Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 1 A Brief History of Technological Change and Development.

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 1 A Brief History of Technological Change and Development

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 2 Defining Technology Technology originates in the Greek "technologia" ("τεχνολογία") — "techne", "τέχνη" ("craft") and "logia", "λογία" ("saying"). Per the Oxford English Dictionary: science or industrial art; literally, the science of technique i.e. systematic knowledge of technique. –Technique: the interaction of people/tools with machines/objects which defines a ‘way of doing’ a particular task.

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 3 Technology as Artifact The artifact, not scientific knowledge, nor the technical community, nor social and economic factors, is central to technology and technological change. …the final product of innovative technological activity is typically an addition to the made world: a stone hammer, a clock, an electric motor…. George Basalla, The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 4 Technology as More than Artifact The word “technology” came into common use during the twentieth century, especially after World War II. Before then, the “practical arts,” “applied science,” and “engineering” were commonly used to designate what today is usually called technology. The Oxford English Dictionary finds the word “technology” being used as early as the seventeenth century, but then mostly to designate a discourse or treatise on the industrial or practical arts. In the nineteenth century, it designated the practical arts collectively. In 1831 Jacob Bigelow, a Harvard professor, used the word in the of his book Elements of Technology...on the Application of the Sciences to The Useful Arts. He remarked that the word could be found in some older dictionaries and was beginning to be used by practical men. He used “technology” and the “practical arts” almost interchangeably, but distinguished them by associating technology with the application of science to the practical, or useful, arts. For him, technology involved not only artifacts, but also the processes that bring them into being. These processes involve invention and human ingenuity. In contrast, for Bigelow, the sciences consisted of discovered principles, ones that exist independently of humans. The sciences are discovered, not invented. Thomas P. Hughes, Human-Built World, (University of Chicago Press: 2004).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 5 The Technology Complex A suitable general and inclusive definition of technology becomes the ‘knowledge of how to organize people and tools to achieve specific ends’. The elements within the technology complex have been ordered to range from the physical and artifactual to the social and the cultural. This captures the idea that there are multiple ‘levels’ within society at which people organize artifacts to create working technologies. Any or all of these elements be analyzed in a working technology – a technology ‘in use’. The technology complex: –Material –Energy source –Artifacts/hardware –Layout –Procedures (programs, software) –Knowledge/skills/qualified people –Work organization –Management techniques –Organizational structure –Cost/capital –Industry structure (suppliers, users, promoters) –Location –Social relations –Culture John Howells, The Management of Innovation and Technology, (Sage Publications: 2005).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 6 Does Technology Matter? Why did Europeans colonize the New World and not the reverse? An example: –In 1532, Francisco Pizarro with 168 Spanish soldiers (62 were mounted) met Atahuallpa, king of the Incas, and 80,000 soldiers Atahuallpa was king of the Incas only because the two previous kings had died of smallpox –After receiving a ransom of gold enough to fill a room 22’x17’x8’, Pizarro killed Atahuallpa –In four subsequent battles, 80, 30, 110, and 40 Spanish horsemen defeated tens of thousands of Inca soldiers and conquered the vast Inca empire –Why did the Spaniards conquer the Incas and not the reverse? And why did the Chinese not conquer the Incas, or Europe? What role did technology play in this? –What is technology and where did it come from? –How can the dominance of Western technology be explained? –And why did only the West develop modern technology, especially when China had been more advanced than the West for many centuries? Europeans colonized the world and not the other way around because they were richer and more technologically advanced. Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel, (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1999).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 7 The Broad Pattern of History and the Fates of Human Societies East/West axis Ease of species spreading Many suitable wild species Many domesticated plant and animal species Food surpluses, food storage Large, dense, sedentary, stratified societies Technology Guns, steel swords Ocean-going ships Political organization, writing Epidemic diseases Horses Ultimate Factors Proximate Factors Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel, (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1999).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 8 Economic Growth …technological change is primarily the study of outward shifts of the production possibility frontier. Yet often societies have not been on the frontier, but at a point far from any economic optimality. Economic growth can occur as a result of four basic causes: 1.Growth that derives from capital deepening, or Solovian Growth…. Because output per capita depends on the capital-labor ratio, net capital formation at a rate raster than population growth leads to economic growth, defined as an increase in output per capita. 2.Growth that derives from commercial expansion leading to a more efficient allocation of resources. Any economist can show how the emergence of exchange (of goods or factors of production) can be beneficial to all partners involved, whether the gains are from international or local trade. 3.Growth that derives from scale effects other than the division of labor. It is sometimes maintained that population growth can lead to per capita income growth. 4.Growth that derives from increasing the stock of human knowledge, which includes technological progress proper, as well as changes in institutions. By technological progress, I mean any change in the application of information to the production process, resulting either in the production of a given output with fewer resources (i.e., lower costs), or the production of better or new products. Joel Mokyr, The Lever of Riches, (Oxford University Press: 1992).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 9 The Example of Lighting The first known type of lighting was a campfire, which dates from about 1.4 million years ago. Our slow-witted ancestor Homo Australopithecus was the inventor of the campfire. As everyone knows who has tried to set up a tent by firelight, a fire consumes a lot of energy without giving much light. The more with-it Paleolithic peoples, of about 42,000 to 17,000 years ago, replaced campfires as source of light by burning animal fat in stone lamps. This was a major breakthrough by Paleolithic standards: the fat lamp was about twenty-two times more energy efficient as a source of light than campfires. Moving up the evolutionary scale, the Babylonians of about 1750 B.C. used sesame oil to light up their temples. This was double the energy efficiency of lamps using animal fat. Finally, by the times of the Greeks and the Romans, we have candles, which have about twice the luminosity of sesame oil. Plato wrote by candlelight. No further advances were made for the next 1,800 years. We at last moved beyond candles at the expense of the whales. Whale oil lamps were about twice as bright as candles for a given amount of energy. Kerosene lamps were about 20 percent brighter than whale oil lamps for a given amount of energy, and petroleum was cheap compared to whale oil. Then Thomas Edison came along and gave us the electric carbon lamp, which was a dramatic improvement: sixteen times more energy efficient than kerosene. The electric lamp continued to be improved, all the way to today’s compact fluorescent bulb, which as of 1992 twenty-six times brighter than Edison’s lamp for a given amount of energy. So today’s lights are 143,000 times brighter than the campfires of the cavemen, for a given amount of energy. The dramatic advances in technology and the rise in wages mean that we can buy a lot more lighting for a given amount of labor. We can get 840,000 times more lumen hours today for one hour of labor than could H. Australopithecus. Even if we shrink our gaze away from the evolutionary time line, we see dramatic changes. We can purchase 45,000 times more lighting for an hour of work today than could the workers of two centuries ago. William Easterly, The Elusive Quest for Growth (The MIT Press: 2001).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 10 The Paleolithic Age Around 4 billion years ago the earth took shape Pre-human species arose around 4 million years ago –Human-like ancestors arose around 2 million years ago at the beginning of the Paleolithic Age –Neanderthals arose around 130,000 years ago in Europe and Western Asia –Cro-Magnons arose around 50,000 years ago And Neanderthals became extinct around 35,000 years ago with the rise of these modern humans All pre-modern peoples were hunter-gatherers and their technology suited this existence Neanderthal technology –Fire –Simple, generalized stone tools for hunting, cutting, chopping –Burial rituals Modern human technology –Specialized tools from stone, bone, antler –Needles and sewn clothing, rope and nets, basketry, lamps, musical instruments, jewelry, barbed weapons, bows and arrows, fish hooks, multi-piece spears, houses with fireplaces –Reckoning of time –Rudimentary watercraft James McClellan and Harold Dorn, Science and Technology in World History, (Baltimore: JHU Press, 1999).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 11 The Neolithic Age The Neolithic Age began as the last Ice Age ended around 11,000 BCE –All major land masses are occupied –All humans throughout the world are at the same basic stage of late Paleolithic technological development Humans slowly shifted from hunting/gathering to food production under the pressure of ecological degradation and increasing population density –Farming –Animal husbandry Southwest Asia8500 BCE China7500 BCE New Guinea7000 BCE Sahel5000 BCE Mesoamerica3500 BCE Andes and Amazonia3500 BCE Tropical West Africa3000 BCE Eastern U.S.2500 BCE Ethiopia? Independent origins of plant and animal domestication: Local domestication following arrival of Founder Crops and animals from elsewhere: Indus Valley7000 BCE Egypt6000 BCE Western Europe5000 BCE Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel, (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1999).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 12 The Rise of Neolithic Technological Civilizations The earliest civilizations arose from the transition from Neolithic horticulture to intensive agriculture –Increasing populations in ecologically confined habitats led to the rise of hydraulic civilizations (i.e., irrigation) –New technologies led to an increase in food production which led to ever greater population densities New technologies (mostly in Southwest Asia) –The wheel –The hoe and plow –Astronomy and calendars –Writing and record-keeping –Mathematics –Medicine –Schools and libraries –Mining and metallurgy –Pottery –Architecture, construction techniques, and the corvee –Canals –Centralized government, bureaucracy, and taxation –Horses for war –Wrought iron (low carbon content)

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 13 Ötzi the Iceman http://www.askoxford.com/languages/culturevulture/italy/iceman/ http://www.crystalinks.com/oetzi.html

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 14 Ötzi’s Belongings Many types of wood and techniques of working with leather and grasses were used in the 70 objects found with Ötzi. They include –a cape of woven grass; –a bearskin cap; –a goat-hide coat; –leather leggings and loincloth; –shoes with bearskin soles and deerskin uppers, filled with grass; –an unfinished longbow, and a deerskin quiver containing 14 arrows (only two of which were finished); –a backpack frame of hazel and larchwood; –a copper axe with a wooden haft and leather bindings; a dagger with a flint blade and an ashwood shaft in a woven grass sheath; –and some containers of sewn birchbark.

