Ups and Downs

In our universe, things that are up are generally positive, and the reverse is true of the downs. Heaven is somewhere above, together with everything that’s at the top of the charts (except your temperature and blood pressure).

But I’m sorry to say that “our universe” reaches no farther than our little planet and its atmosphere – and beyond that, there’s no “up” or “down” that makes any sense at all. To put it concisely, as Father Einstein taught us not very long ago, everything is relative. There are no absolutes. In the Universe at large, there is no “sea level,” nothing is “normal,” except within its own very limited “frame of reference.” Nothing is really certain. (And please don’t tell me about Death and Taxes.)

However, here on Earth, which is where most of us spend most of our time, we have some very solid facts and records concerning heights and depths. One very obvious piece of information is that it’s much harder to go up or down for any distance than it is to go forward, backward, or sideways. This applies both on land and at sea. But, despite the importance in oceanic navigation of being able to measure how far you have come, or have yet to go, this was a problem which, until quite recently in human history, had no acceptable answer. That was especially true when it came to measuring “side-to-side” distance – Longitude – as opposed to “up-and-down” distance or Latitude (i.e. toward or away from the poles).

Strange as it may seem, the answer, when it finally came, did not involve any of the standard measuring devices, such as surveyors’ rods, yardsticks, or cable lengths. Instead, it all turned out to be a matter of time – and the crucial device was a really accurate clock, or “chronometer.” For fascinating details, I strongly recommend a concise book by Dava Sobel called Longitude, published in 1995.

But, for most of us, the problem of getting up or down was, again, until fairly recently, solved by a simple human-powered device called “stairs.” This problem became more daunting, however, when tall, multilevel buildings began to appear on the scene. It was too tiring and inconvenient for ordinary people to have to ascend, or even to descend, multiple flights of stairs. And when such structures started to scrape the skies, that kind of personal or freight transportation simply wasn’t feasible. (Incidentally, the word “skyscraper” was not invented just to describe tall buildings. In fact, centuries before that usage became common, it had already been in use to characterize anything tall – even a person!)

For many years in the industrial age, there were various kinds of hoisting devices, but they all had drawbacks, preventing their widespread adoption – particularly the danger that whatever was doing the raising would fail, and whatever or whoever was being raised would heed the call of gravity and plunge to the bottom of whatever shaft it was in.

It is said that the time calls forth the man (or woman) – and, in this case, it was an inventive American Yankee named Elisha Otis. He was by no means the first to address this problem – but he was the first to be able to demonstrate a completely satisfactory and commercially viable solution. And he did so in a spectacular manner, as a special exhibit at the 1853 World’s Fair in New York. He had himself, plus a pile of miscellaneous freight, raised to what would have been a fatal height, in a shaft constructed so that its interior was visible to all spectators. 

At a crucial moment, he had a man on the roof of his “safety elevator” cut the thick rope which was supporting it. No doubt, the crowd gasped, as the vehicle sank just a few inches, and then settled securely into the notches which Otis had devised to keep it firmly in place. A new era had begun, in which the name of Otis, and the company he founded, were now equally secure.

But the name of his invention was not quite as entrenched. The British have a penchant for simple terminology. Instead of the cumbersome appellation of “elevator,” they preferred to call it a “lift,” – just as, when “escalators” soon followed, the English called them “moving stairs.” And “lift” has always been the accepted term in most English-speaking countries.

Incidentally, the “World’s Fair” idea stemmed originally from England, going back to the “Great Exhibition” of 1851 in London.