Science Friction_ Where the Known Meets the Unknown - Michael Shermer [83]
These corollaries do precisely what the philosopher George Reisch requires for laws to operate when they “divide the time over which its laws purportedly act into many small consecutive intervals or scenes. That is, covering-law explanations must be resolved into narrative temporal structures.”18 Historical sequences make up these consecutive (and contiguous) intervals over which the model of contingent-necessity operates. Corollaries 1 and 2 describe the chaotic or ordered nature of an interval depending on the temporal sequence within them; corollaries 4 and 5 describe when and why intervals shift from chaotic to ordered and vice versa. Whether these sequences are presented in the narrative or analytic form does not change the actions of the historical elements.
The QWERTY Principle of History
Regular users of typewriters and computers are locked by history into the standard QWERTY keyboard system (see figure 9.1), denoting the first six letters from the left on the top letter row. Our personal computer and typewriter keyboards still using the antiquated QWERTY system were designed for nineteenth-century typewriters whose key striking mechanisms were too slow for human finger speed. Even though more than 70 percent of English words can be produced with the letters DHIATENSOR, a quick glance at the keyboard will show that most of the letters are not in a strong striking position (home row struck by the strong first two fingers of each hand). Six of the ten letters are not on the home row (ITENOR are above and below) and one letter (A) is struck by the weak left little finger. All the vowels in QWERTY, in fact, are removed from the strongest striking positions, leaving only 32 percent of the typing on the home row. Only about one hundred words can be typed exclusively on the home row, while the weaker left hand is required to type over three thousand different words alone, not using the right hand at all. (It might also be noted that the word typewriter can be typed with letters all found on the top row. Apparently this was arranged so that typewriter salesmen could show off their new technology to prospective buyers with this clever trick.)19
Figure 9.1. An early QWERTY keyboard
This keyboard arrangement, in the early stages of its development, came about for numerous reasons and by a number of contingent causes; once set in motion (and given enough time), this conjuncture of events necessitated our inheritance of the system. With a check of the home row on the keyboard one can see the alphabetic sequence (minus the vowels) DFGHJKL. It would seem that the original key arrangement was just a straight alphabetical sequence, which makes sense in early experiments before testing was done to determine a faster alignment. But why remove the vowels? In Christopher Latham Sholes’s original 1860s model, the QWERTY keyboard was designed to prevent key jamming because the paper was struck by the keys from underneath, and one could not see the page until it was nearly complete. Such an arrangement made it possible not only to type numerous unseen mistakes but to jam the keys all together and type a continuous line of one letter. The most used letters were removed from strong striking positions to slow the typist down. This problem was eventually remedied by using a front-facing roller with the paper scrolled around it so the typist could see each letter as it was struck. By then, however, QWERTY was so entrenched in the system (through manuals, teaching techniques, and other social necessities) that it became “locked in” or “path dependent.” Once inevitable, the typewriter, along with the QWERTY keyboard, became entrenched in American business and culture.
In 1882, the Shorthand and Typewriter Institute in Cincinnati was founded by one Ms. Longley, who chose to adopt, among the