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 15 Classical Technology The major areas of achievement were in civil and hydraulic engineering and architecture –Roads, aqueducts, arches, cement Gadgets and machines that were admired for their own sake or were used for recreation, but rarely put to a useful purpose –Primitive steam engines for opening temple doors –Coin-operated vending machines for holy water in temples More useful technologies included water lifting and pumping, irrigation, mine drainage, fire fighting, bilging water from ships Water lifting devices led to some advances in mechanics such as the development of power transmission (e.g. gears, cams, and chains) Other innovations included –Levers, screws, and compound pulleys –The principle that a small force operating over a distance can exert larger and larger force as the distance gets progressively smaller In shipping, most cargo ships were equipped with a single square mainsail –Most shipping was coastal –Sailors knew how to maneuver against the wind Agricultural instruments show great variety and some ingenuity, but most changes came from the periphery of the Greco-Roman world The most famous invention of the era was the waterwheel, used primarily for grinding flour In summary, in the Greco-Roman world technology was a domain separate from science James McClellan and Harold Dorn, Science and Technology in World History, (Baltimore: JHU Press, 1999).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 16 The Antikythera Mechanism The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the world’s first computer…. The researchers… said their findings showed that the inscriptions related to lunar-solar motions and the gears were a mechanical representation of the irregularities of the Moon’s orbital course across the sky, as theorized by the astronomer Hipparchos. They established the date of the mechanism at 150-100 B.C. The Roman ship carrying the artifacts sank off the island of Antikythera around 65 B.C. Some evidence suggests that the ship had sailed from Rhodes Historians of technology think the instrument is technically more complex than any known device for at least a millennium afterward. The mechanism, presumably used in preparing calendars for seasons of planting and harvesting and fixing religious festivals, had at least 30, possibly 37, hand-cut bronze gear-wheels, the researchers reported. An ingenious pin-and-slot device connecting two gear-wheels induced variations in the representation of lunar motions according to the Hipparchos model of the Moon’s elliptical orbit around Earth. Dr. Charette noted that more than 1,000 years elapsed before instruments of such complexity are known to have re-emerged. A few artifacts and some Arabic texts suggest that simpler geared calendrical devices had existed, particularly in Baghdad around A.D. 900. It seems clear, Dr. Charette said, that “much of the mind-boggling technological sophistication available in some parts of the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman world was simply not transmitted further,” adding, “The gear-wheel, in this case, had to be reinvented.” http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/science/3 0computecnd.html?ex=1322456400&en=e3a6 e898fb3871e3&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland &emc=rss

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 17 The Dark Ages Between 500 CE and 800 CE –The economic and cultural environment in Europe was primitive compared to the Classical period –Literacy was rare –Commerce and communication declined to a trickle –The infrastructure of the Roman Empire fell into disrepair There was a technological awakening after 900 CE –Medieval technology drew from four sources Its own original creativity Antiquity Islamic societies Asian societies –But the diffusion of new ideas was slow Population increase after the year 1000 led to the expansion of agriculture to lands which had previously been marginal Key improvements in agriculture included the heavy plow for use in the heavy and moist clay soils of Europe, the horse collar, and the three-field system Key improvements in energy utilization included –Efficient overshot waterwheels –Cams and cranks to convert circular motion into reciprocating motion for hammering, fulling (cloth), and crushing –Dams for more controlled flow of water –The conversion of waterwheels from an occasional device for grinding flour into a ubiquitous source of energy Joel Mokyr, 25 Centuries of Technological Change, (London: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 18 The High Middle Ages But the real impetus for change likely came from contact with Byzantium and Islam The stirrup (from China and central Asia) changed warfare and made the mounted knight invincible by allowing him to stay on his saddle, and also expensive to keep –And so being a knight became a full-time job. Transformed by the agricultural revolution, the landed peasantry supported both the church and the knights of the manorial system. Given primogeniture, the number of landless knights rose, contributing to European restlessness and expansion. Landless knights ended up on Crusades (the first in 1096) where the cultural and technological superiority of the Islamic world was clear to all. The great Islamic empire stretched from India to Spain, creating a unified region that allowed the cross- fertilization and wide-application of ideas over a wide area: –Arabic numerals –Possibly double-entry bookkeeping –The lateen sail plus fore and aft riggings, allowing for larger ships and more efficient sailing against the wind –Fine linen (Damask), cotton (muslin) and leather (Morocco) goods –Asian crops such as sugar, sorghum, rice, durum wheat (for pasta), oranges, bananas, cantaloupes, watermelons, asparagus, artichokes, spinach, eggplants –Windmills from central Asia –The astrolabe for measuring latitude Chinese technologies reaching the West (by way of the Islamic world) included: –Paper –Wheelbarrow –Dry docks –Silk –The sternpost rudder –The compass –Gunpowder and guns The university – Bologna in 1088, Paris in 1160, Oxford by 1220 and 80 others by 1500 Joel Mokyr, 25 Centuries of Technological Change, (London: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 19 The Renaissance By the year 1400, European inventors had learned all they could from the Orient –By 1400, the fully rigged ship was invented in the Basque region, which could do more than any Western ship that had gone before and with considerably less risk It was a ship designed for long voyages in the Atlantic Ocean rather than coastal sailing in the Mediterranean Sea –Blast furnaces that generated high enough temperatures to permit iron casting (high carbon content) –The printing press using cast moveable type –The button –Spectacles –Flywheels, spinning wheels –Horizontal looms with foot-operated treadles –Chemicals for Dyeing Tanning Oil painting Medicines –The weight driven mechanical clock Advances were carried out by thousands of forgotten tinkerers, craftsmen, peasants, wheelwrights, masons, silversmiths, miners, and monks –Technological advances took place in the private sector –They were practical and focused on changing man’s daily existence, and not on grandiose projects (unlike the classical world), apart from a few churches –They produced more and better food, transport, clothes, gadgets, and shelter Increasing numbers of technical “how-to” books were published in vernacular languages increased the diffusion of technical innovations, including books written by engineers for engineers Joel Mokyr, 25 Centuries of Technological Change, (London: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 20 The Age of Discovery The geographic discoveries were in many ways the dominant feature of the late Renaissance Technological and geographical discovery were often complementary and created exposure effects, in which alien crops and technologies were transplanted –Crops such as maize, tobacco, and potatoes were brought to Europe –Vast supplies of fish were discovered and caught, along with the technique of gutting and salting fresh caught fish The age of discovery was also an age of instruments –Mechanical clocks, concave lenses, the microscope and telescope, toys, scales, gun sights –Instrument making was an art and not a standardized technique of R&D –Most improvements were the result of serendipity, and trial and error searches –Learning and training took place mostly through apprenticing and informal contact –Often the gap between the visionary who saw what might be done and the craftsmen whose material and tools limited what could be done was too wide to be bridged The classical dichotomy between thinkers and makers disappeared, and the modern distinction between the scientist and the engineer had not yet appeared Joel Mokyr, 25 Centuries of Technological Change, (London: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 21 Origins of the Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution’s timing was determined by intellectual developments, and the true key to the timing of the Industrial Revolution has to be sought in the scientific revolution of the 17 th century and the Enlightenment movement of the 18 th –In particular, the interconnections between the Industrial Revolution and those parts of the Enlightenment movement that sought to rationalize and spread knowledge –The Industrial Revolution constitutes a stage in which the weight of the knowledge-induced component of economic growth increased markedly – it neither started from zero nor went to unity Prior to 1750, when economic progress took place, it usually generated social and political forces that, in almost dialectical fashion, terminated it –Prosperity and success led to the emergence of predators and parasites in various forms and guises who eventually slaughtered the geese that laid the golden eggs –Tax collectors, foreign invaders, and rent-seeking coalitions such as guilds and monopolies in the end extinguished much of the growth of northern Italy, southern Germany, and the Low Countries –But perhaps the main root of diminishing returns was the narrow epistemic base of technology Too little was known on how and why the techniques in use worked When no one knows why things work, potential inventors do not know what will not work and will waste valuable resources in fruitless searches for things that cannot be made It would be wrong to suppose that the Industrial Revolution in its early stages was driven by a sudden deepening of the scientific foundations of technology, but the gradual widening of the epistemic bases of the techniques that emerged in the last third of the 18th century saved the process form an early death by exhaustion. Joel Mokyr, The Gifts of Athena (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 22 The Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Enlightenment The rate of technological progress depends on the way human useful knowledge is generated, processed, and disseminated –The Industrial Enlightenment was a set of social changes that transformed the two sets of useful knowledge and the relationship between them First, it sought to reduce access costs (determined jointly by information technology and institutions) Second, it sought to understand why techniques worked Third, it sought to facilitate the interaction between those who controlled propositional knowledge and those who carried out the techniques contained in prescriptive knowledge The Industrial Enlightenment’s debt to the scientific revolution consisted of three closely interrelated phenomena –Scientific method – accurate measurement, controlled experiment, and reproducibility Scientific knowledge became a public good, communicated freely A systematic approach to the solution of practical problems –Scientific mentality – faith in the orderliness, rationality, and predictability of natural phenomena Once the natural world became intelligible, it could be tamed – because technology at base involves the manipulation of nature and the physical environment Phenomena produced by nature and the artificial works of mankind were subject to the same laws An open mind, a willingness to abandon conventional doctrine when confronted with new evidence –Scientific culture – applied science at the service of commercial and manufacturing interests Reinforced entrepreneurial interests by demonstrating how applied science could save costs and enhance efficiency and thus profits Joel Mokyr, The Gifts of Athena (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 23 Impact of the Industrial Revolution By 1750, Europe had consolidated its technical superiority over the rest of the world In two centuries, daily life changed more than in the 7000 years before The Industrial Revolution was a process of accelerating and unprecedented technological change –Between 1760 and 1830, there was a wave of gadgets, a string of novel ideas and insights that made it possible to produce more and better goods and do so more efficiently –A clustering of macro-inventions occurred, leading to intensified work in improvement and adjustment and thus creating a flow of micro-inventions –Technological progress spread to previously unaffected industries –An increase in both the quantity and quality of goods –The age was characterized by men who combined inventive genius and a desire to make things both cheap and good, both functional and beautiful –A key factor why the Industrial Revolution did not happen earlier was the existence of a small vital high precision machine tool industry which paved the way for the “American System” of interchangeable parts Technological opportunities and constraints determined the outcome of a process driven by the supply side of technology It was the inventions of the Industrial Revolution that created an enormous gap between Europe and the rest of the world and allowed Europeans to dominate politically and militarily Joel Mokyr, 25 Centuries of Technological Change, (London: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 24 Cotton: An Example of Productivity To spin 100 lbs. of cotton: –Indian hand spinner took 50,000 hours By 1790, Richard Arkwright’s rollers and the mule brought the number down to around 300 hours By 1830, Richard Roberts’ automatic “self-actor” reduced the number to 135 The price of cotton cloth declined by 85% between 1780 and 1850 Joel Mokyr, 25 Centuries of Technological Change, (London: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 25 The Emerging Industrial Civilization There were four main features of the industrial civilization that emerged from the Industrial Revolution: 1.New energy sources –Pre-modern societies relied on human and animal muscle, wood, wind and water –The steam engine led to the use of non-renewable sources like coal and oil 2.New organization of labor in the factory system of production –The factory system involved centralized and standardized production using machines, wage labor, and rigid hierarchies –Factories led to an industrial, urban-based labor force –A moneyed economy replaced traditional exchanges of goods and services 3.New means of financing industrial development –Profits from British colonial trade in sugar and slaves provided the accumulated capital needed to fund industrial development –Banks arose throughout the 18 th century to handle the increasing number of transactions and interest rates fell steadily –The expansion of industrial activity, the increasing size of firms, and the railroads led to the growth of modern stock markets and investment banks 4.Ideological changes that accompanied industrialization –Mercantilism (state control of the economy) gave way to free trade and “laissez-faire” capitalism –Labor strife increased as workers saw themselves as the exploited proletariat and not equal participants in wealth creation James McClellan and Harold Dorn, Science and Technology in World History, (Baltimore: JHU Press, 1999).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 26 Science and Technology Before 1850, the majority of important inventions were used before people understood why they worked, and thus systematic research in these areas was limited to ordered trial and error operations The proportion of such inventions has been declining since 1850 The function of science after 1850 was primarily to show what could not work rather than what could Inspired outsiders could still play a role in the invention process, but scientific training and systematic work proved increasingly necessary –The lucky occasional masterstroke could still open a new area, but the patient, systematic search for solutions by people with formal scientific and technical training came to dominate Joel Mokyr, 25 Centuries of Technological Change, (London: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 27 Technology in the 20 th Century The trend toward a more “scientific” approach to technology continued –Although it is a story of advancing technology and material welfare by constantly increasing their scientific basis, the non-scientific taproots of invention did not disappear – serendipity, luck, and inspiration –Nonetheless, technological progress is more efficient today in the sense that fewer false turns are taken and blind alleys are easier to avoid But we still run into two dilemmas common to all ages –Some devices can be made to work long before it is understood why or how they work –The Da Vinci problem – gadgets and devices can be conceived that are known to be possible, but cannot be built efficiently because supporting technologies are lacking This century has come to understand that technology is essentially limitless and can advance dramatically, and that only society’s proclivity to destroy the conditions for its own growth halts progress –Technology catalyzes itself –Technological progress alone can support sustained economic growth because it alone has not run into diminishing returns, unlike capital accumulation and the gains from trade –Technological change was not caused by economic growth, rather technological change supported economic growth Although growth may have been centered in Europe, we may be seeing the tide turn now with the rise of China Joel Mokyr, 25 Centuries of Technological Change, (London: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 28 Is Technological Change Inevitable? Institutional factors matters first and foremost because the determined the efficiency of the economy by affecting the exchange relations among people, resource allocation, and savings and investment behavior –There is nothing inevitable about technological progress It is far from obvious that, had western Europe been wiped out by Genghis Khan, that some other society would have eventually developed modern technology –An evolutionary approach to the history of knowledge implies that we cannot “explain” why modern economic growth happened after 1800 –We can only show how it evolved from earlier intellectual developments, such as the Renaissance, the scientific revolution, and the Enlightenment Joel Mokyr, The Gifts of Athena (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 29 Technology as a Sociological Phenomenon At its simplest, technology is an extension of the hand –Per Joel Mokyr, technology is the manipulation of nature for human material gain in its widest sense –Per Jose Ortega y Gasset, technology is not necessary in meeting the animal needs of humans, and is therefore defined as the production of the superfluous –Per George Basalla, we cultivate technology to meet our perceived needs, not a set of universal ones legislated by nature According to Gaston Bachelard the conquest of the superfluous gives us a greater spiritual stimulus than the conquest of the necessary because humans are creations of desire, not need –Instead of relying on nature directly for sustenance, we have devised the wholly unnecessary techniques of agriculture and cooking –They become necessary only when we choose to define our well-being as including them The artifacts that constitute the made world are not a series of narrow solutions to problems generated in satisfying basic needs but are material manifestations of the various ways men and women throughout time have chosen to define and pursue existence –Technology is a part of the much broader history of human aspirations, and the plethora of made things are a product of human minds replete with fantasies, longings, wants, and desires –The artifactual world would exhibit far less diversity if it operated primarily under the constraints imposed by fundamental needs

