THE ATRIUM OF THOUGHT

CURATED BY: PAYAL PURI

50 IDEAS THAT SHAPED THE WORLD 1911-2011

NOT ALL IDEAS ARE BIG. OR FEASIBLE. OR GAME-CHANGING. OR MEMORABLE. OR, FOR THAT MATTER, GOOD. THE ONES THAT ARE, THOUGH, CHANGE THE WORLD. SOMETIMES IMMEDIATELY, SOMETIMES NOT FOR DECADES AFTER THEIR INCEPTION. THE LAST CENTURY HAS BEEN A PRETTY

50 IDEAS THAT SHAPED

REMARKABLE ONE ON THE IDEAS FRONT IN MANY WAYS, IT HAS BEEN ONE OF THE MORE EVENTFUL CENTURIES IN RECORDED HUMAN EXISTENCE. WEVE INVENTED TOOLS TO MAKE OUR LIVES EASIER AND IDEOLOGIES THAT COMPLICATE IT. WEVE MADE LEAPS IN OUR UNDERSTANDING OF

OURSELVES AND THROWN IT AWAY WITH DESTRUCTIVE INTENT. WEVE EXPLORED A WORLD BEYOND OUR OWN BUT ROUTINELY DISREGARDED WHAT WE HAVE HERE. WEVE CREATED TECHNOLOGIES THAT UNITE AND PHILOSOPHIES THAT DIVIDE. IN EACH OF THESE CASES. THERE WAS AN

THE WORLD 1911-2011

IDEA INTELLIGENT, FUTILE OR AUDACIOUS EVEN THAT KICKED OFF THE PROCESS AND EVENTUALLY, SHAPED THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT TODAY. THINK IS ABOUT IDEAS WE START BY CELEBRATING 50 OF THE PAST CENTURYS MOST REMARKABLE ONES. ENJOY THE RIDE.

01

HUMAN GENOME
THE POTENTIAL TO REMOULD HUMAN LIFE ITSELF

DNA structures, mapping of the human genome and cloning are different stages, and manifestations, of a single compelling question: how do we become who we are? The study of genetics has brought us closer to answering bafing questions of creation. Why is this important? Gene studies has the potential to replicate life and cure previously incurable diseases by altering defective genes; while understanding traits of heredity and inheritance has a far-reaching impact on understanding the human mind. Together, they can transform our physical and mental health like nothing else.

REPRODUCTIVE CONTROL
GIVING WOMEN THEIR BODIES BACK

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The social impact of the Pill is probably as signicant, if not more, as giving women the vote: it kicked the womens sexual liberation movement into high gear and changed the way they perceive their bodies and their equation with men, forever. The expanding reach of abortion however contentious an issue between pro-life and pro-choice activists undeniably did the same, giving women control over child-bearing and therefore over their place in the social structure. It also left the ball of sexual pleasure in the womens court.

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WORLD WIDE WEB

THE WEB THAT BINDS

If the airplane shrank distances from days to hours, the Internet has made the concept of distance itself meaningless. Uniting the world under an invisible web, it has virtually limitless power, limited only by our imagination. It started out as a productivity tool but today, everything from trade to sex to revolution relies on the Internet for reach. Above all, it is arguably the worlds greatest weapon of freedom giving you access to everything you want, legal or illegal, provocative or prudish, utilitarian or useless, with a few effortless clicks.

GLOBALISATION
CREATING OPPORTUNITY, ACCENTUATING LOSS

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When communications, transport, economics and culture all collude to diffuse boundaries, you end up with the 20th centurys seemingly favourite word: globalisation. The dominant form of globalisation has been economic, with transformative growth in international trade and manufacturing think Made in China on your Apple iPod and Made in India on your Banana Republic sweatshirt and it has created a class of world citizens. On the ipside, it has also vastly amplied the numbers of the dispossessed. An interesting cultural side-effect has been fusion. Ironically, were drawing stronger physical boundaries around nations than ever before even as we show rare cultural exibility, with language, lms, art, fashion, design and architecture blending inuences from across the world to create whole new paradigms.

