Slashdot Mirror
Technologies That Shaped the Last Century?
ChrisGB writes "I was watching a TV discussion in the UK this morning about people's views of what technologies have shaped the way the 20th century developed. Suggestions from the panel included atomic theory, the microprocessor and genetics. Most interesting were the reasons they made their choices. What are other people's choices for the most important technologies of the 1900s and your reasons for choosing them?" I think that the large push in communications technology in the last century were critical in getting us things we've come to depend on today...from the TV to Slashdot. What technologies developed in the last century do you think are important?
Only two of these were invented in the 1900's - the other two are holdovers form the 19th century that weren't widely adopted until the 20th.
1: The Telephone. I know the telephone was actually invented earlier (in fact, Bell gave his first public demo here in my town, in what is today a chi-chi restaurant), but it was in this century that telephones became ubiquitous. Automated switching was the other breakthrough that made telephones something everyone had and used. Telephones changed the nature of business by allowing practical real-time communications.
2: The automobile. Again, the first cars were introduced in the late 1800's, but they didn't become widely adopted until the Model T. The automobile made much of today's mobile society possible, by no longer requiring people to live close to their work. This helped make white-collar work more viable (by enabling companies to attract workers from a wider area) and this change directly helped create our modern economy. In the 19th century, most workers were engaged in the direct, hands-on work of making things, rather than services. White collar workers were relatively small in number. The automobile also made the suburb possible, and now most people in this country live in them.
3: The airplane: Aircraft made simple, high-speed travel between continents and within larger nations (like this one) practical for the first time. It also revolutionized the freight industry.
4: The transistor. Duh.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Steam engine
Electricity
Telegraph
Telephone
Cotton gin
Bessamer (sp?) process for steel
Camera
Safety bicycle
--
Infuriate left and right
Firstly, Tesla developed his AC generating system at the beginning of his career, BEFORE he did his work on broadcast power, so saying they picked AC over broadcast ower is simply untrue. At the time, the choice was between AC and DC.
Secondly, the reason many of Tesla's experiments were safe to be around is because he was working with very low voltage (amperage?). The frequency isn't what you have to look out for. Many of Tesla's later experiments used current which was definately powerful enough to be deadly, like the lightning generator he made out in Colorado.
Thirdly, broadcast power DIDN'T WORK. What Tesla ended up inventing was radio, though that's not what he was trying for. It won't EVER work, because the power of the broadcast signal drops off exponentially as the distance from the transmitter increases. Basically, the same energy gets spread over an ever-increasing area. This is why the major radio stations in a city have to have 50,000 watt transmitters in order to send a fairly weak signal out to the suburbs.
Lastly, even if the laws of physics didn't make broadcast power impossible, it would have been economically infeasible precisely because it couldn't be billed for in proportion to its use. Do you think kilowatt-hours grow on trees?
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
You have been decieved by the modern misconception engine. Adopting the current electricity grid and power system that we use today was perhaps one of the biggest -Blunders- ever made. The current system uses very low frequency power, making it extremely dangerous to living beings. It was adopted because it could be metered and distributed at a cost.
Tesla went on to research high-frequency electricity that could be distributed -without- wiring, and most importantly, without risk to living matter. Have you ever seen what fluorescent lights do in a Tesla feild? They glow nicely, now...take the light out of the socket. Wow, it still glows and it isn't even plugged in! Now get this, take an old tube that is burned out and try the same thing...it -still- glows.
Now, try to zap yourself with this electrical source. It isn't going to happen. Why? Because the frequency rate is so high that the current passes directly through your body before the neurons in your system can even react.
Why wasn't this adopted? Because the corporations were afraid of something they could not charge for. They saw BIG bucks in metered power. Having feild generators and house boosters would be impossible to meter. They could only charge a flat rate for the equipment loans at best.
You are right, Edison had it all backwards with DC, but stopping with the current AC implimentation we have today was a huge mistake. All of the lives lost to electricution, all of the power lost because of line waste, all of the light bulbs you have ever bought in your life are just a few of the reasons why this was a -blunder- not a great acheivement.
