Why and How Virtual Reality is Growing
Almost sixty years ago, Ivan Sutherland and his student Bob Sproull created the Sword of Damocles, a head mounted display (HMD) that hung over the user's head from cables and poles rigged into the ceiling. The name, Sword of Damocles, refers to the ancient moral parable of Damocles of Sicily in the 4th Century BCE. In this story, he happily traded places with the king only to find that the king had placed a sword over the throne, where Damocles was required to sit. This sword was held up by just one horse hair. The phrase in turn refers to the unpredictability of life and the existence of potential danger. It was probably used because of the sheer size of the hardware and how it hung over the wearer's head like a threat. Today, virtual reality users don't have to fear death by device because advancements in virtual reality development have scaled that original HMD to one that fits in a bag and doesn't give the user chronic neck pain. But that's not the only reason t