TECHNOLOGY: TABLE, TRUTHS, TIMELINE, TOP 100

Leo Dean Jansen MD

The book is still in development, still being written.   Portions of chapters of the book will be included in the upcoming blogs as they finished.

The working title of the book is:    TECHNOLOGY:  Table, Truths, Timeline, Top 100.

The book concept has 4 main approaches to the history of technology.

1.  InventTable – the periodic table of technology.   10 classes of technology on the horizontal axis.  9 time periods on the vertical axis.
2. Technology Truths – list of laws, axioms, rules of technology drawn from the analysis of technology history.
3. Timeline – 2000 inventions listed chronologically in 9 time periods from the beginning of human existence to the present day.
4. Top 100 – list of the 100 greatest inventions of all time organized by importance.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Central to the book is the importance of data as the engine which drives the creation of inventions.  The eras of technology are defined by data.  The 5 dimensions of data helps us understand the unevenness of inventions over time. Data is as important as the energy, machines, materials, and biotechnology combined.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Technology surrounds us, shapes us, and increasingly defines us. It answers life’s fundamental questions: What are our human origins? What future lies in the 21st century and beyond? The history of technology provides remarkable insights into where we are and where we are going.The upcoming book, TECHNOLOGY:  Table, Truths, Timeline, Top 100 began as an effort to define the greatest inventions in history.  Once the list of 2000 inventions was placed in a timeline, the InventTable was used to organize a reduced  top 1000 list.The history of technology is incredibly uneven.  Large time periods exist, completely void of new inventions. Other periods, often amazingly brief, demonstrate explosions of inventions across all technology classes. And yet, with each generation, the impact of technology is more profound. Some cultures and civilizations produce virtually no technology. Other civilizations produce 10X-100X the number of inventions we would expect. Answers to these technology riddles often lie with the technology and culture itself.Success in our increasingly synthetic world requires the fullest grasp of why things change. As a practicing orthopedic surgeon, I bore witness to vast technological change over 30 years. Changes in arthroscopic procedures, new materials, robotics, and joint replacements have transformed my specialty. I am alive today due to the technology of cardiology. I have an ICD (implantable cardioverter-defibrillator) device which not only monitors but can correct my malignant heart rhythms. This book reflects my love for and debt to technology.

