Encyclopedia
Despite its cultural pervasiveness,
technology is an elusive concept. It can refer to material objects, such as machines, hardware or utensils, but it can also encompass broader themes, such as systems, methods of organization, and techniques. It is an ever-evolving body of knowledge that both shapes and is shaped by societies. The proliferation of new technologies, such as computers, has left some people believing that technology is a determinant force in society, or in other words, that it is an autonomous agent that drives change. It would be more appropriate to discard this
reductionist approach, and regard technology as one component of a multi-faceted cultural matrix, which includes social, political, historical, and economic factors that work together to spawn change.
The word
technology originates in the Greek words
technologia ,
techne , and
logia .
Science, engineering and technology
The distinctions between science, engineering and technology are not always clear. As a rule of thumb, engineering focuses more on practical experience, science more on theory and pure research, and technology is neither and both .
Generally,
science is the reasoned investigation or study of nature, aimed at discovering enduring relationships among elements of the world. It generally employs formal techniques, i.e., some set of established rules of procedure, such as the
scientific method.
Engineering is the formal use of both scientific and technological principles to achieve a planned result based upon empirical experience.
For example, science might study the flow of
electrons in electrical conductors. This knowledge may then be used by engineers to create tools or devices, such as
semiconductors,
computers, and other forms of advanced technology.
Usage
Science/scientist is used as a general term and refers to the subject and researchers of a new product or item of science, eg. "Scientists invented this" , or "Science is to be thanked for this"
Engineer/engineering is used commonly to refer to those who maintain an item of science or people furthering the orignal product of science, eg. "The engineers operate those machines"
Technology is more vague, but usually is an actual item, and something that can be used, and is available to be used. Technology is generally not a reference to a discovery like a theorem for maths, which people don't use in the general sense, eg. I like using this new technology
The nature of technology
By its nature, technology depends upon human needs for its existence, and meets the needs and wants of humans. Early humans created and used technology to meet the most basic of human needs. And, modern technology meets the very broad needs and desires of humanity, requiring a huge sociological substructure to support it.
One great modern example of this phenomenon is the telephone. As the telephone developed, society became aware of the desire for a more portable device. Eventually, that awareness produced a demand for a new product, leading to the invention of the mobile phone. Now nearly everyone is accessible to talk, no matter where they are. This availability changes how people relate to others: some are now more accountable and relied upon, and there is now little excuse for not keeping in touch. This technological complexity creates a co-dependence between technology and society..
Technological characteristics
With the ubiquity of technology in use in modern society, a common set of characteristics can be assigned to modern technologies. Many authors, such as McGinn and Winston list the following as key:
Complexity refers to the characteristic that most modern tools are difficult to understand . Some are relatively easy to use , but relatively difficult to comprehend as to their source and means of manufacture, such as a kitchen knife, a baseball, or highly processed food. Others are both difficult to use and difficult to comprehend, such as a tractor, a television, or a computer.
Dependency refers to the fact that most modern tools depend on other modern tools, which, in turn, depend on still other modern tools, for their manufacture, proper use, or both. Cars, as an example, have a huge supporting complex of industry for their manufacture and maintenance. And to use them requires a complex of roads, streets, highways, gasoline and service stations, waste collection, and so on.
Valence refers to the many different types or variations of the same tool. Imagine the varieties of spoons or scissors available today. Even the most complex tools generally come in a number of shapes and forms, such as the construction crane or the car.
Scale refers to the sheer magnitude, size, and pervasiveness of modern technology. Simply put, technology seems to be everywhere. It
dominates modern life. Scale additionally refers to the scope of many modern technological projects, such as the cellular telephone network, the Internet, air travel, communications satellites, and their impact on most people in the world.
Technological education
Due to the complexity of technology, proper implementation of technology requires tremendous insight derived from many years of experimentation, success, failure, and general experience. Therefore, vast quantities of information require storage with professionals responsible for passing that knowledge on to the next generation. This training and education is undertaken by both formal and informal educational institutions, schools, colleges, and universities. Consider, as examples, the vast knowledge needed to enter the professions of medicine, engineering, or construction.
