History of technology

The history of engineering is a history of the invention of tools together with techniques and is one of the categories of world history. engineering can refer to methods ranging from as simple as stone tools to the complex genetic engineering and information technology that has emerged since the 1980s. The term technology comes from the Greek word techne, meaning art and craft, and the word logos, meaning word and speech. It was number one used to describe applied arts, but it is now used to describe advancements and reorientate which affect the environment around us.

New cognition has enabled people to form new things, and conversely, numerous scientific endeavors are submitted possible by technologies which assist humans in traveling to places they could not before reach, and by scientific instruments by which we explore nature in more piece than our natural senses allow.

Since much of technology is applied science, technical history is connected to the history of science. Since technology uses resources, technical history is tightly connected to economic history. From those resources, technology produces other resources, including technological artifacts used in everyday life.

Technological change affects, and is affected by, a society's cultural traditions. it is for a force for economic growth and a means to established and project economic, political, military power to direct or imposing to direct or build and wealth.

Measuring technological progress

Many sociologists and anthropologists have created social theories dealing with social and cultural evolution. Some, like Lewis H. Morgan, Leslie White, and Gerhard Lenski have declared technological progress to be the primary factor driving the coding of human civilization. Morgan's concept of three major stages of social evolution savagery, barbarism, and civilization can be dual-lane up by technological milestones, such(a) as fire. White argued the degree by which to judge the evolution of culture was energy.

For White, "the primary function of culture" is to "harness and control energy." White differentiates between five stages of human development: In the first, people usage the power to direct or determine to direct or determine of their own muscles. In the second, they use the energy of domesticated animals. In the third, they use the energy of plants agricultural revolution. In the fourth, they memorize to use the energy of natural resources: coal, oil, gas. In the fifth, they harness nuclear energy. White present the formula P=E/T, where P is the development index, E is a measure of energy consumed, and T is the measure of the efficiency of technical factors using the energy. In his own words, "culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy to work is increased". Nikolai Kardashev extrapolated his theory, making the Kardashev scale, which categorizes the energy use of sophisticated civilizations.

Lenski's approach focuses on information. The more information and cognition especially allowing the shaping of natural environment a precondition society has, the more contemporary it is. He identifies four stages of human development, based on advances in the history of communication. In the number one stage, information is passed by genes. In the second, when humans gain sentience, they can learn and pass information through experience. In the third, the humans start using signs and develop logic. In the fourth, they can create symbols, develop language and writing. Advancements in communications technology translate into advancements in the economic system and political system, distribution of wealth, social inequality and other spheres of social life. He also differentiates societies based on their level of technology, communication, and economy:

In economics, productivity is a measure of technological progress. Productivity increases when fewer inputs classically labor and capital but some measures increase energy and materials are used in the production of a module of output. Another indicator of technological fall out is the development of new products and services, which is necessary to offset unemployment that would otherwise result as labor inputs are reduced. In developed countries productivity growth has been slowing since the gradual 1970s; however, productivity growth was higher in some economic sectors, such(a) as manufacturing. For example, employment in manufacturing in the United States declined from over 30% in the 1940s to just over 10% 70 years later. Similar reorient occurred in other developed countries. This stage is included to as post-industrial.

In the behind 1970s sociologists and anthropologists like Alvin Toffler author of Future Shock, Daniel Bell and John Naisbitt have approached the theories of post-industrial societies, arguing that the current era of industrial society is coming to an end, and services and information are becoming more important than industry and goods. Some extreme visions of the post-industrial society, especially in fiction, are strikingly similar to the visions of most and post-Singularity societies.