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 30 For Example, the Wheel Was the wheel a critical or necessary invention? –Was it necessary “to meet our perceived needs, or a set of universal ones legislated by nature?” The history of the wheel began as a search for a significant technological advancement that was produced in response to a universal human need –It has ended with the wheel seen as a culture-bound invention whose meaning and impact have been exaggerated in the West –Wheeled vehicles were not necessarily invented to facilitate the movement of goods –Western civilization is a wheel-centered civilization in contradistinction to other civilizations The wheel is not a unique mechanical contrivance necessary or useful to all people at all times –Wheeled transport depends on adequate roads and large draft animals, neither of which were always available, particularly outside of Eurasia –For example, many civilizations rejected wheeled transport in favor of pack animals George Basalla, The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 31 Technology and Culture: Japan Gives Up the Gun When Portuguese trading ships arrived in the middle of the 16th century, Japan's many feudal rulers investigated guns for use in the ongoing civil wars. Long before the "Southern Barbarians" (Western traders) ever arrived, Japan had far outpaced Europe in metallurgy. Within a few decades, the various Japanese armies had more, better-built guns than most European armies. A military dictator named Hideyoshi was particularly expert firearms tactics, and Hideoyoshi finally conquered Japan and ended the civil wars. In 1588 Hideyoshi decreed the "Sword Hunt," and banned possession of swords by the lower classes. The pretext was that all the swords would be melted down to supply nails for a hall containing a huge statue of the Buddha. Instead, Hideoyoshi had the swords melted into a statue of himself. After Hideoyoshi, the Tokugawa Shogunate took power, and ruled Japan until the late 19th century. The Shogunate used guns extensively in its invasion of Korea. But after the invasion was repelled, Japan turned inward, rejecting all forms of Westernization. Western contact was limited to a single Dutch trading mission, which was required to stay on a small island in Nagasaki harbor. The Tokoguwa began the gradual process of eradicating all Western influence from Japan, including the use of firearms. Under the Tokugawa, peasants were assigned to a five-man group, headed by landholders who were responsible for the group's behavior. The groups arranged marriages, resolved disputes, kept members from traveling or moving without permission, maintained religious orthodoxy, and enforced the rules against peasants carrying firearms or swords. The Shogunate's gun control eventually disarmed not only the peasantry, but also the Samurai warriors. Gun-smiths were restricted in the number of apprentices they could adopt, and eventually sales to anyone besides the military government became illegal. http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Foreign/Japan-Gun-Control-and-People-Control.htm

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 32 Technology and Culture: China Gives Up the World Emperor Hong-wu died in 1398, at the age of seventy and was followed in 1403 by Zhi Di - also known as the Emperor of Yongle (Perpetual Happiness), who ruled to 1424, appointing many eunuchs to high positions in government. One of Emperor Yongle's eunuchs, Zheng He, was a Muslim whose father had made a pilgrimage to Mecca. Zheng He knew the world a little more than others, and he led a group of can-do eunuchs that performed special tasks for the emperor. Emperor Yongle ordered Zheng to make naval expeditions. From the Mongols, the Ming rulers had inherited extensive maritime contacts and technology. During Mongol rule, large Chinese cargo ships plied the oceans around China, including a regular run of grain from the south, along the coast, to the north. And Chinese ships traded through southeast Asia to the island of Lanka and to India. The Ming dynasty did not maintain this trade, Zheng He's expedition, beginning in 1405, being made not for the sake of trade but for geographical exploration and diplomacy - an expedition with sixty-three ships and 27,000 men. Six more expeditions led by Zheng followed, the last one in 1433 under the emperor Xuan-de. The expeditions reached Surabaya at the island of Java, and they reached India and then Mogadishu on the coast of Africa, Hormuz at the Persian Gulf, and up the Red Sea to Jeddah. Gifts were exchanged, and rare spices, plants and animals, including a giraffe, were brought back to China. China had the world's greatest navy, with an estimated 317 ships, some of them 440 feet long and 180 feet wide, ships with four to nine masts that were as high as ninety feet, and with crews as large as five hundred. But in China interest in a great navy and merchant shipping was overshadowed by concern about military defenses on land. Attempts to control Annam failed and were expensive. In mid-century the Mongols were making border raids and appeared to the Chinese as an even greater threat. Also, with independence from Mongol rule, Confucian influence had increased at court. Confucian scholars were filling the ranks of senior officialdom and remained hostile to commerce and foreign contacts. The Confucianists had little or no interest in seeing China develop into a great maritime trading power. The economic motive for these huge ventures may have been important, and many of the ships had large private cabins for merchants. But the chief aim was probably political, to enroll further states as tributaries and mark the reemergence of the Chinese Empire following nearly a century of barbarian rule. The political character of Zheng He's voyages indicates the primacy of the political elites. Despite their formidable and unprecedented strength, Zheng He's voyages, unlike European voyages of exploration later in the fifteenth century, were not intended to extend Chinese sovereignty overseas. Indicative of the competition among elites, these excursions had also become politically controversial. Zheng He's voyages had been supported by his fellow low eunuchs at court and strongly opposed by the Confucian scholar officials. In the wake of Mongol rule, China's leaders were eager to restore things Chinese, and that included shipping on China's canals - which had gone into disrepair under the Mongols. They saw internal trade as enough. The government ended its sponsorship of naval expeditions, and, in the spirit of isolationism, the government forbid multi-masted ships sailing out of port. The development of world maritime trade was left to others. http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h12china.htm http://www.nowtryus.com/article:Ming_Dynasty

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 33 Summary 1.Technology is the knowledge of how to organize people and tools to achieve specific ends –It is the interaction of people and tools, in the broadest sense of the terms –Technology includes the entire range of artifacts and procedures from raw materials to knowledge and skills, from work organization to social relations and culture 2.Technology is ultimately a social phenomenon –Although technology is a key to economic growth, how we develop and use technology is defined by society, culture, and politics again in the broadest sense of the terms –And attitudes toward technology are shaped by what we know and what we believe

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 34 Example: Technological Change in Medicine

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only Chronological History of Medicine c. 7000drill and bow drill, in Mehrgarh c. 7000 BC, dental drill, in Mehrgarh c. 7000 BC, surgery and dental surgery, in Mehrgarh c. 2600 BC, surgical suture, by Imhotep c. 2600 BC, pharmaceutical cream, by Imhotep c. 500 BC, cosmetic surgery, by Sushruta c. 500 BC, plastic surgery, by Sushruta c. 400 BC, Hippocratic bench, by Hippocrates c. 750 AD, inoculation and variolation, by Madhav c. 1000, cataract extraction and hypodermic needle, by Ammar ibn Ali al-Mawsili c. 1000, injection and syringe, by Ammar ibn Ali al-Mawsili c. 1000, adhesive bandage and plaster, by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis) c. 1000, cotton dressing and bandage, by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi c. 1000, catgut, by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi c. 1000, curette, by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi c. 1000, forceps, by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi c. 1000, ligature, by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi c. 1000, retractor, by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi c. 1000, scalpel, by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi c. 1000, sound, by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi c. 1000, surgical hook, by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi c. 1000, surgical needle, by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi c. 1000, surgical rod, by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi c. 1000, surgical spoon, by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi c. 1025, thermometer, by Avicenna (Ibn Sina) c. 1025, steam distillation, by Avicenna c. 1025, essential oil, by Avicenna c. 1150, inhalational anaesthetic, by Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) c. 1280, spectacles, in Italy 1540, artificial limb, by Ambroise Paré 1714, mercury thermometer, by Gabriel Fahrenheit 1775, bifocal lenses, by Benjamin Franklin 1792, ambulance, by Jean Dominique Larrey 1796, vaccination, by Edward Jenner 1816, stethoscope, by René Laennec 1817, dental plate, by Anthony Plantson 1827, endoscope, by Pierre Segalas 1846, general anaesthetic, by James Simpson 1851, ophthalmoscope, by Hermann von Helmholtz 1853, hypodermic syringe, by Alexander Wood 1865, antiseptic, by Joseph Lister 1885, rabies vaccination, chicken cholera vaccination by Louis Pasteur 1887, contact lens, by Adolf Fick 1895, X-ray, by Wilhelm Roentgen 1903, electrocardiograph, by Willem Einthoven 1905, sphygmomanometer by Nikolai Korotkov 1928, penicillin, by Alexander Fleming 1931, electron microscope by Ernst Ruska 1938, penicillin as an antibiotic, by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain 1957, artificial pacemaker, by Clarence Lillehei and Earl Bakken 1967, heart transplant, by Christian Barnard c. 1970, MRI and fMRI, by Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield (among others) 1973, CAT scan, by Godfrey Hounsfield and Allan Cormack 1979, ultrasound scan, by Ian Donald 1982, artificial heart, by Robert Jarvik 35 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_medicine