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SOLAR ENERGY
SELLING SUNSHINE MIGHT FINALLY SAVE THE WORLD

It is sustainable, renewable, and has no adverse environmental impact. That alone makes three compelling reasons for its advancement. But solar energy has a wealth of other advantages: it has no ongoing maintenance or production costs, is entirely silent and unobtrusive, and if youre using thermal solar power producers, it allows you to even store the electricity generated for use later. Were hardly the rst century to discover the suns energy potential. Were not even the rst to harness it. But with the spread of solar technology and reduced costs of installation, this is the rst century when it has started to seem a truly viable and liberating option for residential and commercial use.

CELLULAR PHONES
CONNECTIVITY ON THE RUN, IN 10 DIGITS

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Barely three decades ago, it was the stuff of sci-. Now, 28 years after the rst mobile phone was made commercially available, there are 4.6 billion of them in use on the planet. The most disconnected ends of the earth are now linked; being alone is now a luxury rather than compulsion, and across the world, we can now make friends, break up, cheat, love, work, play, ght, report, eavesdrop and inform at the push of a few buttons. Productivity has gone up or down -- depending on what you use your cellphone for; mobiles can accommodate needs as critical as disaster management and relief, and as trivial as solitaire while you wait for your ight.

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UNIVERSAL FRANCHISE
THE ACCEPTANCE OF EQUALITY

The right of all citizens of a country above a certain age, irrespective of gender, caste, colour or religion, to vote is a right we take for granted in contemporary democracies but is one that was a bitterly fought battle. The 20th century saw the movement make quantum leaps, with women among the last to get the vote in most parts of the world. This marked the end of traditional social hierarchies globally with far-reaching impact. The universal right to vote has churned societies; pulled many voiceless communities out of victimhood and placed them in seats of power themselves. While, in practice, power may remain with a small elite, the vote is the most powerful check invented by man.

ANTIBIOTICS
TAMING INFECTION

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Today, we cant imagine bacterial infections leading to death except in a freak, horrifying case. Back in 1928, though, there was nothing freakish about death by infection it was, more or less, the norm. Enter Alexander Fleming and his discovery of penicillin and diseases that had seemed a scourge in the past now became entirely curable. Smallpox, which killed 500 million people in the 20th century alone, was entirely eradicated. Immense advancements have been made in medical science since, but antibiotics continue to hold a hallowed place in the treatment of everyday infection and preventing wasteful deaths.

09

GPS
MERGING SURVEILLANCE AND SURVIVAL

The Global Positioning System was clever enough as a military technology, but when GPS became available to the rest of us it changed the way we navigate and probably made a lot of mapmakers redundant. Its utility goes way beyond nding your way around town; think location tracking, disaster relief and emergency services, marine navigation, animal tracking, weatherdata, earthquakemonitoring, navigation and cellphone technology, apart from its multiple military uses. Thanks to GPS, were faster, safer, quicker, more responsive, less accident-prone and, hopefully, better drivers than weve ever been in history.

JET ENGINE
TRANSFORMING TRAVEL, COLLAPSING TIME

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Its essentially an internal combustion engine with a rotary air compressor powered by a turbine. While various permutations of a jet engine have existed from previous centuries, the rst successful attempts to use gas turbines to power jet engines were made in the 1920s, making long-distance travel a reality. Today, 1.5 billion people y each year. Advanced versions of the jet engine are now at the heart of cruise missiles, unmanned aircraft, and even space ights. Above all, though, theyve transformed our notions of distance, shrinking the world in the most tangible way possible.

