Technological wonders

Sense of awe

Sir, – In describing the transcendent experience of being truly awestruck, Joe Humphreys professes to feel deep wonder “at the nature of the universe” while, conversely, “gadgetry leaves me cold” (Unthinkable, June 29th).

While in general I’d agree, there have been times when a technological innovation has left me dumbfounded, one of which is particularly useful around this time of year.

I can recall first seeing a calculator in the mid-1970s and, in astonishment, rechecking its answers longhand and struggling to grasp the speed of its rapid processing, probably at the age of about six.

And when Google first appeared, it wasn’t so much the list of several million items that it generated in under a second that left me shaking my head in bewilderment. It was the fact that I could misspell the terms and it would correct my error, and show me the correct results anyway. That it “knows” what I mean, even if I type inaccurately, still seems an uncanny intuition.

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More recently it is the camera function on Google Translate that I find recaptures the childlike wonder I had on first seeing a calculator. On the app, which is free, you can type in words and get translations between a plethora of languages, as you’d expect. But by tapping its camera icon, you can simply look at printed text in a language and see it immediately translated on your phone screen. It’s best appreciated on a summer holiday to instantly interpret a restaurant menu or wine list in Greek, Portuguese or whatever.

It’s striking, though, that to convey the depth of one’s amazement, comparisons with the universe and astronomy automatically suggest themselves.

As Keats observed, when so affected by a translation of Homer’s poetry, “then felt I like some watcher of the skies, When a new planet swims into his ken”. Enough said. – Yours, etc,

BRIAN O’BRIEN,

Kinsale,

Co Cork.