Every year, scholars make new d iscoveries,
wh ich shatter ou r vision of ou r own past.
They u nearth cl ues, wh ich reveal that ancient people
created extraord i nary i n novations
h u nd reds, even thousands of years ahead of thei r ti me...
How d id the ancient Egyptians I ift stones weig h i ng two h u nd red tons
to the top of the G reat Pyram id of G iza,
a feat wh ich baffles scientists to th is day?
"These blocks weig hed two h u nd red tons each.
Now to put that i nto perspective,
two h u nd red tons is roug h ly eq u ivalent to
five h u nd red modern fam i ly-sized automobi les. "
Is it possi ble that ancient man harnessed electricity
a thousand years ago..?
"When the archaeolog ist d iscovered the object,
he looked at it and it looked to h i m I i ke a battery.
I n fact, it's very d ifficu lt to see what else it cou ld be."
Centu ries before the bi rth of Jesus,
d id the ancient G reeks bu i ld a prototype of the world 's fi rst analog com puter?
Was brai n su rgery practiced i n Peru over a thousand years ago?
"There have been brai n operations,
where people have had su rgery on thei r sku I Is done
and we know they su rvived..."
What were the lost tech nolog ical secrets of ancient ti mes
How were they created then thoug ht to be lost forever
And how wou ld ou r own world have been transformed
if thei r d iscoveries had been developed over the centu ries,
i nstead of bei ng lost i n the shadows of the past?
Joi n us as we explore the i n novative gen i us of ancient man
and probe the past to reveal the startl i ng lost secrets of ancient tech nology.
I n the beg i n n i ng, he seemed so u n I i ke a god.
A vu I nerable creatu re, at fi rst barely h u man
Naked, alone, afraid.
But one who wou ld, one day, ru le the earth.
As h is h u man ness emerged,
what i n ner long i ng, what passion, com pel led early man to create..
to i nvent, to utterly transform h is world
Perhaps one of h is earl iest d iscoveries
wou ld hel p to ki nd le h is i mag i nation..
"When man fou nd fi re it meant that
he cou ld actual ly put a barrier between h i mself
and h is g reatest enemy wh ich is darkness.
He cou ld actual ly have warmth and I ig ht arou nd h i m
wh ich perhaps gave h i m the opportu n ity to th i n k
Perhaps even to th i n k abstract thoug hts."
F rom fi re,
to the wheel,
to the fi rst forms of writi ng,
ancient tech nology evolved over tens of thousands of years.
W e have strugg led to g ive voice to ou r i n nate gen i us for i nvention.
And yet today, when we look back on ly two thousand years,
we perceive ou r ancestors as pri m itive.
But were they?
"W e seem to have th is notion
that si m ply because we have obtai ned the level of soph istication that we have
that i n the past people were somehow i ntel lectual ly i nferior to us.
I n fact i n a g reat many cases the reverse is true.
W e are i n many ways considerably less soph isticated than ou r predecessors..."
Was the ancient m i nd more advanced i n its th i n ki ng than we have ever i mag i ned?
Cou ld such su pposed ly modern breakth roug hs as steam power
the com puter, the e lectrical battery and the su bmari ne
have been conceived h u nd reds, even thousands of years before thei r ti me.
The q uest for fl ig ht has long been viewed as a twentieth centu ry breakth roug h...
But is th is ancient object, d iscovered i n a tom b near Saqqara Egypt
evidence that the Egyptians experi mented
with aerodynam ic pri nci ples over two thousand years ago?
"Th is is assu med to be a bi rd by Egyptolog ists because it has wi ngs.
However, the shape of the wi ngs is u n I i ke the shape of any known bi rd wi ng.
As a matter of fact, the wi ngs are ti lted own sl ig htly
at what 's cal led a d i hed ral ang le.
They have an ai rfoi I section I i ke the section of a modern ai rcraft wi ng...
It has a perfectly u prig ht tai l.
No bi rd known to science has such a tai l.
Actual ly, what it look I i ke, is a model of an ai rplane."
Other scientists, however, strong ly d isag ree.
"lt has been suggested that the Saqqara bi rd represents an early flyi ng mach i ne.
Maybe it was a hand lau nched g I ider; maybe it was even a model,
some people have suggested, for a larger ai rcraft....
I don 't th i n k that's the case."
Was the Saqqara g I ider i ntended to represent an early ai rcraft?
The controversy remai ns.
