Technology

The role of population growth in driving technical change as in the cases of the neolithic revolution, the mechanical, industrial and atomic advances in tools based on new modes of power.

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Survival refers to the tools used to sustain a living for populations. Such related tool complexes that allow people to grow food, irrigate their fields or transport produce for processing requires a mastery of fire, plants, animals and water.

It was the use of fine technology in the mastery of water and fire that allowed a sort of elaboration of tools that were not essentially necessary for survival, but brought a sort of added set of features that Arnold Pacey, physicist and historian of tools, has called "fine technology" because it required a precision use of devices to achieve even an entertaining effect. In the case of fountains, the artifice incorporated a functional blend of useful tools and beautiful results.

survival versus fine technology:

Brief description

mechanized versus automated technology:

Brief description

technical change

Vast changes caused by the development of technology begin to accumulate and when orchestrated they have impacts far beyond even the combined influences of two or more forms of motive power cause changes in the layout of buildings or the dispersal of the population.

One way to think about the relation of new tools development to population is that technology allows the production of wealth that can sustain a larger population. As the population grows new tools are invented or more widely dispersed and the population grows further.

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The step progression of population and technical change.

	past						present
						modern	6 billion
					early modern	half billion
				medieval	100 million
			ancient	10 million
		neolithic	1 million
eras	paleolithic	100,000
	10,000
date	20,000 ya	10,000 ya	200 BC	1300 AD	1700 AD	1850 AD	2000 AD

As these populations grew in both size and density they became accustomed to an array of technological devices that sustain the food production, water delivery systems and transportation networks that enabled cities to service the rising populations.

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Three periods of technical changes induced by new means of motive power for tools and devices.

technological periods	paleotechnic	eotechnic	neotechnic
eras	ancient	medieval	early modern
population	1 million	10 million	100 million
power sources	water	wind	steam

Lewis Mumford, historian of tools and urbanization, divided the immediate past into technological periods and their effect on urban populations with respect to the motive power that was used primarily in each era from water mills, to wind mills, and the perfection of the steam engine.

Cities began with the neolithic, when the domestication of plants and animals allowed for concentrations of sedentary populations in villages and towns. The process of moving from paleolithic to the present exploitation of tools gives the false impression of progress, but the population presses against the means of feeding, housing and clothing ever greater numbers.

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Ages, materials & sources of motive power altered tool complexes:

paleolithic changes rested on the domestication of fire (survival)

neolithic changes depended on the domestication of animals & plants.

ancient technology rested on the control of water. (fine)

medieval technology added wind to water mastery. (survival and fine)

early modern society used steam from water to master machinery. (fine)

modern society has added electricity to steam engines and the mastery of wind and water in automated systems or networks of power. (fine)

What appears to be an advance in any era or at any stage from survival to fine techniques are really two sided swords that bring with every advantage a price that may have to be paid because greater numbers of people are supported by every technical development, unless the intelligence to maintain the tool complexes is widely disseminated, the tools can fall into disuse and techniques become forgotten.

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Three facets of technology and tools

"The important thing is to not stop questioning, curiosity has its own reason for existing."

A. Einstein

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	Tools are historical building blocks of technology.
Technology can be understood if tools have three facets.
Tools used in both Music and Architecture led to mechanization and automation.
Tools and the study of technology require us to reflect on the power of instruments,

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