Every Invention is a Question

Every great invention is also a question. Consider the telescope. It certainly has practical applications—it can help you scope out a rival military and bombard them into oblivion, etc. But the invention itself, considered independently of its vicious uses, asks something about the constitution of reality. It asks questions about light, about optics, about the eye, about glass, and, of course, about the stars. New objects swim into our ken. Galileo sees moons orbiting Jupiter. The axis of reality starts to shift…