Radar and Beyond

I watched a car commercial the other day talking about an internal radar that would alert the driver and even stop the car automatically should it detect an immanent crash.

Radar is a created word that stands for Radio Detection And Ranging. The United State Navy coined the acronym in 1940 as it was being developed for military use.

When I was a little tyke in the 1940’s I would say that my father was a radar technician and we was. He worked for General Electric in the military division and radar was his technology. I can image his surprise today on how far technology has come. In those days radar and its use and development was top secret.

Car manufacturers really don’t use the old radar as originally developed, they use a modified FLIR system, another acronym meaning forward-looking infrared imaging systems. It’s a type of radar that does detect and range and uses an infrared technology to enhance its accuracy.

Heck, I remember when most cars had stick shifts, radios only had an AM dial, refrigerators were called iceboxes, doctors made house calls and most airplanes had propellers.

The difference between what might have been my father’s surprise at new technology and me is that technology happens so fast I’m used to it. What a world!