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X-RAYS
CRITICAL DIAGNOSTIC TOOL THATS TRANSFORMED MEDICINE

The X-ray was discovered entirely by accident by German scientist Wilhelm Roentgen in 1895 but it wasnt until 1913 that the rst X-ray tube was designed specically for medical purposes by American chemist William Coolidge. It was a discovery that transformed medical science and how internal ailments were diagnosed, and though incredible advancements have since been made in internal medicine, the X-ray remains a critical diagnostic tool. It allows you a look inside the human body without having to cut it open, radically minimising invasive surgery and resulting complications. Uses today go way beyond medicine, to safety equipment, archaeology and astronomy but nowhere is the X-ray more compelling than in a doctors able hands.

CINEMA
THE TALKIES REINVENTED CULTURE

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This is the century of the talkies, where moving pictures and sound married to create magic on screen, and a whole new way for the world to interact with each other. The movies are not just entertainment though. Theyre escape and information all at once. They reect culture and shape it. In fact, theyve been key to the overwhelming cultural cross-pollination of this century, spreading ideas and merging inuences from across the world, allowing for a new, often shared, culture to emerge where previously only very distinct ones existed. Think AR Rahman singing Jai Ho on the Oscars stage and youll know exactly what we mean.

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LEISURE/ PLEASURE
PURSUING PLEASURE

Emperors may have kept harems and scarfed champagne, but for the rest of mankind, pleasure has conventionally been a dish too pricey to order. No longer. For the rst time in recent history, the middle class is celebrating doing nothing. Leisure is an idea that has changed modern commerce. Spaces, events, services, products, technologies a host of things that never existed before are now at work to help us put our feet up. Spa breaks, weekend getaways, retail therapy, lounge bars, ne-dining, cruises, adventure trips, martinis on the beach and villa rentals, vacation homes and massage chairs, hedonism has become our dening pursuit and a key economic driver.

XENOPHOBIA
THE CENTURYS GREATEST SHAME

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History is replete with destructive ideas. But none, perhaps, has been as devastating as xenophobia, the most shattering example of which was the Holocaust and the extermination of 6 million Jews. Its not an isolated example. The genocide in Rwanda and Darfur and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia show that implacable hatred of communities by dictatorial forces continues to exist, and has the power to bring the world to the brink of devastation more easily than we imagine.

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NEW-AGE SPIRITUALITY
BAND-AID FOR THE MODERN SOUL

Its a bit of everything eastern and western religious tenets, psychology, holistic health, metaphysics, and more. Gone are the traditional saints. The new evangelists of our time are self-help pros theyre geared to help an anxietal age stress-bust and feel calmer. New-Age Spirituality began as an amalgam of the best from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Chinese folk philosophies, Islam and Sikhism minus the rituals. Its rst movements had roots in the esoteric writings of writers like DH Lawrence and WB Yeats, psychologist Carl Jung, theologian Edgar Cayce and philosopher Walter Russell. But somewhere along the way, its been leached of some of its deeper impulses and become merely soul-comfort movements, spawning massive and nancially rich spiritual corporations around one central charismatic gure.

PERSONAL COMPUTING
THE ELECTRONIC MIRACLE

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Today, we cant imagine life without it. Whether in its smartphone avatar, as the ubiquitous laptop, the cuttingedge tablet, or the humble desktop, personal computers tie the complicated threads of our lives together. Theyre tools of work and play, creativity and organisation, storage and communication; they help store mountains of data that earlier required physical space, and have changed the way we live more comprehensively than most other innovations of this century. The new talk is about Singularity when Articial Intelligence will outstrip biological intelligence, putting evolution on a whole new track.

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IVF
BEATING BIOLOGY

Not too long ago, having a child was considered a miracle; the inability to conceive, a curse. Today? You can choose in-vitro fertilisation, have your eggs frozen to put off procreation for a later date, use a sperm donor or a surrogate mother, and generally confound nature in a dozen ways. Its not easy, its not cheap, but it is, nally, possible. When Louise Brown, the worlds rst test-tube baby gave birth to her own child in 2006, medical science passed its nal test of intervention. Even with the most cutting-edge scientic advancements, childbirth is still a miracle but we can now nudge the miracle along just a little. For the almost 150 million estimated infertile couples worldwide, thats as godlike as medicine can get.

