Context of '1880: Bolometer Invented'

Samuel P. Langley invents the bolometer. His device measures light from starlight and from the sun’s rays. It is constructed of a fine wire connected to an electric circuit. When starlight or sunlight falls on the wire, the wire becomes slightly warmer, increasing the electrical resistance of the wire. [US Department of Energy, 2002 ]

Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington (see Summer 1993) writes of US foreign policy: “The architects of power in the United States must create a force that can be felt but not seen. Power remains strong when it remains in the dark; exposed to the sunlight it begins to evaporate.” [Hunt, 9/1/2009, pp. 8]

Samuel P. Huntington, a prominent Harvard political scientist (see 1981), writes that post-Cold War geopolitics will be dominated by tensions between the world’s main civilizations that inhabit the Western, Muslim, Hindu, and Asian regions. First expressed in an article in Foreign Affairs and later in a book, Huntington predicts that this “clash of civilizations,” as he calls it, will become the organizing principle of international relations. His thesis is extremely controversial. [Foreign Affairs, 6/1993; Huntington, 1998] After 9/11, some of his arguments—for example that Americanization of lifestyles does not necessarily imply an adoption of American values—will be called prescient. His New York Times obituary reads in part: “The book has an almost uncanny image of what was to come: ‘Somewhere in the Middle East, a half-dozen young men could well be dressed in jeans, drinking Coke, listening to rap, and between their bows to Mecca, putting together a bomb to blow up an American airliner.’” [New York Times, 12/28/2008]