V
Think where we would be if antibiotics hadn't developed...
Their development has lead to the lengthening of the average human lifespan.
We could even go as far as to speculate whether a few of the great minds of our time would have been killed in childhood by diseases like strep.
The zinc bucket was a revolution ... carrying water in wooden buckets was a pain because the bucket was so heavy !!!
So the answer to your question depends on your point of view (and your age) ....
RFC1925
Look around. it's simple. it's sturdy. it's what a lot of your clothes, parts of your computer, furniture, cars, planes, toys, and a shitlod of other stuff is partially made of. It's polymers. plastics. a very versatile group of compounds that has had a dramatic effect on just about everyone's lives. It may not be THE most shaoing piece of tech, but it's changed the world as we know it.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
To the extent that they facilitate dissemination of the same information to a large body of people, communication technologies have been a homogenizing force. They have brought the same ideas, in the same language, to a larger audience than would have seen them otherwise.
To the extent that they facilitate one-on-one discussion, they have allowed varied interests to endure. What might have been the ideas or hobbies of isolated individuals or groups can be made more widely available.
And to the extent that they have protected communication from ourside observation or censorship, they have encouraged dissenting opinion to flourish. That protects us from tyrany from any source. I have never feared what people of good will would do with power over my communication. I have feared whose hands that power would eventually reside in.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
I found it very perplexing in the last couple of years that people were looking back all the time (top people of our century, top technologies of the last millennium). I assumed this was because of some sort of deep-seated fear of the future, with the momentous occasion of the calendar shift coming up. Now we're actually in the new millennium why don't we look forward?
Use the wisdom of the past by all means (those who do not learn history are condemned to repeat the mistakes...) but let's spend time creating a fair and wonderful future rather than mythologising the past...
it feels like new years eve again... same questions. I think several sites have lists of this :-) Wasn't there such a discussion on Slashdot too.
In my opinion one of the most important ones is the transistor. It allowed an unprecedented miniaturization, with that it was the basis of alot of new technologies and services, like Slashdot.
just my 2 cents.
Use Adsense for Charity
Continental electricity grids are only possible because of transformers to step up the voltage for long distance transmission, and tansformers in turn only work with AC.
Just a comment on this... not all long distance distribution is done with AC. I think the biggest example we have is here in Brazil. OK, it does need AC in some point of the line, but most of the transmission is done with DC.
What happens here is that we have a huge hydroelectrical plant (Itaipu, the biggest in the world AFAIK) that is shared between Brazil and Paraguay. As our neighbours do not use all their energy, Brazil buys it back from them. The problem is that they use 50 Hz, and we use 60. So, what they do?
They could have transformed the AC from 50 to 60 and transmitted it as usual... but after many calculations, they found out it was more cost-effective to transmit this energy in DC (as it is a very long distance line, the added costs of having the conversion stations are covered by the savings you get from using less cables and thus having less maintenance in the transmission lines).
Alright, that doesn't cut the need for AC transformers (within cities, for example), but I think this was worth a comment. =)
--
Marcelo Vanzin
Marcelo Vanzin
In terms of life as a western female, the biggest technological invention of the 20th century was the lightweight electric motor.
At the turn of the century, running a family household required two full-time adults. One to earn the money, the other to perform household tasks. As a child of the sixties, I can remember life without a refridgerator (shopping for fresh poduce daily), using primitive washing machines (wash day was Friday - all day. One adult in attendance at all times) and with no microwave or convenience foods (cooking times measured in hours, from fresh ingredients). we now have a state where one adult plus several devices is required to run a household. This has ontributed to female emancipation, allowing women to follow careers more easily. Since one compelling reason for staying together as a couple has been removed, it has also contributed to divorce, and the break-up of the 'nuclear family' and the increase of single parent families.