Top 100 inventions of all time

1. Control of fire, 35 prehistoric uses of fire, 33 direct and 34 indirect historical Top 100 inventions with fire, 250,000 BCE, Africa
2. Written language with cuneiform on clay tablets, hieroglyphics on papyrus, beginning of history, 3500 BCE, Sumer, Mesopotamia, Egypt
3. Printing press with movable type on paper, 100 AD, 1450, Cai Luan, Johannes Gutenberg, China/Germany
4. Domestication of rice and the 8 founding crops, emmer wheat, eikorn wheat, peas, chick peas, flax, hulled barley, rye, and bitter vetch. 9000 BCE, Mesopotamia/China
5. Domestication of herding animals, sheep, goats, cows, pigs. 10,000 BCE, Mesopotamia
6. Radio wave technology, instantaneous wireless data transfer, radio, 1895, Guglielmo Marconi, Italy
7. Computer 1822, Charles Babbage, UK
8. Wheel/axle with horse domestication, 3500 BCE, Mesopotamia/Eurasia steppes
9. Sailboat with wooden hull and oars, 3000 BCE, Mesopotamia, Egypt
10. Plow with domesticated oxen, 5000-3500 BCE, Mesopotamia
11. Smelting bronze and iron, 5000-1800 BCE, Mesopotamia/Turkey
12. Insulated copper wire, light bulb filament, electricity, 1824, 1877, Thomas Alva Edison, USA
13. Hindu-Arabic numbers, negatives, zero, fractions, decimals, 820 AD, India/Middle East
14. Hydraulic engineering, ditches, canals, dikes, canals, dams, aqueducts, wells, 3000 BCE, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India river
15. Telephone, instantaneous wired verbal data transmission, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, USA
16. Watt steam engine with locomotive, steamboat applications, 1719-1814, James Watt, George Stephenson, Robert Fulton, UK/USA
17. Automobile and gas internal combustion engine, 1876, Nicolaus Otto, Karl Benz, Germany
18. Vaccination, 1796, Edward Jenner, UK
19. Penicillin, 1928, Alexander Fleming, UK
20. Black gunpowder with cannon, musket, rifle, pistol, 142-1450, Wei Boyang, China
21. Integrated circuit 1958, Jack Kilby, USA
22. Glass including: optical lenses, microscope, telescope, eyeglasses. 1600, Hans Lippershey, Zacharias Jansen, Italy/Netherlands
23. Hypodermic needle and syringe, all glass, Francis Rynd (1844), Alexander Wood (1851) UK
24. Internet, World Wide Web, 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, CERN, UK
25. Toilet/Latrine, sanitation engineering, 2500 BCE, 1596, John Harrington, Indus River/UK
26. Powered, controlled airplane, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright, USA
27. Battery, 1800, Alessandro Volta, Italy
28. Steel and steel alloys, stainless/galvanized, 1850, 1913, Henry Bessimer, Harry Brearley, China/UK
29. Television, 1945, Philo Farnsworth, John Logie Baird, USA/UK
30. Fission power, 1945, Oppenheimer et al., USA
31. Timekeeping, mechanical clock, 725 AD, Yi Xing, China
32. Rocket and artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, 1957, Werner von Braun, Sergei Korolev et al., Germany/USSR
33. Jet engine/jet aircraft/jet boat U.K./Germany/New Zealand
34. Ceramics, stoneware, earthenware 25,000 BCE (14,000 BCE pottery China/Japan) Czechoslovakia
35. Alphabet, true alphabet with vowels, 725 BCE, Greece
36. Photograph/camera, 1826, Nicephore Niepce, Johann Zahn, France
37. Motion pictures, motion picture camera, projector, and theater, 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumiere, France
38. Refrigerator, vapor compression, 1805, Oliver Evans, USA
39. LASER, 1958, 1960 Theodore Maiman, Gorden Gould, Charles Hard Townes, Arthur L. Schawlow, USA
40. Postal service, 50 AD, Caesar Augustus, Rome
41. Carpentry/wood working, 3000 BCE, Egypt
42. Woven fiber cloth, rope, silk, cotton, wool, flax, 20,000 BCE, Europe
43. Plastics technology, 1863, 1907, Alexander Parkes, John Wesley Hyatt, Leo Baekeland, UK/USA
44. Modern steam turbine, 1884, Charles Parsons, USA
45. LED, light emitting diode, 1962, Nick Holonyak, Jr., GE, USA
46. Nitrogen fixation, Haber-Bosch process, 1918, Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, Germany
47. Concrete and reinforced concrete, 6500 BCE, Nabatacea, Middle EastRobot, 1961, George C. Devol, USA
48. Computer mouse and graphic user interface, Macintosh, 1984, Douglas Englehart, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, USA
49. Pasteurization, germ theory 1863, Louis Pasteur, France
50. Air conditioning, 1902, Willis Carrier, USA
51. Blood, tissue, organ transplants, 1900, Karl Landsteiner, Austria
52. GPS Global Positioning System, 2000 Gladys West, Ivan Getting, Bradford Parkinson, Roger L. Easton, USA
53. Soap, 2800 BCE, Sumer, Mesopotamia
54. Money, credit card/paper currency/coins, 600 BCE, 1946, John Biggins, Phoenicia, Tang Dynasty, USA/China
55. Search engine, Google, 1998, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, USA
56. Telegraph, Morse code, 1837, Samuel Morse, USA
57. Aluminum, 1825, Charles Martin Hall, USA
58. Fiber optics, 1953, Narinder Singh Kapany, UK
59. X-ray imaging, computed tomography, 1895, Wilhelm Roentgen, Germany
60. Tesla AC induction motor, 1887. Nikola Tesla, USA
61. News, later newspaper, Acta Diurna, 50 BCE, 1605, Rome/Germany
62. Saddle/stirrups, 300 AD, China
63. New World crops, tomato, potato, beans, corn, peppers, 1500, Americas
64. Nail, 3400 BCE, Egypt
65. Screw, propellar, fan, 250 BCE, 1770, Archimedes, John Ericsson, Francis Pettit Smith, Greece/UK
66. Silicon photovoltaic cell, 1954, Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, Gerald Pearson, USA
67. Opium domestication, 9000-3500 BCE, West and Central Europe
68. Email/text messaging, 1971, Ray Tomlinson, USA
69. Water turbine, 1849, James Francis, UK
70. Short range wireless radio data transfer, WiFi, Bluetooth, 2000,John O’Sullivan, Jaap Haartsen, Australia/Sweden
71. Compass, 1040, China
72. Fusion technology, 1956, Edward Teller, USA
73. Facebook, 2004, Mark Zuckerberg, USA
74. Magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, 1973, Raymond Damadian, Paul Lauterbur, USA
75. Medical ultrasound/echocardiography , 1956, Ian Donald, Tom Brown, UK
76. Catheter surgery, minimally invasive, 1961, Werner Theodor Otto Forssmann, Germany
77. Oxy-acetylene torch welding, 1905, Edmond Fouche, Charles Picard, France
78. Safety bicycle, 1885, J.K. Starley, UK
79. Petroleum refining, 1840, James Miller Williams, Ontario, Canada
80. Amazon, on line shopping, 1994, Jeff Bezos, USA
81. Magnetic tape data storage, 1951, Univac/IBM, USA
82. Metal wedge (simple machine), knife, sword, axe, chisel, 1800 BCE, Egypt
83. Bow and arrow, 70,000 BCE, Africa
84. Gears, 350 BCE, 50 AD, Archimedes, Hero of Alexandria, Greece/ Hellenic Egypt
85. Touchscreen, gorilla glass lithium silicate, 1975, 1982, George Samuel Hurst, USA
86. Robot, Unimate, George C. Devol, 1961, USA
87. Psychotropic medications, Prozac, Thorazine, lithium, 1951, Paul Charpentier, France
88. Sound recording, phonograph, 1876, Thomas Alva Edison, USA
89. Microwave oven, 1945, Percy Spencer, USA
90. Rivet, 1915, Charles Ward Hall, USA/UK
91. Fermentation of beer and wine, 7000 BCE-10,000 BCE, China/Mesopotamia
92. Latex, vulcanized rubber, synthetic latex paint, 1500, 1844, Latin America, Charles Goodyear, USA
93. DNA splicing, gene therapy, GMO ‘s, CRISPR – Cas 9, 2001, Jennifer Doudna, USA
94. Container shipping, container ship, railroad, trucking, 1956, Malcolm McLean, USA
95. YouTube video streaming, 2005, Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, USA
96. Randomized controlled clinical trials, 1747, James Lind, UK
97. Fiber polymers, polyester, nylon, 1939, W.H. Caruthers, USA/UK
98. Julian/Gregorian calendar, 50 BCE, Julius Caesar, Pope Gregory XIII, Rome
99. Submarine, 1620, Cornelius Drebbel, Netherlands
100. Contraception, birth control pill, 1960, Gregory Goodwin Pincus, USA