TETRAPACK
FREED FOOD TO TRAVEL LITE

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It doesnt sound like much but when Swedish company Tetra Pak unveiled its cartons for storing and transporting milk, it was an act of genius. Tetra Pak is now the default term for all such packaging and you have only to walk down a supermarket aisle or open your refrigerator to recognise the scale of this achievement. Tetra Pak provided the rst viable substitute to traditional glass or tin packaging, being food-safe, cheaper, lighter, safer to produce, and transport without breakage. And as an entirely accidental by-product, it transformed disaster-relief, making airdropping food in remote corners of the world a reality that saves lives every single day.

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NUCLEAR ENERGY
THE FORCE THAT CONTROLS US

Game-changing, life-altering, potentially the force that can destroy the world as we know it or transform it, with its ability to generate clean, efcient, practically unlimited power. In its most destructive avatar, as at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and more recently, at Chernobyl, it is a weapon of devastation on a previously unknown scale. But its potential for mutual devastation may well be the reality that has prevented the world from facing a third world war no mean achievement in itself.

BARCODE
THE EFFICIENCY TOOL THAT TRANSFORMED RETAIL

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Those ubiquitous black-and-white stripes may be no more than a patch on your packaged goods but for the retail trade, they changed the dynamics forever. Access product details, pricing, stock availability, special deals and more at the sweep of a laser over this tiny strip, making it possible to shop swiftly and now thanks to augmented reality and virtual stores without even physically being at a store. It made possible large-format retailing with thousands of people being served at a fraction of the time needed to do it manually. And today, with 10 billion scans of a barcode around the world daily, its about much more than shopping barcodes help you board planes and track packages, help researchers collect data and diabetics calibrate their glucose meters, and do a dozen other things we totally take for granted.

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REFRIGERATION
THE DOOR TO FOOD DURABILITY. AND COMFORT

Imagine a world without refrigerators, frozen food, and produce that can be stored for months. Imagine a world without leftover pizza the morning after. Imagine a world without refrigeration in other forms no refrigerated trucks to transport milk and dairy; no cooling systems for air conditioners; no ice. While commercial refrigeration was available in the latter part of the previous century, it was in 1922 that the rst absorption refrigerator for home use was invented, and set the foundation for an appliance so fundamental to our lives, the urban world cant imagine a time without it.

SUBCONSCIOUS
NEW PARADIGM FOR MENTAL HEALTH & HUMAN BEHAVIOUR

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When Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, suggested our behaviour is not always ruled by our conscious thoughts, he founded the idea that individuals can make a study of their own minds. He also made it possible to understand mental disease an irrevocable stigma till then and take the rst steps towards its cure. Freud believed people could inadvertently let out ideas from their unconscious in dreams or through slips of the tongue hence the term Freudian slip . His ideas have permeated pop culture so widely that much of what we understand about the sexes, relationships and ourselves can be seen as reected through a Freudian mirror.

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CLIMATE CHANGE
THE FIGHT TO SAVE THE EARTH

Forests are depleting, animal habitats being destroyed, indigenous communities forced out of their homes, sealevels rising, marine life shrinking. Manifestations of climate change have already started to appear oods, droughts, earthquakes, melting glaciers, heatwaves, extraordinary rain... This has sparked off a massive global effort to nd cheap, non-polluting sources of energy: Geo-thermal, biomass, wind, clean coal, nuclear energy, nanotechnology. Human intervention in the natural order created the crisis. It now seeks creative solutions; one of the most compelling needs driving scientic research around the world today.

CONSUMERISM
YOU ARE WHAT YOU BUY

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It sounds like a fancy name for compulsive shopping but consumerism isnt aboutwhatyou buy, its about the belief that consuming more, and producing more, are the best indicators of personal success and economic progress. This idea has accelerated the pace of life unrecognisably as people and governments chase after newer and newer goalposts of material success. It has catalysed unprecedented individualism, displaced old value systems and triggered hectic international trade -- our apples are now from New Zealand, cars from Germany, tea from China. Shipping these goods across the planet is seen as a positive, increasingly dissolving boundaries. But consumerism is leaving an unsustainable footprint on the world, impacting it in all sorts of challenging ways.

