Ages of Man

The period between 1960 and 1970 can be called the initiation of the Age of Space. We witnessed space spectaculars that climaxed with the landing of an American astronaut on the lunar surface. Equally possible is that we will look back and call the 1970s the initiation of the Age of Man. We will have witnessed spectaculars in environment, medicine, and the interaction between man and his environment. A large part of the Age of Man will belong to a new breed of professional—the biomedical engineer. 

The Holocene refers to the last 11,000 years of Earth s history—the time since the last major glacial epoch. In general, the Holocene has been a relatively warm period. Another name for the Holocene that is sometimes used is the Anthmpocene, the Age of Man. ... 

These supernova explosions occurred in Cassiopeia in August 1572 and Ophiuchus in 1604. These two brilliant supernovas were both clearly visible in daylight for up to one and a half years and greatly excited the Rosicrucians as Stars of Bethlehem ushering in the penultimate age of man. This was to be the Golden Age of Aquarius. 

This state of affairs prompted H.A. Laitinen, in an editorial in Analytical Chemistry (1 ), to draw an analogy between the seven ages of an analytical technique and Shakespeare s seven ages of man, using infrared spectroscopy as a prime example. Senescence and an early demise seemed assured. However, for analytical... 

Management styles, shiftwork, piecework, production methods, ages of man (or woman) and worker health... 

Throughout history, we have witnessed trends where one material has evolved to replace another for efficiency, performance or economic reasons. Consider the fact that the ages of man to date have been broadly defined In terms of their key materials — the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the Age of Steel. 

In chapters 35-36 of the De opificio mundi Philo quotes Solon and Hippocrates on the seven ages of man, which he discusses as part of his general essay on the cosmic significance of the number seven. 

The significance of metals in ancient civilizations is exemplified in Worh and Days, an 800-line poem written by the Greek poet Hesiod over 2,700 years ago, in which he laid out the five Ages of Man, three of which were metals (gold, silver, iron) and a fourth that was a metal alloy (bronze). Furthermore, when the Roman poet Ovid (first century BCE - first century CE) reduced the Ages of Man from five to four, the age that he dropped, the Heroic Age, was the only nonmetaUic one. 

The impact of Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectrometers was not recognized immediately. For example, in 1973, Herbert Laitinen, who was the editor of Analytical Chemistry at the time, made an analogy with Shakespeare s seven ages of man to define the seven ages of an analytical instrument [1]. These seven ages start with the discovery of the principles of the technique in a physicist s laboratory. After characterization and commercialization of the technique, instruments graduate from the research laboratory to routine measurements, until in their seventh age they are superseded by newer instruments with higher speed, sensitivity, specificity, or resolution. In his 1973 editorial, Laitinen used infirared spectrometry to illustrate an instrument in its seventh age. In fact, the technique was in its second childhood Let us first consider why FT-IR spectrometers have assumed such a position of dominance for the measurement of infirared spectra. 

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