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only The Disruption of Medical Practice Each disruption is composed of three enabling building blocks: a technology, a business model, and a disruptive value network. …The health-care industry is awash with new technologies—but the inherent nature of most is to sustain the current way of practicing medicine. However, the technologies that enable precise diagnosis and, subsequently, predictably effective therapy are those that have the potential to transform health care through disruption. This framework asserts that the treatment of most diseases initially is in the realm of experimentation based on intuition. Care then transitions into the realm of probabilistic or empirical medicine; and ultimately it becomes rules-based precision medicine. The term “technology” that we use here might refer to a new piece of machinery, a new production process, a mathematical equation, or a body of understanding about a molecular pathway. However, at the heart of this evolution of work is the conversion of complex, intuitive processes into simple, rules-based work, and the handoff of this work from expensive, highly trained experts to less costly technicians. 36 Clayton M. Christensen, et. al. The Innovator’s Prescription (McGraw-Hill: 2009).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only The Spectrum from Intuitive to Precision Medicine …we define intuitive medicine as care for conditions that can be diagnosed only by their symptoms and only treated with therapies whose efficacy is uncertain. By its very nature, intuitive medicine depends upon the skill and judgment of capable but costly physicians. At the other end of the spectrum, we define precision medicine as the provision of care for diseases that can be precisely diagnosed, whose causes are understood, and which consequently can be with rules- based therapies that are predictably effective Progress along the spectrum between intuitive and precision medicine is the primary mechanism through which technological enablers can lead the disruption of existing health-care business models. Intuitive and precision medicine are not binary states, of course. There is a broad domain in the middle that we term empirical. The practice of empirical medicine occurs when a field has progressed into an era of “pattern recognition”—when correlations between actions and outcomes are consistent enough to read statements like, “Reduction to normal levels occurred in 73 percent of patients who took this medication,” we’re in the realm of empirical medicine. Empirical medicine enables caregivers to follow the odds, but not to guarantee the outcome. Scientific progress takes us along the continuum from intuitive to empirical and ultimately to precision medicine. In most cases, precise diagnosis must precede predictably effective therapy. And in order to achieve that degree of precision, technology must progress interactively on three fronts: the first front is an understanding of hat causes the disease; the second is the ability to detect those causal factors; and the third is the ability to treat those root causes effectively. 37 Clayton M. Christensen, et. al. The Innovator’s Prescription (McGraw-Hill: 2009).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only Current Map of Common Medical Conditions 38 Clayton M. Christensen, et. al. The Innovator’s Prescription (McGraw-Hill: 2009).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only The Present and Future of Precision Medicine The three specific streams of technology that can enable this revolution are molecular medicine, imaging technologies, and ubiquitous connectivity. If regulators, policy makers, and executives do not seek business model innovation for diseases that move toward the upper-right region in this chart, the potential returns, in terms of reduced cost and improved accessibility, for society’s massive investments in science and technology, will be small. As each disease moves along the spectrum from intuitive to precision medicine, fewer people with highly specialized expertise are needed to solve the challenges that the particular disease presents. Individuals with less specific training become capable of delivering care which was once restricted to the experts. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants can do the work once performed by physicians. As was the case in organic fibers and computers, reduced cost and improved accessibility of quality health care will not come from replicating the expertise and costs of today’s best physicians. These can only come, very frankly, from scientific progress that “commoditizes” their expertise, making it accessible at low cost to many more patients. Specialists working in the finest medical centers will always be needed to treat those diseases remaining in the realm of intuitive medicine, of course—and surely, new, poorly understood diseases will continue to emerge. But it makes no sense for regulation, reimbursement, habit, or culture to imprison care in the realm of intuition when it has moved a significant distance along the spectrum. 39 Clayton M. Christensen, et. al. The Innovator’s Prescription (McGraw-Hill: 2009).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 40 Patterns of Technological Change

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 41 Invention, Innovation, Diffusion Basic Definitions: 1.Invention: the creation of new information 2.Innovation: application of information per se; the implementation of new information 3.Diffusion: where more and more producers gain access to the new technique First appearance of an invention does not necessarily correspond with a major improvement in productivity, which requires widespread adoption Therefore, technological creativity can be defined as novel ways to apply knowledge so as to improve production techniques –The result is a shift outward of the supply curve Joel Mokyr, 25 Centuries of Technological Change, (London: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 42 Micro and Macro-Inventions Does technology not simply accumulate continuously from the incremental, almost imperceptible changes brought about by a large number of anonymous people – invisible, small incremental improvements? –Modern research has shown that most cost savings are achieved through small, invisible, cumulative improvements –But improvements in what? Some technological changes contradict the generality of the gradualist model – e.g. printing press, gravity driven clock Therefore there are two kinds of technological changes: 1.Micro-mutations which gradually alter the features of a species, and 2.Macro-mutations which create a new species Micro-inventions –Small, incremental steps which improve, adapt, and streamline existing techniques already in use, reducing costs, improving form and function, increasing durability and reducing raw material and energy requirements Macro-inventions –Inventions in which a radical new idea, without clear precedent, emerges Macro-inventions and micro-inventions are not substitutes but complements –But without novel and radical departures, the continuous process of improving and refining existing techniques would run into diminishing returns and eventually peter out Joel Mokyr, 25 Centuries of Technological Change, (London: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 43 Why Does the Distinction Matter? Why is the distinction between micro and macro-inventions useful? – they follow different dynamics and respond to different incentives Minor changes in existing technology are usually the result of systematic on-the-job tinkering and practical experimentation –They are thus a predictable by-product of normal productive activity –Firms employing a given technique will spend resources on refining it, adjusting it to its special needs and environment, and saving energy, labor, and raw material inputs all in order to reduce costs – what economists call localized technological change –They respond to demand conditions, and to changes in the prices of complements and substitutes –This kind of technological change cannot persist in the long run without the periodic emergence of macro-inventions Continuous refinements of a given technology will eventually run into diminishing returns, and an economy in which all technical progress is of this type will find itself stagnating and reaching some kind of equilibrium The chief reason there has been continuing technological progress in history is that these equilibriums were punctuated by sudden changes of a bold and abrupt nature, followed by a wave of further improvements Improve the axles, suspensions, couplings, and harness of a horse-drawn buggy all you will – it will never become a bicycle Macro- inventions shift the marginal product curve of micro-inventive activity upward –Therefore feverish activity in improvement and refinement often followed major inventions Joel Mokyr, 25 Centuries of Technological Change, (London: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 44 All Technologies Have Antecedents A basic rule: any new thing that appears in the made world is based on some object already in existence An example: Barbed wire was an extraordinary invention that revolutionized fencing in America and other parts of the world, facilitated the westward movement, brought the fruits of the Industrial Revolution to the farm, and had a profound effect on the faming and cattle industries as well as on warfare and prisons –Although simple in conception, it appeared at a late date in the history of made things –It is a modern example of the process by which a naturfact is transformed into an artifact and shows that even the simplest of artifacts has an antecedent –Barbed wire was not created by men who happened to twist and cut wire in a peculiar fashion – it originated in a deliberate attempt to copy an organic form that functioned effectively as a deterrent to livestock George Basalla, The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge University Press: 1988).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 45 Technological Evolution Per George Basalla, technological evolution is rooted in four broad concepts: 1.The made world contains a far greater variety of things than are required to meet fundamental human needs 2.This diversity can be explained as the result of technological evolution because artifactual continuity exists 3.Novelty is an integral part of the made world 4.And a selection process operates to choose novel artifacts for replication and addition to the stock of made things The artifacts that constitute the made world are not a series of narrow solutions to problems generated in satisfying basic needs but are material manifestations of the various ways men and women throughout time have chosen to define and pursue existence –Seen in this light, the history of technology is a part of the much broader history of human aspirations, and the plethora of made things are a product of human minds replete with fantasies, longings, wants, and desires –The artifactual world would exhibit far less diversity if it operated primarily under the constraints imposed by fundamental needs George Basalla, The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge University Press: 1988).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 46 Artifactual Continuity The confusion between technology and its consequences joined the myths of the heroic inventors, the ideas of material progress, nationalism, and the patent system and furthered the discontinuous explanation of technological change In assessing the wider implications of the continuity argument, we must be careful to avoid the implication that inventions are inevitable, or that the stream of made things is entirely self-generating and self-motivating –A talented inventor and a likely antecedent are necessary, but not sufficient, conditions to create an innovation with wide social and technological repercussions –In most instances the antecedent will be one that exists within the general area of technology in which the innovation is being sought –Functional requirements have always had a strong influence on the choice of an appropriate antecedent and because functionality may well cut across established technological boundary lines, the antecedent may not be the one that appears initially to be the most obvious In the earliest, and unsuccessful, mechanical reapers, attempts were made to duplicate the swinging motion of the scythe as it cut through the grain or to imitate the clipping action of scissors –The McCormick reaper, which brought large-scale mechanical reaping to the farms of America, utilized an oscillating serrated blade to saw through the grain stalks –In each of these cases an artifact served as a model for the cutting mechanism: scythe, scissors, sickle –As it happened, the most obvious of the choices, the scythe, proved the least useful in meeting the functional requirements of a mechanical reaper and the most primitive of them, the sickle, opened the way for the mechanization of harvesting George Basalla, The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge University Press: 1988).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 47 Artifactual Diversity If we accept the proposition of universal artifactual diversity, we must acknowledge that a greater variety of artifacts is available in some cultures than in others –How can we account for differences in the rate of production of new kinds of things? –And how can we identify the sources of novelty in any culture? The process of innovation involves the interplay of psychological and socioeconomic factors –An overemphasis on the psychological factors leads to a genius theory of invention –An overemphasis on the social and economic elements yields a rigidly deterministic explanation that presents an invention as the inevitable product of its times The potential for invention exists throughout the human race –Some individuals have greater inventive skills than others –Some cultures are better able to exploit the innovative potential in their midst –And some societies have fashioned a way of life that simply does not place great value on technological change and its accompanying artifactual diversity Some societies live in well-integrated cultures that reward conformity to established rules and ways and have no incentive to seek technical advances George Basalla, The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge University Press: 1988).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 48 Summary: Artifactual Continuity, Artifactual Diversity and Evolutionary Theory The concept of diversity, which stands at the beginning of evolutionary thinking, is basic to an understanding of technological evolution The history of technology is not a record of the artifacts fashioned in order to ensure our survival –Instead, it is a testimony to the fertility of the contriving mind and to the multitudinous ways the peoples of the earth have chosen to live –Seen in this light, artifactual diversity is one of the highest expressions of human existence If artifactual diversity is to be explained by a theory of technological evolution, then we must be able to demonstrate that continuity exists between artifacts, that each kind of made thing is not unique but is related to what has been made before George Basalla, The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge University Press: 1988).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 49 Case Studies

