The document discusses the importance of technology in the modern world by outlining how technological advancements have accelerated over the past 200 years. It describes how early inventions like the steam engine powered factories and the railroad allowed for fast transportation. In the 20th century, cars, airplanes, radio, TV, and computers further transformed society. Today, organized scientific research and international collaboration have increased new technological knowledge and led to medical advances. The rapid progress of technology depends on meeting societal needs across industries, healthcare, security, and environmental protection. Understanding differences in how each area uses technology can help effectively apply scientific understanding to improve quality of life.
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The Importance of Technology in The Modern World
The document discusses the importance of technology in the modern world by outlining how technological advancements have accelerated over the past 200 years. It describes how early inventions like the steam engine powered factories and the railroad allowed for fast transportation. In the 20th century, cars, airplanes, radio, TV, and computers further transformed society. Today, organized scientific research and international collaboration have increased new technological knowledge and led to medical advances. The rapid progress of technology depends on meeting societal needs across industries, healthcare, security, and environmental protection. Understanding differences in how each area uses technology can help effectively apply scientific understanding to improve quality of life.
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The Importance of Technology in the modern World
About 200 years ago the pace of technological change in western
society began to quicken. Wind, water, and animal power, with their limitations of place and capacity, were supplemented and then replaced by the steam engine, which went on to power the factories of the industrial revolution. The railroad made it possible to move things and people quickly over great distances. The telegraph and, later, the telephone carried communications across the countryside. Electric lighting supplanted the dim glow of candles, kerosene, and gas lights. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the notion of progress was closely linked with technological development, and that linkage intensified in the following decades. The automobile and the airplane changed not only travel but the nature of our cities and towns. Radio and then television brought more of the outside world into everyone ’s homes. Knowledge about the causes of diseases brought new treatments and preventive measures. Computers appeared, and soon the transistor made them smaller, more powerful, more accessible, and cheaper. • Today, the system by which research and development leads to new products is fundamentally different than it was in the nineteenth century. To the role of the individual inventor has been added the power of organized scientific research and technological innovation. Organized research and development, which are increasingly international in character, have greatly increased the production of new knowledge. Deeper understanding of living organisms is leading toward cures of diseases once thought • The rapid rate of material progress can continue, but it is not inevitable. The extent to which the products of science and technology are useful depends on the needs of society. Each of the four areas discussed in this chapter—industrial performance, health care, national security, and environmental protection—uses these products in different ways. Progress is more likely if we understand these differences. Only then can we effectively translate scientific and technical understanding into the techniques, tools, and insights that improve the quality of our lives.