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TERRORISM
MAKING FEAR OUR DEFAULT SETTING

If air travel and the Internet have reduced distances, terrorism has caused the world to put up new barriers and changed our urban landscapes forever. Madrid and London, New York and Mumbai, the worlds most diverse nations have been at the receiving end of terror and made suspicion our default setting. Metal detectors and sniffer dogs are de rigeur in the worlds busiest hubs, and taking off your shoes, having your privacy invaded with full body scans and your carryalls examined under x-rays, are all just tangible manifestations of the games extremism plays with our minds. Terrorism has also sucked up more global nancial resources than the world can afford.

NON-VIOLENCE
THE POWER OF PEACE

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If Hitler epitomises racial hatred, the 20th century has an even more compelling counterpoint -- Mahatma Gandhi, perhaps the most singular man to have emerged in the last century, became the rst to demonstrate that the worlds most powerful empire could be brought down without lifting a gun. Satyagraha or non-violent protest earned India an entirely bloodless independence. Martin Luther King Jr followed in Gandhis footsteps to become a game-changer in the American civil rights movement; doubters have once again been silenced by the almost completely non-violent protests that led to the deposing of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak and the Liberian peace movement that eventually led to dictator Charles Taylor being overthrown.

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DURABLE MATERIALS
ALTERED THE REALM OF PHYSICAL PRODUCTS

Theyre so ubiquitous, we almost dont notice them anymore, and yet stainless steel and plastic are the twin foundations on which much of the developed world is constructed. Theres good reason for that. Stainless steel is corrosion-resistant, 100% recyclable and, as the name suggests, stain resistant. And, with over 150 grades available, it can be milled into any shape you choose, from sheets and plates to coils, wires and tubes. Thats also what makes plastic so seductive, despite its terrible environmental footprint it frees us from material constraints. With synthetic versions like nylon, Teon, polypropylene, polyester and acrylic to choose from, theres virtually nothing that cant be crafted out of these two game-changing materials.

OUTSOURCING
CLOSING THE GAP

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Its a business in which everyones a John Doe. Millions of college graduates across countries like India and China take on a new identity every day as they solve customer service complaints from the other side of the globe, a surreal reality made possible by the massive leaps in communications technology. Cheaper labour and land costs, a surfeit of graduates and few labour laws have caused back-end operations to be outsourced across the planet, creating millions of jobs in the developing world even as protests rise in the West. The movement owes a lot to KP Singh, head of DLF Industries, who inuenced GE CEO Jack Welch to use Gurgaon, a New Delhi suburb, for back-end operations for his company.

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MICROFINANCE
FUNDING THE DREAMS OF THE POOR

A revolutionary nancing system that makes money available to those who need it most the poorest of the poor, who have no access to conventional banking systems and typically borrow from village moneylenders at prohibitive, destructive terms. Via micronance, loans of small amounts are offered to groups of people at a collective interest rate; non-payment by one member increases the interest rate for all, ensuring peer pressure on the defaulter. Micronance has already revolutionised the lives of millions in Africa, India and Bangladesh, releasing them from a cycle of debt and bondage for the rst time in generations. But ominously now, the ills of conventional banking have begun to set in here too.

CONSERVATION
RESCUING LIFE AND HISTORY

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Progress does not necessarily have to be at odds with preservation. Over the last century though, we have revelled in wiping out the old to make way for the new. This has manifested itself most in the shrinking of our natural resources, in the near-extinction of animal species vital to our planet; in the depleting rainforests and natural habitats these animals need to survive. But we have wiped out more than natural resources historic art and architecture have suffered the same fate. In a slow but rm movement, conservationists a new, committed breed of professionals have come together to protect what the world stands to lose. From environmental conservation efforts to the creation of World Heritage Sites under the protection of UNESCO, were nally learning to strengthen our links to the past instead of destroying them.

