Time constants are a pretty important concept in a lot of branches of engineering, but lately I have been thinking about social time constants. Medieval cathedrals could take hundreds of years to build. (One historian estimates that the average time to complete a Gothic cathedral was over 250 years.) This happened at a time when the average life expectancy, for those lucky enough to make it to twenty, was only fifty years. Imagine all the people working on a cathedral, knowing that they would never get to see or enjoy the finished product. I believe, these people, knowing how fleeting their own lives were, were glad to be part of something that was bigger than they were. (I have met many students who were bitter that the latest NCSU building project–Hunt, Talley, or Carmichael–wouldn’t be finished in time for them to enjoy it, even though they had paid for it in fees.) The fact that it could take 250 years is a reminder of how static the technology and the society was. (Imagine a building taking that long to build today!) .
Lately I have been involved in a research project regarding France and I have gone to Paris numerous times over the last three years. One of the special pleasures for me of going to Paris has been Notre Dame de Paris. I’ve toured it a number of times, but even more just riding my bike in Paris and seeing it off in the distance, it has been comforting to me to know that this building stands after 850 years, even as we discard so much of what we make or build after only a few short years. For me it is a sense of how far our society is from medieval European society that made the fire at Notre Dame de Paris so devastating. Can our world rebuild Notre Dame de Paris in a way that does justice to the original structure? When President Macron of France said he had the goal to have the reconstruction of Notre Dame de Paris completed in five years, I became skeptical that our generation is up to the task. Our time constant is too short! I would have been happy if those leading Notre Dame’s reconstruction had been content to take whatever time was necessary to do a job that was worthy of the original spirit of the cathedral. But maybe in 2019 we don’t have time for that. Macron wants to have Notre Dame de Paris rebuilt in time for the 2024 Olympics being held in Paris. The medieval builders certainly didn’t think that way. There are other social time constants that worry me, but those are for further posts…..