But even the most skeptical scientists now concede
that ancient i nventors ach ieved aston ish i ng feats of tech nology
wh ich can not be eq ualed today..
Damascus steel... Fi rst created over two thousand years ago.
"The maki ng of Damascus steel is sti I l a mystery
because we real ly don 't know exactly how it was done.
There is a defi n ite reci pe for it
but we real ly are not su re what that reci pe is
and althoug h we've been able to reprod uce
steels that are si m i lar to Damascus steel,
we have never been able to reprod uce it perfectly."
I n the hands of fierce Saracen warriors,
swords forged from th is h ig h carbon metal
carved a bloody swath th roug h the early Crusaders i n the Holy Land.
The strength and cutti ng power
of th is tem pered steel blade from a tech nology over a thousand years old,
has not been d u pl icated, even i n the space age.
It is on ly one of the lost secrets of ancient tech nology
wh ich sti I l baffle scholars to th is day.
"What we have seen i n th is centu ry
is a most i ncred i ble explosion and development of tech nology.
But what we have to take i nto accou nt
is that tech nology is not a I i near development.
W e have tech nology bei ng i nvented...
risi ng to a very soph isticated level
and then sudden ly we pl u nge back down i nto a Dark Age where most of it gets lost
T rag ical ly th roug hout h istory
barbarism has th reatened to destroy priceless treasu res of h u man knowledge
Perhaps the g reatest cri me ever com m itted i n the ancient world
was the wi I lfu I destruction of these extraord i nary bu i ld i ngs
i n Alexand ria Egypt.
For the legendary I i brary of Alexand ria was a treasu re trove
hold i ng the accu m u lated secrets of centu ries of ancient tech nology.
Starti ng i n the year 48 before the com mon era
th is mon u ment to h u man i nventive gen i us
wou ld be ravaged by a series of d isastrous fi res
set fi rst by the Roman leg ions, then by Ch ristian and Musl i m conq uerors.
What priceless secrets went u p i n smoke, lost to man ki nd forever?
"W e have a tendency as a species to wi I lfu I ly obl iterate
whole areas of ou r past, to wi pe clean the memory ban ks of man ki nd.
And the Li brary of Alexand ria is an exam ple of th is.
Who knows what it contai ned?
Or what it told about the h u man story?
Al I we real ly know about the contents of the Li brary of Alexand ria now
comes down to us from scholars who stud ied there
everyth i ng i nd icates that it was an extraord i nary repository of i nformation.
Was com pletely lost to the world."
If th is ancient reservoi r of world knowledge had su rvived,
how wou ld the wisdom it contai ned have transformed ou r past
ou r present and ou r futu re?
On ly now are scientists fi nal ly u nearth i ng the lost secrets of ancient tech nology
i nventions before thei r ti me h idden for h u nd reds, even thousands of years.
The wonders of ancient tech nology
How were they conceived?
W ere some created after pai nstaki ng years of trial and error
others i n a si ng le bl i nd i ng flash of gen i us?
S u rprisi ng ly, modern scholars bel ieve that
many early breakth roug hs were ig nored i n thei r own ti me.
Never pu rsued or developed, thei r vast potential was lost for centu ries.
On ly h u nd reds of years later have these forgotten i n novations been u nearthed
by a twist of fate.
The sh ifti ng desert sands of I raq
near the ti meless ancient city of Bag hdad :
Here, i n 1 936, Wil hel m Kon ig an Austrian scientist, made a d iscovery
wh ich wou ld explode long held assu m ptions about ancient tech nology.
"When the Archaeolog ists d iscovered th is object
he looked at it and it looked to h i m I i ke a battery
i n fact, it's very d ifficu lt to see what else it cou ld be
It is a smal I pottery jar with a copper tu be, h u ng down the m idd le
and an i ron rod suspended i n the m idd le of the copper tu be.
The artifact was d iscovered i n a site
that is pretty clearly to be dated to the fi rst centu ry AD."
Was it possi ble that an ancient i nventor had constructed an electrical battery?
" Now there has been some controversy
about what cou ld they have been usi ng a battery for i n the Fi rst Centu ry A. D
and fu rther more there's been some controversy about
how on earth cou ld they have d iscovered the darn th i ng
My own view of how cou ld have managed to d iscover
the pri nci ple em bod ied i n the Bag hdad Battery al ready i n the Fi rst Centu ry A. D.
is that the pri nci ple is i n fact very si m ple.