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 50 Reprise: Technology Technology is ultimately a social phenomenon –Although technology is a key to economic growth, how we develop and use technology is defined by society, culture, and politics again in the broadest sense of the terms Technological change is a critical factor in economic change and progress Technological change is a function of: 1.Invention: the creation of new information 2.Innovation: application of information per se; the implementation of new information 3.Diffusion: where more and more producers gain access to the new technique Technological change can be understood using an evolutionary model – variation, selection, retention –From the myriad inventions made, some are selected to become part of the made world and to become the foundation for new inventions –The mechanisms of selection include knowledge, fantasy, science, economics, and culture Technology is a complex of inter-related elements and technological change is part of the broader history of human beings on this planet

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 51 Micro and Macro-Inventions There are two kinds of technological changes: 1.Micro-mutations which gradually alter the features of a species, and 2.Macro-mutations which create a new species Micro-inventions are more numerous and may account for most gains in productivity, but the importance of macro-inventions is crucial –Without novel and radical departures, the continuous process of improving and refining existing techniques would run into diminishing returns and eventually peter out Micro-inventions are more or less understandable using standard economic concepts –They result from search and inventive effort, respond to prices and incentives, result from learning by doing, result from learning by using Macro-inventions do not seem to obey obvious economic laws –They do not necessarily respond to incentives –Many resulted from strokes of genius, luck, or fortunate misunderstandings –Luck and inspiration mattered, and therefore individuals mattered Why is the distinction between micro and macro-inventions useful? – they follow different dynamics and respond to different incentives Joel Mokyr, 25 Centuries of Technological Change, (London: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 52 Reprise: Artifactual Continuity Per George Basalla, –A basic rule: any new thing that appears in the made world is based on some object already in existence Invention is an act of creative thinking driven by the failure of artifacts to work as they should –Therefore, all invention is based on prior inventions, ideas, knowledge, and artifacts –Artifactual continuity within artifactual diversity is a fact

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 53 Examples 1.The cotton gin 2.The light bulb 3.The telephone 4.The bicycle 5.The stethoscope

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 54 The Cotton Gin A cotton gin is a machine that quickly and easily separates the cotton fibers from the seedpods and the sometimes sticky seeds. These seeds were either used again to grow more cotton or if badly damaged were disposed of. It uses a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through the screen, while brushes continuously remove the loose cotton lint to prevent jams. The term "gin" is an abbreviation for engine, and means "device". The modern cotton gin was created by the American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793 to mechanize the production of cotton fiber. The invention was granted a patent on March 14, 1794, although Whitney reaped no benefit from it. The cotton gin has been credited for making Southern cotton and plantation-based slavery economically viable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin Adapted from http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons/cotton_gin/images/image003.jpg

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 55 Background: The Nature of Cotton The history of the gin begins with the cotton plant, a tropical perennial that grows in a swath around the globe between 47° north and 35° south latitude. Neolithic farmers domesticated cotton about ten thousand years ago for its seed or fiber, or both. Today, botanists recognize fifty species, four of which are cultivated for their seed and fiber. Two are the Old World species G. arboreum and G. herbaceum; two are the New World species G. hirsutum and G. barbadense. Three of the four—the two Old World species and one of the New World species—share a seed characteristic that is relevant to the problem of fiber removal. Cotton fiber is a single cell of cellulose that grows out of the seed as the plant matures and fruits. The fruit of the cotton plant is a compartmentalized boll filled with fiber-covered seeds. When the fiber is removed from the seed of the three Old World species, a fuzzy covering remains. They are commercially known as short-staple, green seed, and Upland cotton, although fiber length, seed color, and viable locale vary. However, they are all “fuzzy-seed cotton” and were all ginned With types of roller gins. The New World species G. barbadense, on the other hand, grows in a limited habitat. It produces a smooth seed and was ginned literally by hand before 1600. Angela Lakwete, Inventing the Cotton Gin (Johns Hopkins University Press: 2003).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 56 Cotton Gins Cotton gins were used to remove cotton fiber from the seed since the first century of the Common Era, but may go back to Neolithic times. The earliest gin was made from a single roller and a hard, flat surface. Ginners in Asia, Africa, and North America used it to batch process fuzzy-seed, short- staple cotton. The ginner used the roller and the ginning base together as the single-roller gin. Typically she placed the base on the ground in front of her and layered it seed cotton, the mass of cotton and seed removed from the ripened boll )f the plant. She leaned over the base and grasped the overhanging ends of he roller. Ginning occurred when she rolled the roller over the seed cotton, pinching the seed out of the lint. The posture allowed the ginner to apply the weight of her upper body but to vary it as needed. The ginner then pushed the seed away from the roller; the lint accumulated behind it. Sometime between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, gins built with two rollers replaced it in commercial Indian and Chinese markets, although the single-roller gin persisted in the domestic sphere. Foot powered models were also developed. In the seventeenth century, British merchants’ interest in the cotton trade collided with their pursuit of the spice trade in the Indian Ocean and of colonies in the Americas. At the same time, British industrialists responded to the domestic craze for colorful Indian cotton prints by initiating industrialization based on the production of cheap substitutes for the expensive imports. Hand- and foot-powered spinning wheels and looms facilitated industrial expansion; cotton—processed by hand- and foot-powered roller gins—fueled it. Angela Lakwete, Inventing the Cotton Gin (Johns Hopkins University Press: 2003).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 57 Precedent: The Roller Gin According to Joseph Needham, a precursor to the cotton gin was present in India, which was known as a charkhi, which had two elongated worms that turned its rollers in opposite directions. The roller gin was the first mechanical device used for ginning cotton. It used two rollers similar to a latter-day clothes wringer that pinched and pulled the fibers from the seeds, to produce about 5 pounds of lint per day. This roller gin or Churka, as it was called, was the primary ginning tool until Eli Whitney's saw gin came along in 1794. The saw gin did not replace the roller gin entirely. Although much slower, the roller gin is gentler to the cotton than the saw gin, whose serrated saws tend to break more of its fibers. Roller gins, therefore, continue to be used for ginning Pima cotton to protect its extra-long staple or length, a desirable quality that increases the value of the cotton fiber. Even though the roller gin continued to be used for ginning extra-long- staple cottons, its low ginning rate made it too expensive to maintain and operate. In an effort to increase its ginning capacity, several gins were developed that improved the roller ginning rate, though not significantly. It wasn't until the 1960's, when the rotary-knife gin was developed at the Southwestern Cotton Ginning Research Laboratory in cooperation with gin manufacturers and private ginneries, that roller gins became more efficient and less expensive to operate. The rotary-knife gin improved on the McCarthy gin invented by Fones McCarthy in 1840. It retained the McCarthy Gin's ginning roller and stationary knife, but replaced its reciprocating knife with a rotary knife that greatly increased the roller ginning rate. Compared to the McCarthy Gin which produces only 1/4 bale of lint an hour per stand, the rotary-knife gin can produce up to 1 1/2 bales of lint an hour per stand. http://www.juliantrubin.com/bigten/bigtenimages/cottongin.jpg http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.swcgrl.ars.us da.gov/churka.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.swcgrl.ars.usda.gov/rolerg in.htm&h=536&w=729&sz=9&hl=en&start=3&tbnid=seDKe8Xls- 8OkM:&tbnh=104&tbnw=141&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dchurka%26 gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 58 Modern Examples Consolidated Cotton Gin Company MYJ80A 、 90A Type Sawtooth Cotton Gin Jiangsu Dafeng Rifeng Machinery Co.,Ltd. Double Roller Cotton Gin Bajaj Steel Industries Ltd.

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 59 Lessons from the Story of the Cotton Gin Several lessons can be drawn from Whitney’s story –The obvious one is that Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin was part of the evolutionary development of technology –Less obvious is the realization that all variants of an artifact are not of equal importance Some are simply inoperable, some are ineffective, and some are effective but have little technological and social influence Only a few variants have the potential to start a new branching series that will greatly enrich the stream of made things, have an impact on human life, and become known as “great inventions” Recognition of the significance of Whitney’s cotton gin depended on the growing demand at home and abroad for cheap cotton and the limited availability of slave and paid laborers to process the raw material manually –In a society dominated by woolen or linen cloth, or one in which cheap manual labor was freely available, Whitney’s machine would not have served as the prototype for a spate of more powerful and effective gins –In either of those alternative societies, the cotton gin would have been a mechanical curiosity without social, economic, or technological influence George Basalla, The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge University Press: 1988).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 60 The Light Bulb: the Traditional Story 1879 Edison invents the carbon-filament lamp and a direct-current generator for incandescent electric lighting. A New Year's Eve demonstration of his system is held for the public at Menlo Park. 1880 Edison hires a larger staff to help him develop the components of his electric lighting system for commercial use and sets up a factory for the manufacture of electric lamps at Menlo Park. 1881 Edison leaves Menlo Park and opens new offices in New York City. He establishes factories to make various parts of the electric light and power system and begins construction of the first permanent central power station, on Pearl Street, which opens in September 1882. 1883-1884 Edison spends a year promoting the installation of central stations for small manufacturing cities and towns and establishes a company to build the stations, a company which eventually becomes General Electric. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/edison/timeline/index.html

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 61 Gas Lighting Gas lighting is the process of burning gas for illumination. The gas is usually piped natural gas or coal gas, or bottled gas. Before electricity became sufficiently widespread and economical to allow for general public use, gas was the most popular means of lighting in cities and suburbs. Early gas lights had to be lit manually but soon gas lights could light themselves. While some gas lighting remains in use today for streets and buildings, the primary use for gas lighting today is in portable applications, most notably lanterns for camping. The man who first utilised the flammability of gas for the practical application of lighting, was William Murdoch, who worked for Matthew Boulton and James Watt at their Soho Foundry steam engine works in Birmingham England. Murdoch began experimenting with various types of gas in the early 1790s, finally settling on coal gas as the most effective. In 1798 he used gas to light the main building of the Soho Foundry and in 1802 lit the outside in a public display of gas lighting, the lights astonishing the local population. One of the employees at the Soho Foundry, Samuel Clegg, saw the potential of this new form of lighting. Clegg left his job to set up his own gas lighting business, the Gas Lighting and Coke Company. Murdoch also lit his own house in Redruth, Cornwall in 1792, six years before lighting the Soho Foundry. The first public street lighting with gas took place in Pall Mall, London on January 28, 1807. In 1812, Parliament granted a charter to the London and Westminster Gas Light and Coke Company, and the first gas company in the world came into being. A few years later, on December 31, 1813, the Westminster Bridge was lit by gas. Following this success, gas lighting spread to other countries. In the United States, Baltimore in 1816 was the first city to light its streets with gas. The first introduction of gas lights in Rembrandt Peal's Museum in Baltimore in 1816 proved to be such a sensation and success that Peale quickly organized the first gas company in the United States and the city council passed an ordinance June 1816, permitted Peale to manufacture gas, lay pipes in the streets, and contract with the city for street lighting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_lighting