Intellectual property
When used to support a commercial undertaking, technology can provide a competitive edge over other companies. However, the invested cost for attaining, discovering, or using the technology, known as
intellectual property, is very high. As such, many societies offer governmental protection of that investment, through
patents, which give exclusive rights. That protection helps enable companies that invest in technology to recover their investment, thus encouraging innovation.
History
Ancient history
The history of technology is at least as old as humanity. Some primitive forms of tools have been discovered with almost every find of ancient human remains dating from the time of
homo habilis. Nevertheless, other animals have been found to learn to use and refine tools—so it is incorrect to distinguish humans as the only tool-using or tool-making animal. The history of technology follows a progression from simple tools and simple energy sources to complex high-technology tools and energy sources.
The earliest technologies converted readily occurring natural resources into simple tools. Processes such as carving, chipping, scraping, rolling , and sun-baking are simple means for the conversion of raw materials into usable products. Anthropologists have uncovered many early human habitations and tools made from natural resources.
Birds and other animals often build elaborate nests and some simple tools out of various materials. They are not normally considered to be performing a technological feat, primarily because such behavior is largely instinctive. There is some evidence of occasional cultural transference, especially among the other, non-human primates. Nevertheless, there is now considerable evidence of simple technology among animals other than humans.
The use, and then mastery, of fire was a turning point in the technological evolution of humankind, affording a simple energy source with many profound uses. Perhaps the first use of fire beyond providing heat was the preparation of food. This enabled a significant increase in both vegetable and animal sources of food, while greatly reducing perishability.
Fire extended the capability for the treatment of natural resources and allowed the utilization of natural resources that require heat to be useful.
Wood and
charcoal were among the first materials used as a fuel. Wood,
clay, and rock , were among the earliest materials shaped or treated by fire, for making artifacts such as
weapons,
pottery,
bricks, and
cement. Continuing improvements led to the
furnace and
bellows and provided the ability to smelt and
forge native metals .
Gold,
copper,
silver, and
lead, were such early metals. The advantages of copper tools over stone, bone, and wooden tools were quickly apparent to early humans, and native copper was probably used from early
Neolithic times . Native copper does not naturally occur in large amounts, but copper ores are quite common, and some of them produce the metal easily when burned in wood or charcoal fires.
Eventually, the working of metals led to the discovery of
alloys such as
bronze and
brass . The first uses of iron alloys such as
steel date to around 1400 BCE.
Meanwhile, humans were learning to harness other forms of energy. The earliest known use of wind power is the sailboat. A ship under sail is shown on an Egyptian pot dating back to 3200 BCE. From prehistoric times, Egyptians probably used "the power of the Nile" annual floods to irrigate their lands, gradually learning to regulate it through purposely built irrigation channels and 'catch' basins. Similarly, the early peoples of Mesopotamia, the Sumerians, learned to use the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for much the same purposes. But more extensive use of wind and water power required another invention.
Pre-modern technological developments
Tools include both simple machines , and more complex machines .
Important advances in communication were the invention of
paper and the
printing press.
Cai Lun is conventionally regarded as the inventor of paper, in forms recognizable in modern times as paper, in contrast to Egyptian
papyrus, which was woven from papyrus plants. He described the modern method of papermaking in AD 105. Most early materials were rare and costly. Paper remained a luxury item through the centuries, until the advent of steam-driven paper making machines in the 19th century, which could make paper with fibers from wood pulp. Softwoods such as spruce are commonly used.
The printing press is a mechanical
printing device for making copies of identical text on multiple sheets of paper. Movable type, which allowed individual characters to be arranged to form words, was invented in China by Bi Sheng between 1041 and 1048. The use of movable type to mass produce printed works was popularized by a German goldsmith and eventual printer,
Johannes Gutenberg, in the 1440s.