It is that two d issi m i lar metals, i n th is case copper and i ron
when put i n a I iq u id that is acid ic wi I l generate a voltage between them."
But what was the battery's pu rpose?
Some scientists have specu lated that cu rrent from the Bag hdad battery
m ig ht have been used to electroplate si lver objects with a pati na of gold.
But some scholars d isag ree.
"The artifact was fou nd i n a house that is clearly a mag ician 's house.
There were bowls with mag ical i nscri ptions i n them
and we know that i n ancient Mesopotam ia,
the people who were i n the charge of med ici ne, the doctors, were mag icians
and therefore, my hypothesis is that th is mag ician was, or cou rse, a doctor
and he was usi ng th is battery as someth i ng med ical."
But what possi ble med ical pu rpose
m ig ht an electrical battery have served two m i I len n ia ago?
"Even i n modern ti mes
people use electrical cu rrent as a ki nd of pai n ki I ler device.
W el I th is cou ld have been done i n Antiq u ity."
T o su pport h is theory Professor Keyser fou nd an i ntrig u i ng cl ue
i n a bizarre practice of the ancient world.
Along the Med iterranean and the N i le River,
a rare breed of electrical fish cal led "T orpedo"
was raised for an u n usual pu rpose.
When a person suffered from physical pai n,
he wou ld wade i nto waters stocked with the fish.
Thei r m i ld electrical shocks wou ld provide a ti ng I i ng to hel p ease the pai n.
"W e have Fi rst Centu ry AD Lati n text by a man named Scrabon ious
who actual ly descri bes how to cu re pai n i n you r legs
by taki ng a I ivi ng electrical fish on the beach and stand i ng on it.
So the pri nci ple that th is ki nd of ti ng I i ng wou ld have cu red pai n,
it was wel I known, is val id, it's used i n modern ti mes
and I th i n k it's not so hard to see
why an Ancient Mesopotam ia doctor/mag ician
wou ld have made use of th is to al leviate pai n."
Beyond the debate over the battery's pu rpose
I ies an even more provocative q uestion.
Who was the i nventor who created it?
I n h is wi ldest i mag i n i ngs
cou ld he have conceived how the mag ic of electricity
wou ld someday transform the world?
As mysterious as the creation of the Bag hdad battery was
why was it sudden ly abandoned
not to be re-i nvented u nti l n i neteen h u nd red years later?
Wh i le some lost secrets of ancient tech nology are bu ried
beneath scorch i ng desert sands ;
others I ie entom bed i n the u ncharted waters of the sea.
I n 1 900 a sponge d iver, off the G reek lsland of Anti kythera
fou nd the wreck of an ancient sh i p loaded with precious statues and ceram ics.
It had lai n u nd istu rbed for over 2000 years.
Cal led the fi rst g reat u nderwater fi nd of modern archeology
its cargo of priceless marble and bronze statues were recog n ized at once
as the work of G reek artisans from the ti me of Jesus.
But one mysterious object baffled scientists.
Th is seem i ng ly worth less, barnacle-encrusted, h u n k of bronze
Had spl it i nto fou r frag ments,
wh ich revealed geared wheels, adorned with barely leg i ble i nscri ptions.
The d iscovery lang u ished, forgotten,
i n the basement of a G reek m useu m for another half-centu ry.
Then i n 1 95 1,
an American h istorian professor Derek de Sol la Price of Y ale
become fasci nated with the mysterious object
Cou ld it be someth i ng existed i n ancient ti mes.?
far more advanced than modern scientists were wi I l i ng to ad m it
I n 1 97 1, Price received perm ission form the G reek Govern ment to x-ray the device.
At last, he gazed at the sig ht he had waited twenty years to see
a soph isticated i nstru ment wh ich Price cal led "an ancient G reek com puter ".
It had been desig ned to calcu late the motions of the su n, the moon and stars
past, present and futu re, with amazi ng accu racy.
T o ach ieve its com plex astronom ical com putations,
the device rel ied on an i m pressive array of d ifferential gears.
I ngen iously assem bled to create the world ' fi rst analog com puter.
Some lost secrets of ancient tech nology
are not bu ried beneath the desert sands or i n the depths of the sea.
They have van ished si m ply because the i nventor and h is society
never g rasped its potential to transform the world.
