1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910254320703321

Autore

Hancock Peter

Titolo

Transports of Delight [[electronic resource] ] : How Technology Materializes Human Imagination / / by Peter Hancock

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer International Publishing : , : Imprint : Springer, , 2017

ISBN

3-319-55248-1

Edizione

[1st ed. 2017.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (XXV, 235 p. 52 illus.)

Disciplina

600

Soggetti

Technology

Psychology, Applied

Technology - History

Philosophy

Popular Science in Technology

Applied Psychology

History of Technology

Philosophy of Technology

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction -- Ghosts of the Temeraire -- What a Sight It Is -- The Largest Moving Object Ever Built -- Reaching For God -- Surviving Sisters -- The Riddle of the Labyrinth -- Ships of the Soul -- Threads Through Time -- Transports of Delight -- Autobiomimesis.

Sommario/riassunto

This inspiring book shows how the spiritual side of life, with its thoughts, feelings, and aspirations, is intimately bound up with our material technologies. From the wonder of Gothic Cathedrals, to the quiet majesty of lighter than air flight, to the ultimate in luxury of the north Atlantic steamers, Peter Hancock explores how these sequential heights of technology have enabled our dreams of being transported to new and uncharted realms to become reality. Sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively, technology has always been there to make material the visions of our imagination. This book shows how this has essentially been true for all technologies from Stonehenge to space station. But technology is far from perfect. Indeed, the author argues



here that some of the most public and tragic of its failures still remain instructive, emblematic, and even inspiring. He reports on examples such as a Cathedral of the Earth (Beauvais), a Cathedral of the Seas (Titanic), and a Cathedral of the Air (Hindenburg) and tells their stories from the viewpoint of material transcendence. By interweaving their stories he reveals how technologies can succeed in elevating human beings and, in taking them to whole new realms of being, he explores and explains why these experiences are ‘Transports of Delight.’.