Radical Simplicity: Transforming Computers Into Me-Centric Appliances

Chapter 2. Contrasting the Present and the Future

If we try to contrast the present and the future, it is like showing the radical contrast between two different images of the universe. Just imagine the universe before and after Copernicus (visit the web site shown in Figure 2.1 for more information). He was the first to suggest what has since become known as the Copernican theory; namely, that the sun is at the center of the solar system (which was considered the universe at that time), not Earth as everyone had thought up to then.^[1] The paradigm shift occurred slowly because Copernicus wasn’t immediately sure how to present this revolution in a way that everyone could understand, but eventually the sun became the focal point around which everything ...