"l n the m id fi rst Centu ry AD
an eng i neer named Hero, or i n G reek heron,
i nvented a n u m ber of clever devices,
one of wh ich has been cal led a steam eng i ne.
You put water i n the kettle, you boi I the water,
the steam rises u p th roug h the tu be, goes i nto the bal l
and comes out of the two bent tu bes and th i ng wi I l spi n arou nd,
I n fact, it wi I l spi n arou nd very rapid ly.
Modern models show that it wi I l spi n arou nd
at about 1 000 to 1 500 rotations per m i n ute ".
Had Hero u nwitti ng ly i nvented the fi rst worki ng steam eng i ne?
If he had com bi ned its pri nci ple
with other concepts, wh ich he had al ready developed
Hero m ig ht have bu i It the world 's fi rst steam locomotive
perhaps even lau nched the modern i nd ustrial age
Professor Keyser has an even more i ntrig u i ng theory.
"My answer is that he wasn 't i n fact bu i ld i ng a steam eng i ne.
Th is was not desig ned to be a power sou rce.
He was showi ng by havi ng a steam jet out of th is th i ng, and havi ng it spi n arou nd
that you cou ld actual ly make someth i ng move without push i ng agai nst anyth i ng ".
What it real ly was a demonstration of the pri nci ple of a jet or a rocket
Whether Hero had stu m bled u pon the Steam E ng i ne
or the beg i n n i ngs of Jet Propu lsion,
if he had fol lowed th roug h he m ig ht have lau nched the I nd ustrial Revol ution
1 800 years before its ti me.
But what if these bri I l iant early i nventions had been pu rsued
rather than abandoned?
If the G reeks had developed the steam eng i ne
wou ld a E u ropean explorer have d iscovered America centu ries before Col u m bus
usi ng steamsh i ps i nstead of sai I i ng vessels?
If the analog com puter of G reek ti mes
had sparked the conti n ued development of such soph isticated devices,
then by the sixteenth centu ry,
wou ld S hakespeare have been writi ng h is plays on a laptop?
If the electrical battery i nvented i n ancient I raq
had been refi ned for generations i nstead of bei ng forgotten
wou ld ou r own tech nology be vastly more advanced than it is today?
Perhaps the reason these m i racles of ancient tech nology were never pu rsued
says less about thei r bri I l iant i nventors than it does
about the shortsig hted ness of those arou nd them.
For i n ancient ti mes - and ou r own -
q uantu m leaps i nto the futu re are on ly possi ble
if the h u man i mag i nation wi I l expand to accept them.
Th roug hout the world, awe-i nspi ri ng mon u ments of stone
bear witness to the gen i us of ancient arch itects and eng i neers.
And loom i ng as large as these megal iths, are the ridd les of thei r construction.
The pyram ids of G iza
T o see them risi ng out of the desert, is to experience wonder...
T o ask the q uestion of how they were made
is to confront one of the most profou nd mysteries of ancient ti mes.
Bel ieved to have been created al most five thousand years ago,
each pyram id is said to have taken th i rty years to construct.
The pyram ids are thoug ht to have been bu i lt
by the I ifelong toi l of u ntold thousands.
And yet, as with al most everyth i ng regard i ng these awesome structu res,
there is controversy.
"The whole idea of thousands of slaves
hau I i ng blocks u p ram ps to bu i ld the pyram ids, is, that's a fi ne theory,
but there's real ly no evidence from any Egyptian texts or
depictions of people bu i ld i ng pyram ids th is way.. ".
The pyram ids have been stud ied perhaps more than
any other ancient mon u ment on earth.
Y et scholars can sti I l not say how the stones were moved to construct them.
These blocks weig hed 200 tons each. Now to put that i nto perspective,
200 tons is roug h ly eq u ivalent
i n weig ht to 500 modern fam i ly-sized automobi les
The biggest cranes i n the world can I ift 200 ton blocks,
but it takes six weeks to move those cranes i nto position for a si ng le I ift.
And each block wou ld req u i re a relocation of the crane.
You' re looki ng at years, dozens,
perhaps h u nd reds of years of work with modern cranes
to put those tem ples i nto place,
and yet we're told by Egyptolog ists that
they were bu i It pu rely with man ual labor ".
However the stones were broug ht to the bu i ld i ng site,
scholars ag ree the ancient Egyptians then faced an even more form idable task.
For how cou ld these enormous blocks of stone be I ifted
twenty, th i rty even forty stories above the g rou nd?