The
Industrial Revolution was the major technological, socioeconomic and cultural change in late 18th and early 19th centuries. It began in Great Britain and spread throughout the world. During that time, an economy based on manual labour was replaced by one dominated by industry and the manufacture of
machinery. It began with the mechanisation of the textile industries and the development of
iron-making techniques, and trade expansion was enabled by the introduction of
canals, improved
roads and then
railways. The introduction of
steam power and powered machinery underpinned the dramatic increases in production capacity The development of all-metal machine tools in the first two decades of the 19th century facilitated the manufacture of more production machines for manufacturing in other industries.
As tools increase in complexity, so does the type of knowledge needed to support them. Complex modern machines require libraries of written technical manuals of collected information that has continually increased and improved -— their designers, builders, maintainers, and users often require the mastery of decades of sophisticated general and specific training. Moreover, these tools have become so complex that a comprehensive infrastructure of technical knowledge-based lesser tools, processes and practices exist to support them, including engineering,
medicine, and computer science. Complex manufacturing and
construction techniques and organizations are needed to construct and maintain them. Entire industries have arisen to support and develop succeeding generations of increasingly more complex tools.
Modern types of technology
Today technology is pervasive. It is nearly impossible to go anywhere today and escape from technology or from its impact, either upon the environment or upon society. To capture the essence of modern technology, the following categorization is offered:
...
,
Animal husbandry,
Veterinary medicine, and
Recreation, including Athletics;
...
,
Construction, and Engineering;
Home and farm
;Agriculture
In the
Western world, the use of
gene manipulation, better management of soil nutrients, and improved
weed control have greatly increased yields per unit area. At the same time, the use of mechanization has decreased labour requirements. The developing world generally produces lower yields, having less access to the latest technology.
Modern agriculture depends heavily on engineering and technology and on the biological and physical sciences.
Irrigation,
drainage,
conservation and sanitary engineering, each of which is important in successful farming, are some of the fields requiring the specialized knowledge of agricultural engineers.
;Domestic technology
Domestic technology is the incorporation of applied science into the home. On one level, there are domestic appliances and other devices commonly used in the home, such as
clothes dryers and
washing machines, and
climate control. On another level, domestic technology recognizes the use of applied science to construct homes to achieve a particular goal, such as energy efficiency or self sufficiency.
;Water and plumbing
Water supply is vital to everyday life, and throughout history people have devised systems to make getting and using it more convenient. Early
Rome had indoor plumbing, meaning a system of
aqueducts and pipes that terminated in homes and at public wells and fountains for people to use.
The intake from these water sources usually is through a large cage-like box designed to screen out large particulate matter before it enters the system. After it is sucked in by a pumping station or allowed in by a gravity-feed system, it is usually filtered further, chlorinated,
fluoridated, and then pumped either to holding locations like
water towers or reservoirs, or fed directly into the user's spigot. Typically wastewater is piped away in a
sewer system.
Plumbing originated during the ancient civilizations such as Roman, Persian, Indian, and Chinese civilizations as they developed public baths and needed to provide fresh water and drainage.
Electricity and electronics
Electricity is a property of matter that results from the presence or movement of electric charge. Together with
magnetism, it constitutes the fundamental interaction known as electromagnetism.
The field of electronics refers to the study and use of systems that operate by controlling the flow of
electrons in devices such as
thermionic valves and
semiconductors.
Electronic systems are used to perform a wide variety of tasks. The main uses of electronic circuits are controlling and processing of information and the conversion and distribution of
electric power.
Both these applications involve the creation, detection, or both, of electromagnetic fields and electric currents. The harnessing of electricity enabled
industrial applications such as electronics and
electric power. While electrical energy had been used for some time before the late
19th century to transmit data over
telegraph and
telephone lines, development in electronics grew exponentially after the advent of
radio.
Energy and other applied sciences
Solid fuels include
coal, wood and
peat. All these types of fuel are combustible . Coal was burnt by
steam trains to heat water into steam to move parts and provide power. Peat and wood are mainly used for domestic and industrial heating, though peat has been used for power generation, and wood-burning steam
locomotives were common in times past. Steam power is becoming more and more desirable as oil and gas supplies begin to run out, given the wide number of possible things that can burn to heat water.
