Danny Dunn Invisible Boy comes true!
So, I am seeing something I dreamed of as a lad come true in my lifetime.
As a 9 year old, I read a book from my primary school library that had a great and lasting influence on me. It was called Danny Dunn Invisible Boy and was part of a series of books about a lad who lived, with his mother, in the house of a Professor Bullfinch. The professor treated Danny as his own and happy scientific ‘accidents’ would happen which would result in some scientific breakthrough.
In this book, the breakthrough was that a new semiconducting material was created that enabled the professor to build a miniature fly. The pilot would don a helmet and gloves and in doing so could control the flight of the fly and see, hear and feel what the fly felt. In effect this made the pilot practically invisible wherever he flew. Well this concept was just mind-blowing for this 9 year old!!
So now on today’s (always excellent) BBC News website, I see we are almost there. Not long now I’m sure. But this now fifty-ish lad is not so certain it’s such a good idea now. Okay they will indeed be amazing tools for tracking fires in a building without risking life and limb, as mentioned in the piece. But they will be used for many more underhand purposes than positive ones, knowing the human race. Grandchildren take note, keep an eye on things like this, your lives are going to be so different to mine!!!