The q uestion has puzzled scholars si nce ancient ti mes.
"A F rench structu ral eng i neer by the name of Joseph Davidovitz
has a whole theory that the mai n blocks of the G reat Pyram id
were actual ly pou red i nto place m uch I i ke concrete.
Now the i nterior of the G reat Pyram id, for i nstance
is bu i It out of blocks of g ran ite
and these blocks of stone wou ld have to be q uarried.
But the bu I k of the pyram id itself
is made of th is very sort of cru m bly cong lomerate stone,
wh ich he clai ms is a form of concrete.
And therefore i n the bu i ld i ng of the pyram ids
we have an i ngen iously si m ple tech n iq ue ".
Without possessi ng modern measu ri ng i nstru ments
how d id the bu i lders of the G reat Pyram id
ach ieve such an astou nd i ng deg ree of accu racy?
"The ancients were looki ng at the stars
and very precisely al ig n i ng thei r mon u ments to the stars.
The characteristics of the G iza site is it extreme precision.
What we real ly cal I today, "H i T ech" precision.
The G reat Pyram id stands more than fou r h u nd red and fifty feet tal l.
It weig hs 6 m i I l ion tons
and it has a foot pri nt i n excess of 1 3 acres.
It's perfectly al ig ned to true North, South, East and W est.
T o ach ieve that precision of al ig n ment
with a mon u ment of th is scale, is an extraord i nary tech nolog ical feat ".
For thousands of years we have gazed at them i n wonder
and yet thei r secrets sti I l remai n.
The Pam pa Colorado...
the Red Plai n of Peru.
It has not rai ned i n th is remote and hosti le desert
for over ten thousand years.
Th is is the ancient domai n of a mysterious and long-forgotten people
known as the Nazca I nd ians.
Here, thei r ancient tom bs from the ti me of Jesus
once contai ned precious pottery,
exq u isite gold jewel ry, elaborate weavi ng
and the m u m m ified remai ns of thei r honored dead.
The treasu res have been looted by g rave robbers,
desecrated by the ravages of ti me.
When the Nazca ru led over the land, they were a fierce people
head h u nters who wore the decapitated heads of thei r slai n enem ies as troph ies.
Y et su rprisi ng ly,
these warl i ke people were also pioneers on the frontiers of ancient tech nology.
When modern scientists d iscovered these sku I ls,
they were forced to reach a startl i ng concl usion.
Two thousand years ago,
the Nazca people were perform i ng brai n su rgery.
"l th i n k it's extraord i nary that people real ly d id do
brai n su rgery 2000 years ago.
And we know that they d id it because
the sku I Is sti I l exist with the wou nds com pletely healed.. ".
Scientists bel ieve the ancient Nazca people
performed del icate su rg ical operations on the brai n,
not for ritual pu rposes, but for pu rely med ical reasons.
Over 1 000 sku I Is have been u nearthed at Nazca showi ng u n m istakable proof
that the Peruvian su rgeons used precision i nstru ments for these operations.
But as remarkable as these archaeolog ical fi nd i ngs,
is the mystery to be fou nd above g rou nd at Nazca.
For here, i nscri bed on the desert floor,
is one of the most baffl i ng and spectacu lar creations of ancient tech nology
known as the Nazca Li nes.
"What you see i n Nazca, is h uge. It's on a vast scale ;
it's on such a scale that's so large that you can 't see it al l.
Li nes at Nazca go actual ly for h u nd reds of m i les straig ht th roug h the Andes
you see a vast array of d ifferent fig u res
an i mal fig u res such as bi rds and spiders and ki I ler whales
You see large trapezoid fig u res i ntersecti ng these an i mal fig u res.
and the more you look at Nazca,
the more puzzl i ng it becomes ".
The Nazca I i nes have been cal led the largest work of art on earth
thoug h thei r true pu rpose remai ns a sou rce of i ntense controversy.
Al I that is certai n is that the Nazca I nd ians moved m i I l ions of stones
to create the mysterious I i nes,
wh ich cover an area of two h u nd red sq uare m i les.
By stri ppi ng a top layer of stones to bare the I ig hter soi I beneath
the Nazca created thei r masterpiece.
So vast was the tech nolog ical ach ievement of the Nazca Li nes
that it was, i ron ical ly, lost for centu ries
and on ly was d iscovered when ai rplanes
began flyi ng over the desert i n the 1 920's.
