominant language of theworld today our movies, slang, food, TV shows, magazines,authors, celebrities, products, apparel, sport are almost allobsessively American. We know the minutae of Brangelinas

lives, are hooked onto Dexterand How I Met Your Mother,eat cheeseburgers, listen to Lady Gaga, read the New YorkTimesonline, love Star Trek and Superman, are addictedto Apple, drink Coke, wear Nikes, and probably have a HardRock Caf t-shirt in the closet. Its been called CulturalImperialism and perhaps it is, having spread as inexorablyas any land domination ever has, influencing ideas, events,technologies, retail and consumption in the remotestcorners of the world.


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35MULTI-CULTURALISMTHE NEW WORLD RELIGION

It emerged from de-colonisation but has become a force inits own right. The end of the World Wars saw the break-upof all the old colonising empires -- British, Dutch, French,Italian, German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian. What

emerged in its place were cultures suffused with the spiritof other places. Countries opened themselves to peoplefrom other races, religions, ethnicities and sexualorientations to create a truly heterogeneous mix. Its multi-culturalism that allows a Chinatown to exist in every majorcity; that makes Raj Kapoor one of Russias most celebratedicons; and that explains why chicken tikka masala is aBritish dish, not an Indian one.


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3624/7NEWS MEDIAMAGNIFYING REALITY LIKE NEVER BEFORE

Being bombarded with news every minute of every day isaltering the world in ways we do not fully understand yet.24/7 news doesnt just report happenings, it magnifies it. Itoffers rumour, debate, fact, analysis, comment and reportage

as an often-indistinguishable mix. Critics argue it fuelshysteria and lends weight to trivialities; advocates believeit is a potent conscience-keeper. What is unarguable is thatit has changed the information landscape of this century --ironically making news both more urgent and transient; andour responses both more immediate and deadened with thesheer information overload.


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37AGE OFSHAKTITHE RISE OF WOMEN IN PUBLIC LIFE

The era of women is well and truly here. They have alwaysbeen wives, sisters, daughters, mothers; now, theyre alsoemployees, consultants, bosses, partners, decision-makers,opinion-shapers, earners, spenders. The resulting flux has

altered our society fundamentally when women goout to work and have the financial means to take theirown decisions, the power balance shifts. Unsurprisingly,therefore, the multi-dimensional woman has created anunusual offshoot the Diaper Dad, who shares domesticchores, runs errands, and fields a laptop and ladle with equalcompetence, if not enthusiasm.


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38SPACETRAVELDISMANTLED THE IDEA OF LIMITS

Our understanding of the world has been shapedsignificantly by the exploration of one beyond it. The mostspectacular success came when man landed on the moon.It was more than a metaphorical moment of success

though space travel has spurred some of the most usefulinventions of our time. We owe to space research moreefficient ways to cool and heat our homes; advances insolar power; batteries and power transmission systems;unprecedented medical advances, and above all, majoradvances in aviation safety. Now with commercial travel tospace ready to take off, the boundaries have been pushed

once more.


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39BEAUTYINDUSTRYSKIN DEEP

The US spends more on the beauty business each year than itdoes on education. There are more Avon ladies in Brazil thanthere are military officers. And worldwide, beauty is no longeran ephemeral quality, it is a $330 billion industry. Research

proves babies respond better to prettier faces, teachers tomore attractive students, and better-looking employees earnhigher salaries. That explains why so much science is devotedto combating ageing, correcting flaws and creating abattery of products to conceal what cant be corrected. Youcan shape, sculpt, highlight, or simply fake anything thesedays. This has both liberated women and engendered a new

kind of tyranny of market-dictated beauty.


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40CONSUMERTECHNOLOGIESTHE PURSUIT OF CONVENIENCE

This is the century that gave us sliced bread, the remotecontrol, microwave ovens, automobiles, washing machines,the zipper, ball-point pens, photocopiers, transistorradios, pocket calculators, fax machines and arguably

most important, indoor plumbing none of them trulyfundamental to human existence, yet central to making ourlives smoother. The housewife took centrestage, with muchof the focus on technologies that made running her homequicker, handier, cleaner, while consumption patterns changeddramatically, going from need-based to greed-based.


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41MNCsTHE NEW KINGDOMS

It has its combatants, but free-market trade is the dominantsystem in the world today, creating a new, powerful,boundary-less entity: the multinational corporation.Controlling billions of dollars in trade, hundreds of

thousands of jobs, and often core sectors like energy,transport and communications, they dictate public policy,international equations and economic decisions. Its CEOsand industrialists, not diplomats and politicians, who are thenew influencers; their corporations, the new global royalty.


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42PROFESSIONALSPORTTHE NEW GLADIATORS

Humankind has always competed for thrill, adventure andtestosterone. Now, theres the added adrenalin of money.From Europes cult football clubs to Indias cash-rich cricketleague, American baseball to competitive tennis, sport has

become a powerful, money-powered spectacle. Selecting anOlympic or football World Cup host involves massive politicallobbying, and television rights for sporting events oftenseems to equal the GDP of several nations. And then theresmerchandising, brand sponsorships, sporting equipment andvideo-game spin-offs. All icing on a very rich cake.


