Technologies

Far, far from complete! This is a work in progress that I’m adding to as I read.

(Update Dec 2019: I stopped adding to this page and it’s basically obsoleted by my research topics.)

Energy

Pre-industrial forms of harnessing motion:

• Wind
• Water
• Gravity
• Muscles (human or animal)

Separately, there was fuel, which could generate heat (whether for heating or for industrial processes such as smelting):

• Wood (and charcoal)
• Coal (and coke? not sure if this was pre-industrial)
• What else?

(Was there any pre-industrial harnessing of solar or geothermal energy?)

In the industrial era, these separate lines of technology came together starting with the steam engine. Heat could be turned into motion. Then we had:

• Steam engines powered by wood, coal, etc.
• Electricity and electric power (either from fuel or from hydro)
• Oil and oil-based engines
• Nuclear

There’s also lighting:

• Pre-industrial: candles, torches, oil lamps; based on plant oils & animal fats
• Industrial: kerosene, electric light bulbs

Also heat & cooling. Heat, from fire, is one of the most ancient technologies; but I don’t know if there was much in the way of cooling prior to modern air conditioning.

Agriculture

Pre-industrial food preservation:

• Drying
• Salting
• Smoking
• Pickling/brining
• Canning
• Preserves (jams/jellies)
• Fermenting

Industrial food preservation:

• Refrigeration/freezing
• Artificial preservatives?

Lots more to add here about agricultural processes/technology of course.

I don’t have a category for medicine yet, but maybe that and agriculture should go together under some sort of “biological” heading. Like communication and calculation converged under “information technology”, I suspect that the technologies of food and medicine will converge as overall biotechnology advances.

Materials

Pre-industrial:

• Stone (various kinds)
• Metals
  • Iron and steel
  • Copper and copper alloys (bronze, brass)
  • Tin
  • Gold & silver
  • Lead
• Clay/pottery (earthenware, stoneware, porcelain?)
• Glass (first glazed and later blown?)
• Animal products
  • Leather
  • Shells and bone
• Textiles
  • Wool
  • Cotton
  • Silk

Industrial:

• Cheap metals, especially steel & aluminum
• Plastics
• Lots more…

Manufacturing

Manufacturing technology involves creating machines to take over from work that requires muscles and/or dexterity, but it also depends on materials (obviously) and, when machines are used to make things, on energy (to drive the machines).

Pre-industrial:

• Making things by hand
• Using hand tools
• Mills and other engines powered by wind, water, etc. (see Energy above)

Industrial:

• Textile machines: Spinning jenny, power loom, cotton gin, etc.
• What else?

I’m planning to just combine this with materials, since the two are deeply intertwined.

Also, need a whole section in here for chemicals: fertilizers, solvents, paints, dyes, soaps, etc.

Transportation

Pre-industrial:

• Walking
• Carrying things by hand
• Riding and pack animals, mainly horses (but also oxen, etc.)
• Wagons and carriages pulled by animals
• Boats and ships, powered mostly by sails but sometimes by rowing, traveling along existing waterways

Industrial:

• Trains (first steam and then oil-powered?)
• Powered ships: steamships, later coal-powered, then oil, some nuclear
• Canals (and other artificial waterways?)
• Bicycles and other human-powered machines
• Automobiles
• Planes
• Rockets?

Information

Pre-industrical communication:

• Speaking
• Writing on physical media, left for or physically sent to a recipient (see Transportation above)
• Line-of-sight communication via flags, mirrors, lights

Pre-industrial information processing:

• Abacus
• Other similar machines?

The advent of electronics led to industrial communication:

• Telegraph
• Telephone
• Radio
• Television
• Recorded media (audio & video)

While progress in machine technology led to advances in information processing:

• Adding machines
• Tabulating machines
• Cash registers

Finally, in the 20th century, these lines of technology converged in electronic computers and then the Internet.

Finance?

Is finance a “technology”? I’m not sure. But from the basic invention of money (which is pre-historic) through to modern derivatives trading, it seems there is a progression of ideas and inventions here, which were essential to the development of the modern world.