ETYM Greek techne an art + -logy; cf. Greek, systematic treatment: cf. French technologie.
The application of science and engineering to the development of machines and procedures in order to enhance or improve human conditions, or at least to improve human efficiency in some respect. See also high tech.
The practical application of science to commerce or industry; SYN. engineering.
The use of tools, power, and materials, generally for the purposes of production. Almost every human process for getting food and shelter depends on complex technological systems, which have been developed over a 3-million-year period. Significant milestones include the advent of the steam engine 1712, the introduction of electricity and the internal combustion engine in the mid-1870s, and recent developments in communications, electronics, and the nuclear and space industries. The advanced technology (highly automated and specialized) on which modern industrialized society depends is frequently contrasted with the low technology (labor-intensive and unspecialized) that characterizes some developing countries. Intermediate technology is an attempt to adapt scientifically advanced inventions to less developed areas by using local materials and methods of manufacture.
Power.
In human prehistory, the only power available was muscle power, augmented by primitive tools, such as the wedge or lever. The domestication of animals about 8500 bc and invention of the wheel about 2000 bc paved the way for the water mill (1st century bc) and later the windmill (12th century ad). Not until 1712 did an alternative source of power appear in the form of the first working steam engine, constructed by English inventor Thomas Newcomen; subsequent modifications improved its design. English chemist and physicist Michael Faraday's demonstration of the dynamo 1831 revealed the potential of the electrical motor, and in 1876 the German scientist Nikolaus Otto introduced the four-stroke cycle used in the modern internal-combustion engine. The 1940s saw the explosion of the first atomic bomb and the subsequent development of the nuclear power industry. Latterly concern over the use of nonrenewable power sources and the pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels has caused technologists to turn increas.
Ingly to exploring renewable sources of energy, in particular solar energy, wind energy, and wave power.
Materials.
The earliest materials used by humans were wood, bone, horn, shell, and stone. Metals were rare and/or difficult to obtain, although forms of bronze and iron were in use from 6000 bc and 1000 bc respectively. The introduction of the blast furnace in the 15th century enabled cast iron to be extracted, but this process remained expensive until English ironmaker Abraham Darby substituted coke for charcoal 1709, thus ensuring a plentiful supply of cheap iron at the start of the Industrial Revolution. Rubber, glass, leather, paper, bricks, and porcelain underwent similar processes of trial and error before becoming readily available. From the mid-1800s, entirely new materials, synthetics, appeared. First dyes, then plastic and the more versatile celluloid, and later drugs were synthesized, a process continuing into the 1980s with the growth of genetic engineering, which enabled the production of synthetic insulin and growth hormones.
Production.
The utilization of power sources and materials for production frequently lagged behind their initial discovery. The lathe, known in antiquity in the form of a pole powered by a foot treadle, was not fully developed until the 18th century when it was used to produce objects of great precision, ranging from astronomical instruments to mass-produced screws. The realization that gears, cranks, cams, and wheels could operate in harmony to perform complex motion made mechanization possible. Early attempts at automation include Scottish engineer James Watt's introduction of the fly-ball governor into the steam engine 1769 to regulate the machine's steam supply automatically, and French textile maker Joseph Marie Jacquard's demonstration 1804 of how looms could be controlled automatically by punched cards. The first moving assembly line appeared 1870 in meatpacking factories in Chicago, us, transferring to the motor industry 1913. With the perfection of the programmable electronic computer in the 1960s, the way lay o.
Pen for fully automatic plants. The 1960s–90s saw extensive developments in the electronic and microelectronic industries (initially in the West, later overtaken by Japan and the Pacific region) and in the field of communications. + prikaži više