S i nce then, the I i nes have attracted researchers from arou nd the world
attem pti ng to deci pher thei r en ig matic ridd les.
One of the most notable researchers was German scientist Maria Reiche,
who fi rst saw the Nazca Li nes i n 1 940.
"You can see the I i nes are absol utely straig ht
and people have wondered very often
how the ancient people cou ld do these straig ht I i nes
without eng i neeri ng i nstru ments ".
For the next fifty years, u nti I her death i n 1 99 1
Maria Reiche's study of the I i nes became an obsession
And as she relentlessly probed the ti meless mystery
the woman whom the local people cal led the "witch" of the I i nes
conceived a provocative theory.
"Maria Reiche's theories were largely that Nazca was
a g iant astronom ical, astrolog ical observatory
and that many of the an i mal fig u res wou ld be identified with zod iacal sig ns.
S i m i larly other I i nes that are i ntersecti ng these fig u res
have to do with d i rections of stars, astronom ical al ig n ments, that sort of th i ng.
But there's a lot more to Nazca than that ".
The fu ndamental q uestion remai ns :
why was th is en ig matic ach ievement carved i nto the desert,
if it cou ld on ly be seen from the ai r?
"Now there are certai n explanations for that.
One is that the Gods were to view the I i nes
and that therefore the people were never able to view them from the ai r.
Another i nteresti ng idea is that the I i nes were made for shamans to view
and that these Peruvian shamans were i ngesti ng
hal I uci nogen ic cactus for i nstance
and then wou ld be astral ly lau nched spi ritual ly over the plai ns ".
Search i ng for more down-to-earth answers,
archaeolog ists have d iscovered i ntrig u i ng cl ues
bu ried i n the d usty soi I of the plai n :
startl i ng artifacts seem i ng ly depicti ng people i n fl ig ht i n hot ai r bal loons.
Mu m m ies weari ng garments of exq u isite fabric were also exh u med.
So soph isticated was the tech nology of th is weavi ng
that the fabric's u n iq ue com bi nation of I ig ht weig ht and tensi le strength
have scarcely been d u pl icated to th is day.
Scientist's wondered
were these d u rable texti les and the ancient depictions of bal loons i n fl ig ht
m issi ng I i n ks i n the ridd le of the I i nes?
Cou ld the ancients have i ntended that
the Nazca I i nes be viewed from a pri m itive hot-ai r bal loon,
fash ioned from th is I ig ht but resi I ient fabric?
"American archaeolog ist named J i m W ood man and h is crew bu i It a bal loon
hot ai r bal loon out of local materials, they made a reed boat
they used some of the Peruvian woven fabrics to create hot ai r bal loon
and they successfu I ly flew over the Nazca plai n.
I n the cold dawn of J u ly 6, 1 967. W ood man and J u I ian Nott
I ifted off i n an attem pt to recreate the tech n iq ue of ancient fl ig ht.
It was, perhaps ach ieved by the Nazca I nd ians,
one thousand years before the fi rst hot ai r bal loon was ever i nvented i n E u rope.
"It's perfectly possi ble that people cou ld have made the I i nes
to be seen by the gods, to been by thei r own ancestors,
or maybe even, of cou rse to have been seen by themselves,
when they fi nal ly went to heaven ".
There's no q uestion that the people of Nazca, a thousand years ago,
cou ld have bu i It a hot ai r bal loon and they cou ld have flown it.
Whether they d id that is sti I l a mystery".
W ere the I i nes i ntended to be viewed from a early hot-ai r bal loon?
Or were they created for some mysterious pu rpose beyond ou r com prehension?
The cl ues are few:
a scrap of fabric....
a d rawi ng on a shattered u rn.
But the colossal labor of the ancient Nazca I nd ians
wi I l forever remai n one of the most end u ri ng ach ievements
of ancient tech nology.
What a piece of work is man?
How noble i n reason, How i nfi n ite i n facu lties
I n form and movi ng, how express and ad m i rable
I n action, how I i ke an angel
I n aprehension, how I i ke a god
Wil I iam S hakespear
T o somehow fuse the mag ic of modern tech nology
with the spi ritual wisdom of ancient ti mes
perhaps that is the u lti mate chal lenge of ou r trou bled age
and sti I l the q uest conti n ues
the passionate long i ng to i nvent, to i n novate, to create
that sacred moment of vision when one of us looks u p at the stars
to d ream of th i ngs that never were, and bou nd to make them real