Technology is Magical

And, now more than ever, magic is technological

2 min read

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s...gone? Illusionist Franz Harary first wowed audiences 15 years ago by making the space shuttle disappear. “There’s a kind of glass that becomes reflective when electrically charged, so you’re able to produce and vanish objects by turning their reflections on and off,” he says.

The late Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” For its part, technology has long played a vital role in the world of magic. One of the world’s first steam engines served a magic trick when Heron of Alexandria, the first-century scientist and engineer, opened a temple door with a secret counterweight.

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Asad Madni and the Life-Saving Sensor

His pivot from defense helped a tiny tuning-fork prevent SUV rollovers and plane crashes

11 min read
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Asad Madni and the Life-Saving Sensor

In 1992, Asad M. Madni sat at the helm of BEI Sensors and Controls, overseeing a product line that included a variety of sensor and inertial-navigation devices, but its customers were less varied—mainly, the aerospace and defense electronics industries.

And he had a problem.

The Cold War had ended, crashing the U.S. defense industry. And business wasn’t going to come back anytime soon. BEI needed to identify and capture new customers—and quickly.

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