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 62 General Electric J. P. Morgan in his smoke-filled office had come to support the consolidation of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston for the most obvious and compelling of business reasons: the bottom line. In 1891, Edison General Electric had million and profits of $1.4 million, an 11 percent return, Thomson-Houston had sales of $10 million and profits of $2.7 million, or a 26 percent return. Charles Coffin merger that he was “beating the stuffing out of them [Edison] all along the line.” Business was booming for both companies, but once again Edison General Electric was sitting on a $4 million pile of local electric stocks, unable to translate this paper into cash. In notable contrast, the Boston bankers for the Thomson-Houston people had prudently marketed and steadily sold these sorts of securities so they could recoup that capital. And, of course, there was the lure of he Edison light bulb patent. Nonetheless, Coffin had begun to wonder why they should sell their company to the Edison forces when Thomson- Houston was doing so well. In meetings at the Boston mansion of Morgan associate and Vanderbilt family member Hamilton McK. Twombly, one Thomson-Houston executive surprised the Morgan forces by saying, We don’t think much of the way the Edison company has been managed.” When their lack of enthusiasm was conveyed to Morgan in Manhattan, he ordered, “Well, send them down here to talk to me.” Coffin, with his thick brush mustache and hard-charging manner, went as bade to hold his meeting with Morgan. The balance sheets of he competing companies deeply impressed Morgan with Coffin’s business savvy, for here was a man who produced twice the profit of the Edison people. With that, Morgan could quite see that it made sense for the better managers—the men of Thomson-Houston—to buy out Edison General Electric. So it was that J. Pierpont Morgan, whose house had been the first in New York to be wired for electricity by Edison but a decade earlier, now erased Edison’s name out of corporate existence without even the courtesy of a telegram or a phone call to the great inventor. Edison biographer Matthew Josephson wrote, “To Morgan it made little difference so long as it all resulted in a big trustification for which he would be the banker.” Edison had been, in the vocabulary of the times, Morganized. Jill Jonnes, Empires of Light (Random House: 2003).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only Lessons from the Story of Lighting Edison patented an electric distribution system in 1880, which was essential to capitalize on the invention of the electric lamp. Edison's true success, like that of his friend Henry Ford, was in his ability to maximize profits through establishment of mass-production systems and intellectual property rights. J. Pierpont Morgan, whose house had been the first in New York to be wired for electricity by Edison but a decade earlier, now erased Edison’s name out of corporate existence without even the courtesy of a telegram or a phone call. AC replaced DC in most instances of generation and power distribution, enormously extending the range and improving the efficiency of power distribution. Thomas Edison briefly pursued fluorescent lighting for its commercial potential. He invented a fluorescent lamp in 1896 which used a coating of calcium tungstate as the fluorescing substance, but although it received a patent in 1907, it was not put into production. It had a short operating life, and given the success of the incandescent light, Edison had little reason to pursue an alternative means of electrical illumination. 63

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 64 History of the Telegraph In 1825, British inventor William Sturgeon (1783-1850) exhibited a device that laid the foundations for large-scale electronic communications: the electromagnet. Sturgeon displayed its power by lifting nine pounds with a seven-ounce piece of iron wrapped with wires through which the current of a single cell battery was sent. In 1830, an American, Joseph Henry (1797-1878), demonstrated the potential of Sturgeon's device for long distance communication by sending an electronic current over one mile of wire to activate an electromagnet which caused a bell to strike. Thus the electric telegraph was born. Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1872) successfully exploited Henry's invention commercially. While a professor of arts and design at New York University in 1835, Samuel Morse proved that signals could be transmitted by wire. He used pulses of current to deflect an electromagnet, which moved a marker to produce written codes on a strip of paper - the invention of Morse Code. The following year, the device was modified to emboss the paper with dots and dashes. He gave a public demonstration in 1838, but it was not until five years later that Congress (reflecting public apathy) funded $30,000 to construct an experimental telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore, a distance of 40 miles. The message, "What hath God wrought?" sent later by "Morse Code" from the old Supreme Court chamber in the United States Capitol to his partner in Baltimore, officially opened the completed line of May 24, 1844. Morse allowed Annie Ellsworth, the young daughter of a friend, to choose the words of the message, and she selected a verse from Numbers XXIII, 23: "What hath God wrought?", which was recorded onto paper tape. Morse's early system produced a paper copy with raised dots and dashes, which were translated later by an operator. Samuel Morse and his associates obtained private funds to extend their line to Philadelphia and New York. Small telegraph companies, meanwhile began functioning in the East, South, and Midwest. Dispatching trains by telegraph started in 1851, the same year Western Union began business. Western Union built its first transcontinental telegraph line in 1861, mainly along railroad rights-of-way. The original Morse telegraph printed code on tape. However, in the United States the operation developed into sending by key and receiving by ear. A trained Morse operator could transmit 40 to 50 words per minute. Automatic transmission, introduced in 1914, handled more than twice that number. In 1913 Western Union developed multiplexing, which it made possible to transmit eight messages simultaneously over a single wire (four in each direction). Teleprinter machines came into use about 1925. Varioplex, introduced in 1936, enabled a single wire to carry 72 transmissions at the same time (36 in each direction). Two years later Western Union introduced the first of its automatic facsimile devices. In 1959 Western Union inaugurated TELEX, which enables subscribers to the teleprinter service to dial each other directly. Until 1877, all rapid long-distance communication depended upon the telegraph. That year, a rival technology developed that would again change the face of communication -- the telephone. By 1879, patent litigation between Western Union and the infant telephone system was ended in an agreement that largely separated the two services. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bltelegraph.htm

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 65 History of the Telephone – Milestones 1831 Michael Faraday proved that vibrations of metal could be converted to electrical impulses 1861 Johann Philip Reis built a apparatus that changed sound to electricity and back again to sound 1871 Antonio Meucci filed his patent caveat (notice of intention to take out a patent) 1874 A. G. Bell while working on a multiple telegraph, developed the basic ideas for the telephone 1875 Bell files first patent for improved telegraphy 1876 Bell and Watson transmit the first complete sentence 1876 Bell files patent application on February 14, patent issues March 7 1876 Elisha Gray filed his patent caveat (notice of intention to take out a patent) on February 14, 1877 Bell formed Bell Telephone Company to operate local telephone exchange operation 1877 First city exchange installed in Hartford, Connecticut 1879 Frst exchange outside the United States was built in London, England http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/telephone.htm

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 66 Origins of the Bell System Industry leaders approached telephony from their experiences with telegraphy. Because telegraphy defined the background of most executives, and because Americans in the nineteenth century used the telegraph almost exclusively as a business tool, it was logical that Bell used the telegraphy model to define the telephone as a device for business as well. Who were the first telephone subscribers? Physicians were notable among the early users. The telephone allowed them to hear of emergencies quickly and to check in at their offices when they were away. Druggists typically had telephones, as well. But businessmen formed the primary market. Bell found some businessmen hesitant to replace the telegraph with the telephone because they valued a written record. Nevertheless, some manufacturers, lawyers, bankers, and the like—and later small shopkeepers—adopted the technology. One issue for Bell was whether it could fruitfully expand into the general residential market (that is, beyond the households of the business elite). There was the rub: Locals would have to reduce their rates, and to ease that reduction Bell would have to lower its charges on the locals. Except for a handful of populists in this era –the consensus was that any increased business would not make up for the profits lost by reducing rates, even in a measured-rate system. At the time many also believed that operating costs per subscriber increased as the number of customers increased because of the technical complications of interconnection. Only later did industry analysts appreciate that, as a network, telephones became more attractive as more people subscribed and that there might be economies of scale. Bell managers were also skeptical about providing service in smaller communities. AT&T focused on providing big- city businesses with high-quality service, including long-distance calling, at high prices. Its representatives later explained that the pressures of escalating demand and technical renovations prevented the company from pursuing wider markets until the mid- 1890s. Still, most Bell managers saw few possibilities for expansion, and nearly none for greater profit, in the general residential market or even the business market outside the major centers. Bell’s key American patents expired in 1893 and 1894. Within a decade literally thousands of new telephone ventures emerged across the United States, many in competition with Bell, others tilling territories Bell had previously ignored. Rates plummeted and telephone subscriptions soared. In the convulsions of rapid expansion and fierce competition, AT&T reorganized and government regulation developed. By the eve of World War I the modern telephone system had formed, one with local-service monopolies and a long-distance Bell monopoly, operating under the effective domination of AT&T and the regulation of state commissions. Claude S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 (University of California Press: 1992).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 67 Lessons from the Origins of the Bell System 1.Who needs a telephone? 2.Why would they need it? 3.How would they use it? 4.How would they get it? 5.What kind of infrastructure needs to be in place? Suppliers? Distributors? Repairmen? Government support?

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 68 A Brief History of the Early Bicycle Several innovators contributed to the history of the bicycle by developing precursor human-powered vehicles, including the velocipede, invented in 1763 in France by Pierre Lallement. The documented ancestors of today's modern bicycle were known as push bikes, Draisines or hobby horses. To use the Draisine, first introduced to the public in Paris by the German Baron Karl von Drais in 1818, the operator sat astride a wooden frame supported by two in-line wheels and pushed the vehicle along with his/her feet while steering the front wheel. Scottish blacksmith Kirkpatrick MacMillan refined this in 1839 by adding a mechanical crank drive to the rear wheel, thus creating the first true "bicycle" in the modern sense. In the 1850s and 1860s, Frenchmen Pierre Michaux and Pierre Lallement took bicycle design in a different direction, placing the pedals on an enlarged front wheel. Their creation, of wrought iron and wood, developed into the "penny-farthing" (more formally an ordinary bicycle), featuring a tubular steel frame on which were mounted wire spoked wheels with solid rubber tires. These bicycles were not, however, for the faint hearted, due to the very high seat and poor weight distribution. The subsequent dwarf ordinary addressed some of these faults by reducing the front wheel diameter and setting the seat further back, necessitating the addition of gearing, effected in a variety of ways, to attain sufficient speed. However, having to both pedal and steer via the front wheel remained a problem. Starley's nephew, J. K. Starley, J. H. Lawson, and Shergold solved this problem by introducing the chain drive connecting the pedals held with the frame to the back wheel. These models were known as dwarf safeties, or safety bicycles, for their lower seat height and better weight distribution. Starley's 1885 Rover is usually described as the first recognizably modern bicycle. Soon, the seat tube was added, creating the double-triangle diamond frame of the modern bike. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 69 Early Bicycles Denis Johnson's son riding a velocipede, Lithograph 1819. A smartly dressed couple seated on an 1886 "quadricycle" for two. The original pedal-bicycle, with the serpentine frame, from Pierre Lallement's US Patent No. 59,915 drawing, 1866 A penny-farthing or ordinary bicycle

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 70 Which Came First?