Non-solid fuels include
alkanes such as
petroleum and gas . The former is widely used in the
internal combustion engine while both are used in power generation.
Military and weaponry
Firearms are qualitatively different from earlier weapons because they store energy in a combustible propellant, such as
gunpowder, rather than in a weight or spring. This energy is released quite rapidly, and can be restored without much effort by the user, so that even early firearms such as the
arquebus were much more powerful than human-powered weapons. They became increasingly important and effective from the 16th century to 19th century, with progressive improvements in ignition mechanisms followed by revolutionary changes in
ammunition handling and propellant. During the
U.S. Civil War various technologies including the
machine gun and
ironclad warship emerged that would be recognizable and useful military weapons today, particularly in lower-technology conflicts.
The age of edged weapons diminished abruptly just before
World War I with the increased development of rifled
artillery, such as
howitzers, able to destroy any masonry fortress.
The most notable development in weaponry since World War II has been the combination and further development of two weapons first used in it—
nuclear weapons and the
ballistic missile, leading to its ultimate configuration: the
ICBM. The indiscriminate nature of nuclear weapons has made nuclear-tipped missiles essentially useless for smaller wars. However, computer-guided weaponry of all kinds, from
precision-guided munitions to computer-aimed tank rounds, has greatly increased the weapon's accuracy.
Transportation
;Automobiles
Automobiles typically use an
internal combustion engine, a
heat engine in which the burning of a fuel occurs in a confined space called a combustion chamber. This exothermic reaction of a fuel with an
oxidizer creates gases of high temperature and
pressure, which are permitted to expand. The defining feature of an internal combustion engine is that useful work is performed by the expanding hot gases acting directly to cause movement, for example by acting on pistons, rotors, or even by pressing on and moving the entire engine itself.
Internal combustion engine automobiles were first produced in Germany by
Karl Benz in 1885-1886. Henry Ford brought
automobiles to the masses, as the founder of the
Ford Motor Company and father of the modern
assembly line.
;Aviation and space travel
Aviation or
air transport refers to the activities surrounding human
flight and the
aircraft industry. Aircraft include
fixed-wing aircraft, rotary wing types, and
ornithopters, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as
balloons and
airships .
Fixed-wing aircraft generally use an internal-combustion engine in the form of a
piston engine or a
turbine engine , to provide thrust that moves the craft forward through the air. The movement of air over the airfoil produces lift that causes the aircraft to fly. The
Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, are generally credited with making the first controlled, powered, heavier-than-air flight on December 17, 1903.
Space exploration began to be seriously developed after the development of large liquid-fueled
rocket engines during the early 20th century. The first major milestone of this endeavour was the launch of the USSR's
Sputnik 1 on October 5, 1957, the first man-made object to
orbit the
Earth. After the first 20 years of exploration, focus began shifting from one-off flights to renewable hardware, such as the
Space Shuttle program, and from competition to cooperation as on the
International Space Station.
;Rail
A typical railway track consists of two parallel rails. The vehicles traveling on the rails are arranged in a
train. These vehicles move with much less friction than do rubber tires on a paved road, and the
locomotive that pulls the train tends to use energy far more efficiently as a result.
The first railways in Great Britain were built in the early
17th century, mainly for transporting coal from the mine to the water side where it could be loaded on to a boat.
A
rapid transit system is a railway system, usually in an urban area, with a high capacity and frequency of service, and
grade separation from other traffic.
;Water
In the 1800s the first
steam ships were developed, using a
steam engine to drive a
paddle wheel or
propeller to move the ship. The
steam was produced using wood or coal. Now most ships have an engine using a slightly refined type of
petroleum called bunker fuel. Some specialized ships, such as
submarines, use
nuclear power to produce the steam.
The arts and language
The accessibility of
art and artistic expression in modern society are now widely available to all segments of society due to technological advances. In addition, technology creates a new aspect of art in popular culture,
pop music, and
pop art.