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SPECIAL NEEDS
DESTIGMATISED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE

For centuries, they were harshly rejected as handicapped. Or worse. It has taken decades to create an attitudinal shift. Today, children aficted by learning or physical disabilities are considered as having special needs, an attitude that makes a subtle but powerful distinction between defects and differences. This has powered a change in education patterns, societal acceptance and support, and in driving scientic research. It has moved the cheese from shame to celebration. You only have to think of South African double amputee Oscar Pistorious, the fastest man on no legs , to understand how game-changing that can be.

SEX CHANGE OPERATIONS

THE ULTIMATE LIBERATION

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Imagine being born male but identifying all your life with how women feel. Imagine looking like a woman but not thinking like one. Imagine going through life with the emotions and needs of one gender with the form of the other. Now imagine the freedom to change that. Sex-change operations may matter to only a fraction of us but they offer a freedom unparalleled in science: to change a fundamental fact of human existence. For the transgender community, it isnt a cosmetic procedure its freedom from a life of angst, subterfuge and distress. For the rst time in history, gender is a choice. Many may not need that choice, but its the existence of the choice itself that marks the incredible nature of the achievement.

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GREEN REVOLUTION
ENGINEERING FOOD SECURITY

In the early 1960s, the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines released a semi-dwarf, high-yield variety of rice that, in conjunction with high-yield wheat, ushered in the Green Revolution worldwide, saving a potential one billion people from starvation by increasing yields per hectare of land. The idea of hybrid seeds, irrigation canals, chemical fertilisers and pesticides transformed agriculture the world over. For some decades, it was seen as a miracle. Now the costs have kicked in: salinated lands, spiralling input costs, diminishing yields and health side-effects. The argument over genetically modied crops is still to play itself out.

AMERICANA
THE EMPIRE BUILT ON SOFT POWER

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Americana, not English, is the dominant language of the world today our movies, slang, food, TV shows, magazines, authors, celebrities, products, apparel, sport are almost all obsessively American. We know the minutae of Brangelinas lives, are hooked onto Dexter and How I Met Your Mother, eat cheeseburgers, listen to Lady Gaga, read the New York Times online, love Star Trek and Superman, are addicted to Apple, drink Coke, wear Nikes, and probably have a Hard Rock Caf t-shirt in the closet. Its been called Cultural Imperialism and perhaps it is, having spread as inexorably as any land domination ever has, inuencing ideas, events, technologies, retail and consumption in the remotest corners of the world.

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MULTICULTURALISM
THE NEW WORLD RELIGION

It emerged from de-colonisation but has become a force in its own right. Theend of the World Wars saw the break-up of all the old colonising empires -- British, Dutch, French, Italian, German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian. What emerged in its place were cultures suffused with the spirit of other places. Countries opened themselves to people from other races, religions, ethnicities and sexual orientations to create a truly heterogeneous mix. Its multiculturalism that allows a Chinatown to exist in every major city; that makes Raj Kapoor one of Russias most celebrated icons; and that explains why chicken tikka masala is a British dish, not an Indian one.

24/7 NEWS MEDIA

MAGNIFYING REALITY LIKE NEVER BEFORE

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Being bombarded with news every minute of every day is altering the world in ways we do not fully understand yet. 24/7 news doesnt just report happenings, it magnies it. It offers rumour, debate, fact, analysis, comment and reportage as anoften-indistinguishable mix. Critics argue it fuels hysteria and lends weight to trivialities; advocates believe it is a potent conscience-keeper. What is unarguable is that it has changed the information landscape of this century -ironically making news both more urgent and transient; and our responses both more immediate and deadened with the sheer information overload.