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43QUANTUMTHEORYPHYSICS MEETS FANTASY

The entire architecture of the world as we know it is affectedby quantum theory, which deals with the behaviour of thesmallest particles of matter and reveals the oddities atwork in our physical world. Even physicists as renowned

as Richard Feynman have conceded its hard to explainquantum theory in any coherent way; the only thingresearchers agree on is that without it, we may neverhave had the Internet, the cellphone, GPS, email or high-definition television, superconductors or bullet trains,among others.


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44LASERBEAMBENDING LIGHT ENERGY TO HUMAN CONVENIENCE

Whitens teeth, removes tattoos, corrects vision, scansgroceries, tracks missiles. Ironically, given how ubiquitousthe laser is today, its inventor Theodore H Maiman whoworked at Hughes Research Laboratories in California

didnt have the foggiest what they were going to do with it.Lasers are one of the examples of how pure research,unlinked to end use, can change the world. All Maimanknew was that he had something special on his hands.Today, given that the laser is used in everything fromDVD players to precision-guided munitions, its safe to sayhe wasnt wrong.


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45RECYCLINGA CORRECTIVE ON MANS RECKLESS CONSUMPTION

The realisation that our natural resources are not limitless.The fears about the multiple ways in which this couldaffect life for future generations. The beginnings of a movetowards sustainability and the control of wastage. These

have all been awakenings of the past century and havetaken tangible form with the recycling movement. Not thecure for all ills, recycling is nevertheless a powerful idea inthe search for sustainability, one of the key elements of theReduce, Reuse, Recycle waste hierarchy.


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46CREDIT CARDTHE REINVENTION OF MONEY

Paper money may have seemed like the final frontier butrecent decades have shown that it is merely an element and potentially, a dispensable one in the humanevolution story. Money may make the world go round, but itcertainly doesnt have to weigh down your wallet. Credit anddebit cards, prepaid/cash cards, wire transfers and Internetbanking you can spend money without ever seeing itthese days. But perhaps most transformative of these hasbeen the credit card, enabling a cycle of consumption beforeearning, for possibly the first time in human history withboth liberating and devastating impacts.


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47TELEVISIONLIFE AT THE TOUCH OF A BUTTON

Communication, engagement, information, debate,discovery, learning, indulgence, voyeurism the television isa tool of many traits, and we cant seem to do without themall. Politicians use it to reach you, entertainers to captivateyou, news networks to engage you, sport to absorb you andadvertisers to seduce you. With its immense amplifications,it is no longer just a medium but a player itself; witha relentless logic of its own. In the ultimate reckoning,however, the power always lies in the hands of thosewho hold the remote. Thats what makes it a democraticmedium rivalled by few others.


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48ASSEMBLYLINETHE START OF AUTOMATION

Henry Ford took automobiles a pricey, exclusive luxuryavailable to a few and transformed them into a massmovement. But he had an even more influential impactin the process: creating the first ever assembly-linemanufacturing set-up in 1914. For the first time, theengineer stood in place while the product went around theplant on a belt-driven production line, parts being added atevery stage speeding up the manufacturing process andcutting costs dramatically. No one had ever done it before,so there wasnt even a word for it. It was Ford again, in 1926,who gave it the name it has till date: mass production.

Till then, it was simply called Fordism.


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49HUMANRIGHTSACKNOWLEDGING HUMAN EQUALITY

The formal recognition of human rights as somethinghumanity was entitled to was born out of the horrorsof World War II, although philosophers had bandied theconcept around for centuries previously. The big milestone,though, came when the UN drafted its UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights. The movements nextlandmark came in 1961 when British lawyer Peter Benensonwrote a newspaper appeal, The Forgotten Prisoners, callingfor an international campaign to fight the imprisonmentof people for their political and religious beliefs. Responsesflooded in, and Amnesty International was born, laying the

foundation for future organisations to take up the battle.


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50SOCIALNETWORKINGREVOLUTIONISED HUMAN RELATIONS

Around the world, every day, more than three billionminutes are spent on Facebook. News is now routinelybroken on Twitter. Following someone is no longer stalking,poking is no longer rude, and to Facebook or troll someoneis now considered even grammatically acceptable. Socialnetworking has completely revolutionised the way weinteract and who we interact with. It allows for emotionalexpression without responsibility and has nurturedromance, revolution and bigotry in equal measure. It mayseem frivolous to some, a passing fancy to others butthere is no denying that social networking is shaping our

communication patterns more definitively than any othermovement in recent history.


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THEATRIUM

ARCHITECTS

Concept

Tarun J Tejpal

CurationPayal Puri

EditorialPayal Puri, Shoma Chaudhury

Installations Design

Abbhay Narkar,Geetan Batra, Dushyant Bansal,

Subhasish Mandal,Dwarka Nath Sinha

Graphic DesignAnand Naorem

ProductionIronhands Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.,

Tiya Tejpal

With thanks toRohit Chawla for the white tiger


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2011 THINK

THAT SHAPED THE WORLD

1911-2011

The Atrium of Thought

Documents

Transcript of The Atrium of Thought