Today, due to mass communication, communication crosses geographic, ethnic, cultural, and moral boundaries, from widespread use of
television, radio, and telephone. There is also a vast array of networks that connect these devices, including
computer networks, public telephone networks, radio networks, and television networks.
Computer communication across the
Internet, such as
e-mail and
instant messaging, is just one of many examples of mass communication.
Architecture, construction, and engineering
The creation of technology is also a technological undertaking and there are four broad professions that generally support the application of technical knowledge and the making of technological tools:
- architecture is the profession devoted to making human-occupied spaces;
- engineering is a set of professions devoted to the application of technical knowledge to solve a human problem;
- construction and manufacturing are the professions devoted to the transformation of raw materials into finished products.
Medicine and health
Medical technology includes medical equipment such as
x-ray machines for diagnosis; the laser scalpel for surgery; laboratory equipment to automate or help analysis of
blood, urine and
genes; and medical monitors that measure such things as blood pressure.
Related subjects include
biotechnology, which can be used to create new drugs, and
adaptive technology which helps disabled people, such as with devices with voice activation and speech recognition for blind people.
Technological evaluation
Technicism
Generally,
technicism is over-reliance or overconfidence in technology as a benefactor of society.
Taken to extreme, some people argue that technicism is the belief that humanity will ultimately be able to control the entirety of existence using technology. In other words, human beings will eventually be able to master all problems, supply all wants and needs, and possibly even control the future. Some, such as Monsma, and others, connect these ideas to the abdication of God as a higher moral authority.
More commonly, technicism is a criticism of the commonly held belief that newer, more recently-developed technology is "better." For example, more recently-developed computers are faster than older computers, and more recently-developed cars have greater gas efficiency and more features than older cars. Because current technologies are generally accepted as good, future technological developments are not considered circumspectly, resulting in what seems to be a blind acceptance of technological developments.
Optimism, pessimism and appropriate technology
Pessimism
On the somewhat pessimistic side are certain philosophers like
Herbert Marcuse, Jacques Ellul, and
John Zerzan, who believe that technological societies are inherently flawed
a priori. They suggest that the result of such a society is to become evermore technological at the cost of freedom and psychological health .
Perhaps the most poignant criticisms of technology are found in what are now considered to be dystopian literary classics, for example
Aldous Huxley's
Brave New World, published in 1932 [i], was first intended as a dystopian novel [i]...
and other writings, Anthony Burgess's
A Clockwork Orange is a speculative fiction [i] novel [i] by Anthony Burgess [i], published in 1962 [i] ...
, and
George Orwell's
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian [i] novel [i] written by the English [i] ...
.
Optimism
On the other hand, the optimistic assumptions are made by proponents of views or ideologies such as extropianism and singularitarianism, that view technological development as generally having beneficial effects for the society and the human condition. In these ideologies, technological development is morally good. Some critics see these ideologies as examples of scientism or techno-utopianism and fear the idea of a
technological singularity which they support.
Appropriate technology
Technology, and more specifically industrialization, is one measure of the development of a country . During the
20th century, the notion of appropriate technology developed to describe those situations where it is desireable and those where it is undesirable to use very new technologies, those that required access to some centralized infrastructure, or those that require parts or skills imported from elsewhere. The eco-village movement emerged in part due to this concern.
Theories and concepts in technology
There are many theories and concepts that seek to explain technology:
See also
...
- Knowledge economy
- Lewis Mumford
- List of technologies
- List of "ologies"
- Megaprojects
- Applied Foresight Network
- Philosophy of technology
- Technique
- Technological convergence
- Techie
Lists
- List of basic technology topics
- List of technologies
- Timelines of technology
References
***
Bibliography
- Cited at .
- Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth by Andrey Korotayev, Artemy Malkov, and Daria Khaltourina. ISBN 5-484-00414-4
External links
- , site for a radio program that tells the story of how our culture is formed by human creativity.