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AGE OF SHAKTI
THE RISE OF WOMEN IN PUBLIC LIFE

The era of women is well and truly here. They have always been wives, sisters, daughters, mothers; now, theyre also employees, consultants, bosses, partners, decision-makers, opinion-shapers, earners, spenders. The resulting ux has altered our society fundamentally when women go out to work and have the nancial means to take their own decisions, the power balance shifts. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the multi-dimensional woman has created an unusual offshoot the Diaper Dad, who shares domestic chores, runs errands, and elds a laptop and ladle with equal competence, if not enthusiasm.

SPACE TRAVEL
DISMANTLED THE IDEA OF LIMITS

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Our understanding of the world has been shaped signicantly by the exploration of one beyond it. The most spectacular success came when man landed on the moon. It was more than a metaphorical moment of success though space travel has spurred some of the most useful inventions of our time. We owe to space research more efcient ways to cool and heat our homes; advances in solar power; batteries and power transmission systems; unprecedented medical advances, and above all, major advances in aviation safety. Now with commercial travel to space ready to take off, the boundaries have been pushed once more.

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BEAUTY INDUSTRY
SKIN DEEP

The US spends more on the beauty business each year than it does on education. There are more Avon ladies in Brazil than there are military ofcers. And worldwide, beauty is no longer an ephemeral quality, it is a $330 billion industry. Research proves babies respond better to prettier faces, teachers to more attractive students, and better-looking employees earn higher salaries. That explains why so much science is devoted to combating ageing, correcting aws and creating a battery of products to conceal what cant be corrected. You can shape, sculpt, highlight, or simply fake anything these days. This has both liberated women and engendered a new kind of tyranny of market-dictated beauty.

CONSUMER TECHNOLOGIES
THE PURSUIT OF CONVENIENCE

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This is the century that gave us sliced bread, the remote control, microwave ovens, automobiles, washing machines, the zipper, ball-point pens, photocopiers, transistor radios, pocket calculators, fax machines and arguably most important, indoor plumbing none of them truly fundamental to human existence, yet central to making our lives smoother. The housewife took centrestage, with much of the focus on technologies that made running her home quicker, handier, cleaner, while consumption patterns changed dramatically, going from need-based to greed-based.

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MNCs
THE NEW KINGDOMS

It has its combatants, but free-market trade is the dominant system in the world today, creating a new, powerful, boundary-less entity: the multinational corporation. Controlling billions of dollars in trade, hundreds of thousands of jobs, and often core sectors like energy, transport and communications, they dictate public policy, international equations and economic decisions. Its CEOs and industrialists, not diplomats and politicians, who are the new inuencers; their corporations, the new global royalty.

PROFESSIONAL SPORT
THE NEW GLADIATORS

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Humankind has always competed for thrill, adventure and testosterone. Now, theres the added adrenalin of money. From Europes cult football clubs to Indias cash-rich cricket league, American baseball to competitive tennis, sport has become a powerful, money-powered spectacle. Selecting an Olympic or football World Cup host involves massive political lobbying, and television rights for sporting events often seems to equal the GDP of several nations. And then theres merchandising, brand sponsorships, sporting equipment and video-game spin-offs. All icing on a very rich cake.

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QUANTUM THEORY
PHYSICS MEETS FANTASY

The entire architecture of the world as we know it is affected by quantum theory, which deals with the behaviour of the smallest particles of matter and reveals the oddities at work in our physical world. Even physicists as renowned as Richard Feynman have conceded its hard to explain quantum theory in any coherent way; the only thing researchers agree on is that without it, we may never have had the Internet, the cellphone, GPS, email or highdenition television, superconductors or bullet trains, among others.

LASER BEAM
BENDING LIGHT ENERGY TO HUMAN CONVENIENCE

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Whitens teeth, removes tattoos, corrects vision, scans groceries, tracks missiles. Ironically, given how ubiquitous the laser is today, its inventor Theodore H Maiman who worked at Hughes Research Laboratories in California didnt have the foggiest what they were going to do with it. Lasers are one of the examples of how pure research, unlinked to end use, can change the world. All Maiman knew was that he had something special on his hands. Today, given that the laser is used in everything from DVD players to precision-guided munitions, its safe to say he wasnt wrong.