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only The Social Construction of Bicycles 1 Technological development should be viewed as a social process, not an autonomous occurrence. In other words, relevant social groups will the carriers of that process. Hence the world as it exists for these relevant social groups is a good place for the analyst to begin his or her research. Thus the analyst would be content to use “cyclists” as a relevant social group, but introduce separate “bicyclists” and “tricyclists” only when the actors themselves do so. The basic rationale for this strategy is that only when a social group is explicitly on the map somewhere does it make sense for the analyst to take it into account. If we want to understand the development of technology as a social process, it is crucial to take the artifacts as they are viewed by the relevant social groups. If we do otherwise, the technology again takes on an autonomous life of its own. Thus in this descriptive model the meanings attributed to the artifact by the different relevant social groups constitute the artifact. I described, for example, the artifact Ordinary bicycle “through the eyes” of members of the relevant social groups of women, older men, and Ordinary users. The definition of the ordinary as a hazardous bicycle (for the relevant social groups of women and elderly men) was supplemented by listing specific ways of using the artifact, such as track and road racing, touring, and showing off in (for the Ordinary users). The risky aspects of riding the Ordinary were explicated by describing in some detail the techniques involved in mounting the machine and in coasting downhill. Also the pleasure and comfort of riding the Ordinary were described and contrasted with the bone-shaking experience of riding bicycles with smaller wheels. All bicycles inspired by the safety problem of the high-wheeler were developed in roughly the same period and to some extent in parallel. Ordinaries, tricycles, safety Ordinaries, and the machines to be discussed in this section were all striving for the cyclists’ favor. Considering the uneven quality of the historical material and the inevitable overlap of the various designs, it is hazardous to lend much weight to the chronological order as distilled from available sources. In spite of the emergence of quite a number of dwarf safeties, many people still were convinced that the high-wheeled Ordinary bicycle would never be superseded by those geared-up small-wheelers. Besides mud splashing on the rider’s feet” and the power wasted by the chain drive, the most prominent problem was the vibration of the low-wheeler. It is not surprising then that the safety bicycle was not more than one of the three alternative types of cycle, without threatening the market share of the other two, the Ordinary bicycle and the tricycle. This changed when the air tire was made available for bicycles. 71 Wiebe E. Bijker, Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs (The MIT Press: 1997).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only The Social Construction of Bicycles 2 For the social group of Ordinary nonusers an important aspect of the high-wheeled Ordinary was that it could easily topple over, resulting in a hard fall; the machine was difficult to mount, risky to ride, and not easy to dismount. It was, in short, an Unsafe Bicycle. For another relevant social group, the users of the Ordinary, the machine was also seen as risky, but rather than being considered a problem, this was one its attractive features. Young and often upper-class men could display their athletic skills and daring by showing off in the London parks. To impress the riders’ lady friends, the risky nature of the Ordinary was essential. Thus the meanings attributed to the machine by the group of Ordinary users made it a Macho Bicycle. This Macho Bicycle was, I will argue, radically different from the Unsafe Bicycle—it was designed to meet different criteria; it was sold, bought, and used for different purposes; it was evaluated to different standards, it was considered a machine that worked whereas the Unsafe Bicycle was a nonworking machine. Deconstructing the Ordinary bicycle into two different artifacts allows us to explain its “working” or “nonworking.” There is no universal time- and culture-independent criterion with which to judge whether the high-wheeled bicycle was working or not. Is the Ordinary a nonworking machine because it was highly dangerous and very difficult to master? Or was it a well-working device because it displayed so nicely the athletic skills of the young upper class and because it dealt so effectively with bumps and mud puddles in the road? Only by reversing the question— that is, by asking under what conditions the high-wheeled Ordinary constituted a well-working machine and under what other conditions it was Utterly nonworking—can we hope to begin to understand technical development. In terms of the descriptive model, this implies the following. The artifact Ordinary is deconstructed into two different artifacts. Each of these artifacts, the “Unsafe,” and the “Macho” are described as constituted by a relevant social group, and this description also includes a specification of what counts as “working” for that machine, for that group. In this way, the “working” and “nonworking” are now being treated as explanandum (i.e. answering “why questions”), rather than used as explanans (i.e. answering “what questions”) for the development of technical artifacts. The “working” and “nonworking” of an artifact are socially constructed assessments, rather than intrinsic properties of the artifact. One artifact (in the old sense) comprises different socially constructed artifacts, some of which may be “working” while others are “nonworking.” 72 Wiebe E. Bijker, Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs (The MIT Press: 1997).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only The Social Construction of Bicycles 3 Thus I want to argue that the account of bicycle development can be adequately rephrased by distinguishing two separate artifacts: the Unsafe Bicycle and the Macho Bicycle. Although these two artifacts were hidden within one contraption of metal, wood, and rubber (the so-called Ordinary, they were not less real for that. This can be seen from the different designs spectrums they to which they belonged. The Unsafe Bicycle gave rise to a range of new designs that sought to solve the safety problem. Many of these efforts were described in the previous section: moving the saddle backward (Facile, Xtraordinary), adding auxiliaries (the Non-Header”), reversing of the positioning of small and large wheels (Star), or making other radical changes to the basic scheme (Lawson’s bicycle). The Macho Bicycle developed in the opposite direction: the front wheel was made as large as possible. This design trend produced important and lasting effects in bicycle technology, even though the high-wheeled Penny-farthing became obsolete in the end. The making of higher wheels, for example, necessitated the development of better (and specifically, stiffer) spoked wheels. To distinguish two different artifacts in this way is more straightforward than trying to cope with the wide spectrum of different designs, even though one needs some imagination to see them within that one Ordinary. I will call this sociological deconstruction of the Ordinary into an Unsafe Bicycle and a Macho Bicycle “demonstrating the interpretative Ordinary.” The possibility of demonstrating the interpretative flexibility of an artifact by deconstruction implies that there is immediate entrance point for a sociological explanation of the development of technical artifacts. If no interpretative flexibility could be demonstrated, all properties of an artifact could be argued to be immanent after all. Then there would be no social dimension to design: only application and diffusion—or context, for short—would form the social dimensions of technical development. But demonstrating the interpretative flexibility of an artifact sets the agenda for a social analysis of the design of technology as formulated in the “working as result” requirement for a framework. Once an artifact has been deconstructed into different artifacts, it is clear what has to be explained: how these different artifacts develop; whether, for example, one of them peters out while the other becomes dominant. In the bicycle case, the “Macho,” although dominant in the beginning, was in the end superseded by the “Unsafe,” and the Ordinary thus developed from a working into a nonworking machine. Relevant social groups do not simply see different aspects of one artifact. The meanings given by a relevant social group actually constitute the artifact. There are as many artifacts as there are relevant social groups; there is no artifact not constituted by a relevant social group. The implications of this radically social constructivist view of technology will be addressed in the remainder of this chapter…. Then I will discuss how the “pluralism of artifacts,’ brought to the fore by demonstrating the interpretative flexibility, will eventually be reduced again, when one of the artifacts stabilizes. 73 Wiebe E. Bijker, Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs (The MIT Press: 1997).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only The Social Construction of Bicycles 4 Or Dunlop and the other developers of the air tire, the tire originally had the meaning of a solution to the vibration problem, in other words, the air tire was an antivibration device. In the first advertisement, which appeared in a weekly cycle journal in Dublin in 1888, the only claim made for the I new pneumatic tire was that it made “vibration impossible.” However, the group of sporting cyclists riding their high-wheelers did not consider vibration to be a problem at all. Vibration presented a problem to the (potential) users of the low-wheeled bicycle only. Three important social groups were therefore opposed to the air ; for these relevant social groups, the air tire did not work. But then the air tire was mounted on a racing bicycle, and another artifact was constructed. When the tire was used at the racing track for the first tine, ts entry was met with laughter. As I have described, this derision was quickly silenced by tie sweeping victory realized on the new tire. Very soon handicappers had to give cyclists on high-wheelers a considerable start if riders on air-tired low-wheelers entered the race. After a short period no racer with any ambition bothered to compete on anything else. What had happened? By two important groups, the sporting cyclists and the general public, another artifact had been constructed: a high-speed tire. We thus have deconstructed the air tire into an antivibration tire and high-speed tire, and demonstrated its interpretative flexibility. Now the question is: How did these two artifacts develop further? The tire company spared no efforts to develop the high-speed tire. They sponsored cycle racing, arranged training facilities under a competent trainer, and organized a regiment of professional racing teams with multiple machines. Thus they succeeded in redefining the key problem for which artifact was meant to provide a solution—now it is by no means self- evident that this should have been the outcome of the trial; enabling high speed is not an unambiguous, intrinsic property of the air tire that could dictate the course of events. On the contrary, taking for a moment the ahistorical viewpoint of an engineer, I find it very unlikely that it was le pneumatic tire that tipped the scales …. Probably more influential were other differences between the high-wheeled Ordinaries and the low-wheeled bicycles with air tires: the chain drive n the latter and the high wind resistance on the former. Thus the artifact “high-speed air tire” was socially constructed. The social construction of an artifact is the outcome of two combined processes, closure and stabilization. These actually are two aspects of the process…. Closure, in the analysis of technology, means that the interpretative ability of an artifact diminishes. Consensus among the different relevant social groups about the dominant meaning of an artifact emerges and the “pluralism of artifacts” decreases. I will now turn to the concept of stabilization, which underscores the observation that technical change cannot be the result of a momentous act of the heroic inventor. Here the focus will be on the development of an artifact within one relevant social group…. In principle the degree of stabilization will be different in different social groups. How are the processes of closure and stabilization related? In my analysis of the concept of closure I implicitly focused on the meanings attributed by different relevant social groups to an artifact. In contrast, the analysis of stabilization, the focus was on the development of the artifact itself within one relevant social group, in terms of the modalities used in its descriptions…. Closure leads to a decrease of interpretative flexibility— to one artifact becoming dominant and others ceasing to exist. As part of the same movement, the dominant artifact will develop an increasing degree of Stabilization within one (and possibly more) relevant social groups. 74 Wiebe E. Bijker, Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs (The MIT Press: 1997).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 75 1896 Ford Quadricycle 1888 Daimler Motor-Quadricycle Perhaps the most significant thing about the bicycle was its impact on the development of the automobile.

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only The Traditional Story of the Stethoscope The stethoscope is an acoustic medical device for auscultation, or listening to the internal sounds of an animal body. It is often used to listen to heart sounds. It is also used to listen to intestines and blood flow in arteries and veins. Less commonly, "mechanic's stethoscopes" are used to listen to internal sounds made by machines, such as diagnosing a malfunctioning automobile engine by listening to the sounds of its internal parts. Stethoscopes can also be used to check scientific vacuum chambers for leaks, and for various other small-scale acoustic monitoring tasks. René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec (February 17, 1781 - August 13, 1826) was a French physician. He invented the stethoscope in 1816, while working at the Hôpital Necker and pioneered its use in diagnosing various chest conditions. Laennec wrote the classic treatise De l'Auscultation Médiate, published in August 1819. The preface reads: In 1816, I was consulted by a young woman laboring under general symptoms of diseased heart, and in whose case percussion and the application of the hand were of little avail on account of the great degree of fatness. The other method just mentioned [direct auscultation] being rendered inadmissible by the age and sex of the patient, I happened to recollect a simple and well-known fact in acoustics,... the great distinctness with which we hear the scratch of a pin at one end of a piece of wood on applying our ear to the other. Immediately, on this suggestion, I rolled a quire of paper into a kind of cylinder and applied one end of it to the region of the heart and the other to my ear, and was not a little surprised and pleased to find that I could thereby perceive the action of the heart in a manner much more clear and distinct than I had ever been able to do by the immediate application of my ear. Laennec had discovered that the new stethoscope was superior to the normally used method of placing the ear over the chest, particularly if the patient was overweight. A stethoscope also avoided the embarrassment of placing the ear against the chest of a woman. His clinical work allowed him to follow chest patients from bedside to the autopsy table. He was therefore able to correlate sounds captured by his new instruments with specific pathological changes in the chest, in effect pioneering a new non- invasive diagnostic tool. Not all doctors readily embraced the new stethoscope. Although the New England Journal of Medicine reported the invention of the stethoscope two years later, in 1821, as late as 1885 a professor of medicine stated, "He that hath ears to hear, let him use his ears and not a stethoscope." Even the founder of the American Heart Association, L. A. Connor (1866 - 1950) carried a silk handkerchief with him to place on the wall of the chest for ear auscultation. 76 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stethoscope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renee_Theophile_Hyacinthe_Laennec

