Technology - Wikipedia. This article is about the use and knowledge of techniques and processes for producing goods and services. For other uses, see Technology (disambiguation). Such turbines produce most of the electricity that people use. Electricity consumption and living standards are highly correlated. Technology can be the knowledge of techniques, processes, and the like, or it can be embedded in machines to allow for operation without detailed knowledge of their workings.

The simplest form of technology is the development and use of basic tools. The prehistoric discovery of how to control fire and the later Neolithic Revolution increased the available sources of food, and the invention of the wheel helped humans to travel in and control their environment. Developments in historic times, including the printing press, the telephone, and the Internet, have lessened physical barriers to communication and allowed humans to interact freely on a global scale. The steady progress of military technology has brought weapons of ever- increasing destructive power, from clubs to nuclear weapons. Technology has many effects. It has helped develop more advanced economies (including today's global economy) and has allowed the rise of a leisure class. Many technological processes produce unwanted by- products known as pollution and deplete natural resources to the detriment of Earth's environment.

Innovations have always influenced the values of a society and raised new questions of the ethics of technology. Examples include the rise of the notion of efficiency in terms of human productivity, and the challenges of bioethics. Philosophical debates have arisen over the use of technology, with disagreements over whether technology improves the human condition or worsens it.

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Neo- Luddism, anarcho- primitivism, and similar reactionary movements criticize the pervasiveness of technology, arguing that it harms the environment and alienates people; proponents of ideologies such as transhumanism and techno- progressivism view continued technological progress as beneficial to society and the human condition. Definition and usage. The use of the term . Before the 2. 0th century, the term was uncommon in English, and it was used either to refer to the description or study of the useful arts.

The term's meanings changed in the early 2. American social scientists, beginning with Thorstein Veblen, translated ideas from the German concept of Technik into . Scientists and engineers usually prefer to define technology as applied science, rather than as the things that people make and use.

The Merriam- Webster Learner's Dictionary offers a definition of the term: . In this usage, technology refers to tools and machines that may be used to solve real- world problems. It is a far- reaching term that may include simple tools, such as a crowbar or wooden spoon, or more complex machines, such as a space station or particle accelerator.

Tools and machines need not be material; virtual technology, such as computer software and business methods, fall under this definition of technology. Brian Arthur defines technology in a similarly broad way as . In this context, it is the current state of humanity's knowledge of how to combine resources to produce desired products, to solve problems, fulfill needs, or satisfy wants; it includes technical methods, skills, processes, techniques, tools and raw materials. When combined with another term, such as . A modern example is the rise of communication technology, which has lessened barriers to human interaction and as a result has helped spawn new subcultures; the rise of cyberculture has at its basis the development of the Internet and the computer. As a cultural activity, technology predates both science and engineering, each of which formalize some aspects of technological endeavor.

Science, engineering and technology. Antoine Lavoisier conducting an experiment with combustion generated by amplified sun light. The distinction between science, engineering, and technology is not always clear. Science is systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation. The development of technology may draw upon many fields of knowledge, including scientific, engineering, mathematical, linguistic, and historical knowledge, to achieve some practical result. Technology is often a consequence of science and engineering, although technology as a human activity precedes the two fields. For example, science might study the flow of electrons in electrical conductors by using already- existing tools and knowledge.

This new- found knowledge may then be used by engineers to create new tools and machines such as semiconductors, computers, and other forms of advanced technology. In this sense, scientists and engineers may both be considered technologists; the three fields are often considered as one for the purposes of research and reference. In the immediate wake of World War II, for example, it was widely considered in the United States that technology was simply . An articulation of this philosophy could be found explicitly in Vannevar Bush's treatise on postwar science policy, Science – The Endless Frontier: .

This essential new knowledge can be obtained only through basic scientific research. The issue remains contentious, though most analysts resist the model that technology simply is a result of scientific research. Early humans evolved from a species of foraginghominids which were already bipedal. Approximately 5. 0,0.

The earliest stone tools were little more than a fractured rock, but approximately 7. As the Paleolithic era progressed, dwellings became more sophisticated and more elaborate; as early as 3. The invention of polished stone axes was a major advance that allowed forest clearance on a large scale to create farms.

This use of polished stone axes increased greatly in the Neolithic, but were originally used in the preceding Mesolithic in some areas such as Ireland. Additionally, children could contribute labor to the raising of crops more readily than they could to the hunter- gatherer economy. Winrar V3 9 Final Key.

Eventually, the working of metals led to the discovery of alloys such as bronze and brass (about 4. BCE). The first uses of iron alloys such as steel dates to around 1. BCE. The earliest known use of wind power is the sailboat; the earliest record of a ship under sail is that of a Nile boat that dates back to the 8th millennium BCE.

Similarly, the early peoples of Mesopotamia, the Sumerians, learned to use the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers for much the same purposes. However, more extensive use of wind and water (and even human) power required another invention. According to archaeologists, the wheel was invented around 4. BCE probably independently and nearly simultaneously in Mesopotamia (in present- day Iraq), the Northern Caucasus (Maykop culture) and Central Europe. There is also evidence from the same period for the use of the potter's wheel.

More recently, the oldest- known wooden wheel in the world was found in the Ljubljana marshes of Slovenia. It did not take long to discover that wheeled wagons could be used to carry heavy loads. Fast (rotary) potters' wheels enabled early mass production of pottery, but it was the use of the wheel as a transformer of energy (through water wheels, windmills, and even treadmills) that revolutionized the application of nonhuman power sources. Medieval and modern history (3. CE – present)Innovations continued through the Middle Ages with innovations such as silk, the horse collar and horseshoes in the first few hundred years after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Medieval technology saw the use of simple machines (such as the lever, the screw, and the pulley) being combined to form more complicated tools, such as the wheelbarrow, windmills and clocks.