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RECYCLING
A CORRECTIVE ON MANS RECKLESS CONSUMPTION

The realisation that our natural resources are not limitless. The fears about the multiple ways in which this could affect life for future generations. The beginnings of a move towards sustainability and the control of wastage. These have all been awakenings of the past century and have taken tangible form with the recycling movement. Not the cure for all ills, recycling is nevertheless a powerful idea in the search for sustainability, one of the key elements of the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle waste hierarchy.

CREDIT CARD
THE REINVENTION OF MONEY

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Paper money may have seemed like the nal frontier but recent decades have shown that it is merely an element and potentially, a dispensable one in the human evolution story. Money may make the world go round, but it certainly doesnt have to weigh down your wallet. Credit and debit cards, prepaid/cash cards, wire transfers and Internet banking you can spend money without ever seeing it these days. But perhaps most transformative of these has been the credit card, enabling a cycle of consumption before earning, for possibly the rst time in human history with both liberating and devastating impacts.

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TELEVISION
LIFE AT THE TOUCH OF A BUTTON

Communication, engagement, information, debate, discovery, learning, indulgence, voyeurism the television is a tool of many traits, and we cant seem to do without them all. Politicians use it to reach you, entertainers to captivate you, news networks to engage you, sport to absorb you and advertisers to seduce you. With its immense amplications, it is no longer just a medium but a player itself; with a relentless logic of its own. In the ultimate reckoning, however, the power always lies in the hands of those who hold the remote. Thats what makes it a democratic medium rivalled by few others.

ASSEMBLY LINE
THE START OF AUTOMATION

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Henry Ford took automobiles a pricey, exclusive luxury available to a few and transformed them into a mass movement. But he had an even more inuential impact in the process: creating the rst ever assembly-line manufacturing set-up in 1914. For the rst time, the engineer stood in place while the product went around the plant on a belt-driven production line, parts being added at every stage speeding up the manufacturing process and cutting costs dramatically. No one had ever done it before, so there wasnt even a word for it. It was Ford again, in 1926, who gave it the name it has till date: mass production. Till then, it was simply called Fordism.

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HUMAN RIGHTS
ACKNOWLEDGING HUMAN EQUALITY

The formal recognition of human rights as something humanity was entitled to was born out of the horrors of World War II, although philosophers had bandied the concept around for centuries previously. The big milestone, though, came when the UN drafted its Universal Declaration of Human Rights . The movements next landmark came in 1961 when British lawyer Peter Benenson wrote a newspaper appeal, The Forgotten Prisoners , calling for an international campaign to ght the imprisonment of people for their political and religious beliefs. Responses ooded in, and Amnesty International was born, laying the foundation for future organisations to take up the battle.

SOCIAL NETWORKING
REVOLUTIONISED HUMAN RELATIONS

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Around the world, every day, more than three billion minutes are spent on Facebook. News is now routinely broken on Twitter. Following someone is no longer stalking, poking is no longer rude, and to Facebook or troll someone is now considered even grammatically acceptable. Social networking has completely revolutionised the way we interact and who we interact with. It allows for emotional expression without responsibility and has nurtured romance, revolution and bigotry in equal measure. It may seem frivolous to some, a passing fancy to others but there is no denying that social networking is shaping our communication patterns more denitively than any other movement in recent history.

THE ATRIUM ARCHITECTS

Concept Tarun J Tejpal Curation Payal Puri Editorial Payal Puri, Shoma Chaudhury Installations Design Abbhay Narkar, Geetan Batra, Dushyant Bansal, Subhasish Mandal, Dwarka Nath Sinha Graphic Design Anand Naorem Production Ironhands Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., Tiya Tejpal With thanks to Rohit Chawla for the white tiger

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THAT SHAPED THE WORLD 1911-2011

2011 THINK