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only Stethoscopes 77

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only The Stethoscope Laennec claimed full credit for the invention of the stethoscope. He was originally inspired to use a paper cylinder to listen to the heart of a young female patient after noticing that a log scratched at one end with a pin sounded clear to someone listening at the other end. Laennec was wary of ancient theories and could not see any precedent for use of his auscultatory technique in medical diagnosis. Instead he claimed: “It is easy to prove that all preconceptions and all the popular errors in medicine owe their origin to the general acceptance of the theoretical opinions expressed by physicians of the past.” Laennec’s invention appeared to stand preeminent among nineteenth-century physical diagnostic instruments because the stethoscope made use of the faculty of hearing, a sense of novel application in medical diagnosis. More importantly, Laennec discussed and identified a spectrum of sounds associated with diseases and interpreted them for physicians who would apply the stethoscope. He introduced a new terminology, including the words stethoscope, rales, fremitus, cracked-pot sound, metallic tinkling, aegophony, bronchophony, cavernous breathing, puerile breathing, veiled puff, and bruit. Laennec’s teacher Jean-Nicolas Corvisart, who used Auenbrugger’s diagnostic technique of percussion of the chest, set a precedent for Laennec in correlating clinical histories with postmortem observations related to heart diseases. Laennec transformed these suggestive ideas [i.e. those of the physicians who came before him] into a program of describing the different sounds produced in the chest cavity by the circulation of air, movement of the lung tissues, accumulation of fluids, reverberation of the voice, and beating of the heart and large blood vessels. Auscultation, as one of six methods including observation of the movements of he chest, percussion, mensuration, succussion, and abdominal probing, was recommended to clarify the condition of the torso and uncover disease throughout the nineteenth century. 78 Audrey B. Davis, Medicine and its Technology (Greenwood Press: 1981).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only Implications of the Stethoscope: Statistics and Public Health Medicine reflects the economic, social, and technological enterprises of the periods and locales in which it is practiced. Medical practice in the nineteenth century demonstrates this relationship explicitly. As the Western world industrialized, medicine became a part of the Industrial Revolution by evolving into an instrument-centered practice. The goals, achievements, and failures of medicine during this period relate directly to the technological and sociological changes that swept through Western society. The most obvious changes within medical practice included the adoption of various instrumentally applied techniques. The salient medical changes adopted by physicians during the nineteenth century that depended on the use of instruments and medical technology were: (1) diagnosis and treatment of many diseases with the aid of instruments, (2) the definition of diseases based on the data supplied by instruments, and (3) the demarcation between health and disease according to the limits determined with instruments applied in the course of a physical examination given both to healthy and sick individuals. These elements comprised a type of medical practice that S. Weir Mitchell characterized by the term precision. Precision began to influence industry and economics, as well as social activities, in this period. After 1880, physicians repeatedly commented on the introduction of precision into medicine. Instruments enabled physicians to gather vast quantities of data from patients and analyze these data according to the principles of statistics, the keystone of precision medicine. Statistics were employed to evaluate the safety, diagnostic value, and cure potential of new techniques. Hospital records were a prime source of the basic data needed for statistical analysis. Surveys of the profession concerning the diagnosis and treatment of disease…demonstrated the importance of data collection and linked the provincial physician with the acknowledged medical leaders in medical schools and major urban hospitals. These surveys, which were supplemented by information gathered in other countries, and the whole process of quantification in medicine were facilitated by instrumentally derived information. Precision in diagnosis did not imply a fundamental change in the process of identifying diseases. Confirming a sign or symptom previously suspected was the purpose of much nineteenth-century instrumentation; searching for the sources of tuberculosis and heart diseases with the stethoscope, measuring expansion of the infected chest, and analyzing the urine for kidney disease were confirmatory methods for diagnosing signs suspected but not readily apparent. The instrument and the laboratory test made it possible for more physicians to confirm disease signs by comparing their instrumental results with established standards based on external observation. 79 Audrey B. Davis, Medicine and its Technology (Greenwood Press: 1981).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only Standardizing the Stethoscope In addition to the standards developed for diagnosing disease, standards were required for calibrating each instrument so that it would provide comparable information for each patient to which it was applied and to determine the conditions under which it was accurate. Instruments of precision required constant evaluation to maintain their calibration and correctly interpret the data presented, although the procedures for doing so were tedious and difficult…. Stethoscopes were not calibrated and remained the most personalized of medical instruments. Physicians learned to interpret specific sounds with their own stethoscopes, which they usually carried with them. Sounds differed according to the type of material from which the stethoscope was constructed and the design of the instrument. Charts for recording data, combined with stylized diagrams, assisted the physician in organizing the information gathered with stethoscopes and other instruments that did not provide clear-cut numerically based data. Tables of standards were constructed for consultation as a guide to the interpretation of the data obtained with an instrument. The three forms of standardization that grew out of the use of medical instruments – health, disease, and instrument standards – introduced a degree of precision into medical practice that changed the economic, social, and personal aspects of medicine. Health and disease were described in greater detail h ramifications for everyone. However, the comparative element introduced into an instrument-standardized medicine led to a decreased emphasis on the uniqueness of the individual treated for disease. The special procedures required time and careful application, which could distract the physician from listening to and observing his patient for other reasons. Medicine in a technological era adopted technical aids in various guises for various purposes. These long- and short- terms uses included diagnosis, therapy, experimentation, and via publications, films, museums, education of laymen concerning health and disease. The physician’s attitude toward disease and patients was altered by the use of technology in both expected and less obvious ways. Directly related changes included the use of instruments on the body in the physician's office, in the clinic, and in the hospital to measure functions and structures for diagnostic and prognostic purposes. This change in technique of coping with disease led to the segregation of a minimal body part to be elected for study and possible treatment. Fortified with special tools, the physician met this intellectual challenge by centering all of his or her attention on one organ or system and turning over the study and care of other organs and systems to other physicians. The view that treating detailed structures of the body provided the optimal chances of success in helping a patient prevent or resist disease eventually prevailed in medical circles. Medical specialists practicing medical specialties followed upon the introduction of instruments that made possible this type of medical practice. Without particular instruments, it is unlikely that specialism would have appealed to the physician or even have been feasible. 80 Audrey B. Davis, Medicine and its Technology (Greenwood Press: 1981).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only From Art to Science The types of specialties regular physicians learned to practice grew directly out of the instruments invented to diagnose and treat disease invading different parts of the body. The transformation of medical diagnosis from a technique based on a personal interview and visual inspection of the body into a process centered on direct observation with the aid of instruments, machines, devices, and so on was accompanied by some doubt on the part of the medical profession. Although physicians developed a special technology, they did not adopt all of the customs and practices associated with other technologies. One practice physicians condemned was applying for a patent on an instrument invented by a doctor. The medical profession almost unanimously frowned on physicians and surgeons who sought patents for instruments and devices they had invented. The American Code of Medical Ethics included a provision against owning a medical patent…. An occasional inventor would try to raise the conscience of he profession by pointing out how unfair it was to the physician- inventor if he could not patent his invention, especially in a society where all other inventors were given this privilege. 81 Audrey B. Davis, Medicine and its Technology (Greenwood Press: 1981).

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 82 Appendix: The Nature of Technology W. Brian Arthur (Free Press: 2009)

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only A Theory of Technology I said at the outset the purpose of this book was to create a theory of technology—”a coherent group of general propositions”—that gives us a framework for understanding what technology is and how it works in the world. Theories start with general propositions or principles, and we started with three: 1.that all technologies are combinations of elements; 2.that these elements themselves are technologies; and 3.that all technologies use phenomena to some purpose. This third principle in particular told us that in its essence, technology is a programming of nature. It is a capturing of phenomena and a harnessing of these to human purposes. An individual technology “programs” many phenomena; it orchestrates these to achieve a particular purpose. Once new technologies, individual ones, exist they become potential building blocks for the construction of further new technologies, The result is a form of evolution, combinatorial evolution, whose base mechanism differs from the standard Darwinian one. Novel technologies are created out of building blocks that are themselves technologies, and become potential building blocks for the construction of further new technologies. Feeding this evolution is the progressive capturing and harnessing of novel phenomena, but this requires existing technologies both for the capturing and the harnessing. From these last two statements we can say that technology creates itself out of itself. In this way the collection of mechanical arts that are available to a culture bootstraps itself upward from few building- block elements to many, and from simple elements to more complicated ones. 83

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only New Species of Technology New “species” in technology arise by linking some need with some effect (or effects) that can fulfill it. This linking is a process, a lengthy one of envisioning a concept—the idea of a set of effects in action—and finding a combination of components and assemblies that will make he concept possible. The process is recursive. Getting a concept to work brings up problems, and the potential solution of these brings up further subproblems. The process goes back and forth between problems and solutions at different levels before it is complete. Combination, putting together suitable parts and functionalities mentally or physically to form a solution, is at the heart of this. But it is not the only force driving technology’s evolution. The other one is need, the demand for novel ways of doing things. And needs themselves derive more from technology itself than directly from human wants; they derive in the main from limitations encountered and problems engendered by technologies themselves. These be solved by still further technologies, so that with technology need follows solution as much as solution follows need. Combinatorial evolution is every bit as much about the buildout of needs as about solutions to these. The result is a constant roiling at all levels. At all levels new combinations appear, new technologies are added, and old ones disappear. In this way technology constantly explores into the unknown, constantly creates further solutions and further needs, and along with this, perpetual novelty. 84

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only Our Attitudes to Technology The economy directs and mediates all this. It signals needs, tests ideas for commercial viability, and provides demands for new versions of technologies. But it is not a simple receptor of technology, not a machine that receives upgrades to its parts every so often. The economy is an expression of its technologies. Its skeletal structure consists in a mutually supporting set of arrangements—businesses, means of production, institutions, and organizations—that are themselves technologies in the broad sense. Around these the activities and actions of commerce tae place. These “arrangements” are opportunities for further “arrangements,” and the sequence by which they follow one another constitutes structural change in the economy The resulting economy inherits all the qualities of its technologies. It too, on a long- term scale, seethes with change. And like technology, it is open, history-dependent, hierarchical, indeterminate. And ever changing. The economy, in a word, is becoming generative. Its focus is shifting from optimizing fixed operations into creating new combinations, new configurable offerings. We are changing then in how we view the world through technology. But what about technology itself? How do we see it? Where do we stand with this creation of ours? Two views, that technology is a thing directing our lives, and simultaneously a thing blessedly serving our lives, are simultaneously valid. But together they cause an unease, an ongoing tension, that plays out in our attitudes to technology and in the politics that surround it. 85

Confidential – For Classroom Use Only 1 A Brief History of Technological Change and Development.

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