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History Of Technology Blog

General

Why should you read this history of technology blog?  

I sought our public library, online sources, and local bookstores for something written on the the greatest inventions of all time.  Given the influence of technology among recent generations, I surprisingly found little available on the subject.  No concise, simple, readable source adequately addressed the history of technology.  Now motivated, I began working.   First, the book was to be on the history of fire, then on fire, language and the wheel.  Finally, the book evolved to include the history of all of technology.    As I wrote the book, the internet seemed a better format to convey the history of technology. The book morphed into this blog. The web page developed with the blog as a dynamic extension.

 Six  key revelations formed the impetus to create this web page: 

1)  The first revelation was the concept of the Periodic Table of Technology.  I saw that 1000 inventions could be organized into a single table, InventTable.  2)  The second revelation was that an invention is the smallest unit of technology and quantifiable.     3)  The third revelation was that technology follows predictable rules over time.   These rules are the Technology Truths.  4)  The fourth revelation is that eras of technology should be defined by data, not energy, machines, materials, or biotechnology. Data is as important as the 4 other technology classes combined. 5)  The fifth revelation is that data has 5 dimensions: a. Oral or spoken language, b. hand written language, c. mechanical printed language on paper, d. electronic language, and e. hypertext language. 6) The sixth revelation is the increasing importance of technology compared to science, history, religion, and government.

face image as futuristic history of technology

My goal was to create a history technology blog that is direct, informative, and readable.   This project is not an exercise in academia.   I have tried to appeal to scientists, engineers, as well as technology loving lay people without becoming excessively detailed.

With each human generation, the impact of technology is greater and more profound.  

Understanding technological changes over time brings answers to some of life’s fundamental questions:   Where did we as humans come from ?  Where are we going ?  How can we connect our past and future?

The history of technology as a subject is complicated so I have tried to make this web page fun, simple, and interesting.  Technological history is full of surprise and humor.   There is beauty in the simplicity of the InventTable and the Technology Truths.

The web page began as a list of the top 100 inventions of all time. 

As the project evolved, the list of inventions expanded to 200, then, 500, and finally, 3000 inventions.  This larger number gives greater mathematical power to the conclusions reached in study of these inventions.  Each invention is an individual unit of technology, not unlike an atom of elemental matter.   Reducing technology to the smallest unit was critical to the development of the InventTable and Technology Truths. 

Within this list of the top 1000 inventions, I created 10 universal classes of technology that are present in all cultures, in all eras, since the beginning of human existence.  The 1000 inventions are in technology eras. InventTable organizes 1000 inventions into a PERIODIC TABLE OF TECHNOLOGY.    InventTable is an organizational concept borrowed from the field of chemistry.  In 1869, Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev famously arranged the Periodic Table of Chemistry, organizing all of chemistry. Understanding the periodic table of chemistry is to understand the fundamentals of chemistry itself.   To understand InventTable, likewise, is to understand the history of technology.

What are my qualifications to create this webpage? 

I am first and foremost a physician, more specifically, I am an orthopedic surgeon.  I trained at Rush-Prebyterian-St. Lukes Medical Center in Chicago.  Orthopedics is a technologically, materials-oriented specialty.   Orthopedic work has given me broad experience in the interdependence of people with technology.  I enjoy writing and communicating with my patients.  In my 23 years of private practice, my special interest was in patient education.  I have written several hundred patient education documents.  

Travels took me to all 50 USA states, to approximately 45 countries on all seven continents.   I have seen first hand many distant cultures including the San bushmen nomadic culture of the Kalahari desert in Africa, the Massai herding culture of Tanzania, Africa,   the indiginous Yasuni culture in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador, the Panama indiginous Embera tribal culture, and the Native American Adobe culture of the Southwest USA.  

What is original with this history of technology blog?

The list of 1000 inventions is an original starting point.   The database of 1000 inventions as units of technology that allows mathematical analysis is another original aspect of this book.  I use some original nomenclature in this book which I believe is more appropriate and accurate than preexisting nomenclature.    Completely original concepts developed in this web page and history of technology blog including:  InventTable, 10 universal technology classes, top 10 inventions by class, 9 eras of technology, 5 dimensions of data, dominant inventions, dominant technologies, Technology Truths, co-technologies, big bang of technology, big surge of technology, chain evolution, unnatural selection, and quantification of technology.   The importance of data over other social, political, and geographic factors is key.

On a personal note, this web page represents a tale of love for the history of technology.  I am a retired orthopedic surgeon.   Medicine in general and orthopedics in particular gave me a sense of purpose in life.  I went into premature retirement 2 years ago when I experienced a series of malignant heart rhythms which necessitated heart surgery to save my life.

I carry a miracle of technology

called an ICD, an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator, which monitors my heart rhythm and corrects it when dangerous abnormal heart rhythms arise.   Because of these advanced medical technologies, I am alive today. Researching and writing this book gave me a new sense of purpose, without unduly stressing my heart.  The development of the internet and search engines allowed quick access to large amounts of reliable data which was critical for this project.  To a large degree, I believe the historical absence of the internet and effective search engines is why a web page such as this has not previously been created.