History of Technology

Systematic knowledge and action, usually of industrial processes but applicable to any recurrent activity. Technology is closely related to science and to engineering. Science deals with humans' understanding of the real world about them—the inherent properties of space, matter, energy, and their interactions. Engineering is the application of objective knowledge to the creation of plans, designs, and means for achieving desired objectives. Technology deals with the tools and techniques for carrying out the plans.

There are two reasons to pursue scientific knowledge: for the sake of the knowledge itself, and for the practical uses of that knowledge. Because this second aspect of science affects the lives of most people, it is more familiar than the first. Knowledge must be gained, however, before it can be applied, and often the most important technological advances arise from research pursued for its own sake.

Traditionally, new technology has been concerned with the construction of machines, structures, and tools on a relatively large scale. The development of materials for building bridges or skyscrapers is an example of this, as is the development of the internal-combustion engine and the nuclear reactor. While such activities involve all the sciences, from chemistry to nuclear physics, the overriding goal has been the same: to improve the human condition by finding better ways to deal with the macroscopic world.

Since World War II, the focus of technological activity has undergone a major change. While the old activities are still pursued, they have been largely superseded by applications of technology at the microscopic level. Instead of building large-scale structures and machines, modern-day technology tends to concentrate on finding improved ways to transfer information and to develop new materials by studying the way atom s come together. The silicon chip and microelectronics typify this new technological trend, as does the blossoming of genetic engineering. The trend can be expected to continue into the foreseeable future.

The dividing line between what we include in the following list as technology and what we call science elsewhere in this volume is somewhat arbitrary. In general, what we have done is this: if a term is essential to understanding a particular branch of science, it appears in the list for that science. Thus, atom appears with the physical sciences, even though an understanding of atoms is clearly important to the new technology. If, however, the term involves something that is likely to affect an individual's life, even though it is not a central concept of a particular branch of science, it is listed under “Technology.”

The words in the following section have been chosen because they are likely to appear without explanation in many publications, particularly in articles and books dealing with the impact and implications of technology. This section does not emphasize the social consequences of new technology, but concentrates instead on the basic knowledge needed to understand how technology works.

Developed applications for industry and the industrial arts; use of applied science for the development of technical applications. For example, desktop computers represent advanced electronic technology.

Application of knowledge to the practical aims of human life or to changing and manipulating the human environment. Technology includes the use of materials, tools, techniques, and sources of power to make life easier or more pleasant and work more productive. Whereas science is concerned with how and why things happen, technology focuses on making things happen. Technology began to influence human endeavour as soon as people began using tools. It accelerated with the Industrial Revolution and the substitution of machines for animal and human labour. Accelerated technological development has also had costs, in terms of air and water pollution and other undesirable environmental effects.

The application of knowledge to facilitate the obtaining and transformation of natural materials. Technology involves the creation of material instruments (such as machines) used in human interactions with nature.

History 1450-1789: Technology

Early modern Europeans paid new attention to the machines and technical processes that created most of their material goods. Appreciation of rapidly advancing arts and inventions was not particularly new—the Middle Ages also having been an era in which myriad new technologies appeared in Europe. What was becoming noticeably different by the middle of the fifteenth century was that new technologies were becoming a force in the shaping of Europeans' intellectual framework—just as they shaped social frameworks through the