The liberating technologies for men have come much later in the century. In the early part of the century, conscription and advancing technology in war meant that men were massacred in millions. The first breakthrough (and some will hate me for this) was the atom bomb. This was a technology that made armies of massed numbers, and the evil , state enslavement of males called conscription, an irrelevance. Smart weapons at the end of the twentieth century mean that conscription is dead, and an army of tens can pack a devastating punch, This will be an influence in the early part of the 21st century. Metal (and silicon) will be better than meat.
Stephen Hawking has written another book. It's about time as well.
In all the analogies to the magic and the mysteries and the amazing and crazy possibilities brought by the net, I'm struck by the most obvious parallel in recent history that's conspicuously but silently been removed from the public consciousness.
Plastics.
C'mon, people. The ability to generate arbitrarily shaped substanced with (seemingly) arbitrary properties changed the shape of *everything*, from medicine to packaging to war.
The net's exciting, but imagine touching something that literally just couldn't have existed.
I find it extraordinarily interesting that nobody compares the historical excitement over plastic products has never been linked to the present Net crazes. Last I checked, of course, the Dow just had the last of the great plastic giants summarily removed in favor of some tech company(Was it Intel?). And you wonder why the Dow is raging...
That might just have something to do with it. Someone who was actually around when plastics were really huge would be really nice to reply right about now.
As for some unlikely but interesting choices...lets go beyond mass communications for a second and look at Instapolling. The effects of immediate, semi(or pseudo) unfiltered feedback has *got* to be powerful. Suddenly "the public" no longer thought whatever major newspapers reported. "The public" now thought what major newspapers asked...and what the party asked...and what the other party asked...and ya know what? Somewhere in that mass was an actual democratically representative opinion.
Representation was invented because the public was considered too unweildy to come to quick decisions. Pollsters have changed that, and it's very likely that much of their influence is utterly invisible--and would make great reading.
Something to think about.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Despite the huge technological leaps and bounds of the past seven millennia, say pollsters, the majority of humankind still use the wheel. Other ten thousand-year-old technologies such as fire and metalworking also show signs of continuing to be popular well into the supposedly technologically enlightened twenty-first century.
"I don't understand at all," said Jim Groznatz, a 20-year-old Silicon Valley multimillionaire. "I mean, we've got the internet, we've got the dotcoms, and people are still using the wheel?" Groznatz suggested that the widespread use of fire may represent "retro chic, perhaps even marketable retro chic."
In Washington, several congressional committees are now studying the disturbing technological backwardness evidenced by the continuing popularity of the wheel. "We need to let newer technologies progress to the front," said Vice President Al Gore. "The wheel is yesterday's technology; we need to look ahead to tomorrow's technology. I'm thinking fiber optics, probably."
In homes and families across America and the world, however, the wheel continues to occupy a central place. "I just put the TV table on castors last night," commented Wisconsen homeowner Jorg Ericcson. "I mean I guess the wheel is thousands of years old and all, but it still seems to work."
Mr. Ericcson may be in for a change, though. Microsoft recently announced the acquisition of Goodyear -- well known manufacturer of wheel accessories -- to produce a "new, user-friendly, proprietary wheel." The new "MS Wheels!" will feature multiple colors, a patented backing-up mechanism, and will be fully integrated into the popular Windows operating system. "We were concerned about 'Wheel piracy' initially," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, "but we re-watched Road Warrior last night and we're working on some sort of technical solution to control our intellectual property."
In the mean time, AOL and Time Warner have united to produce a new "Fire 2000" and Apple is reportedly working on a secret "eBronze" and "Opposable iThumbs" in its research labs. It's going to be an exciting century!
The key invention was the three-phase AC system by Tesla. Edison promoted the alternative DC system, with huge banks of lead-acid batteries at substations. Urgh. Continental electricity grids are only possible because of transformers to step up the voltage for long distance transmission, and transformers in turn only work with AC. If you use AC then the a three phase configuration is the most efficient.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
The contraceptive pill. Which has certainly changed the face of society. Of course us nerds might be expected to overlook that one.
Also on the social side, state funded education for all, and state funded healthcare for all are pretty big, at least on this side of the pond.
Of the previous suggestions though, I certainly have to go with plastics and antibiotics.