A steam turbine with the case opened, an example of energy technology
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Outline of technology
Outline of prehistoric technology
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Technology is the application of conceptual knowledge for achieving practical goals, especially in a reproducible way.[1] The word technology can also mean the products resulting from such efforts,[2][3] including both tangible tools such as utensils or machines, and intangible ones such as software. Technology plays a critical role in science, engineering, and everyday life.
Technological advancements have led to significant changes in society. The earliest known technology is the stone tool, used during prehistoric times, followed by the control of fire, which contributed to the growth of the human brain and the development of language during the Ice Age. The invention of the wheel in the Bronze Age allowed greater travel and the creation of more complex machines. More recent technological inventions, including the printing press, telephone, and the Internet, have lowered barriers to communication and ushered in the knowledge economy.
While technology contributes to economic development and improves human prosperity, it can also have negative impacts like pollution and resource depletion, and can cause social harms like technological unemployment resulting from automation. As a result, there are ongoing philosophical and political debates about the role and use of technology, the ethics of technology, and ways to mitigate its downsides.
^Skolnikoff, Eugene B. (1993). "The Setting". The Elusive Transformation: Science, Technology, and the Evolution of International Politics. Princeton University Press. p. 13. ISBN 0-691-08631-1. JSTOR j.ctt7rpm1. LCCN 92022141. OCLC 26128186. I find the most useful conceptual definition for this study to be that given by Harvey Brooks, who has defined technology ... as 'knowledge of how to fulfill certain human purposes in a specifiable and reproducible way.'
^Salomon 1984, pp. 117–118: "The first pole, that of the naturalisation of a new discipline within the university curriculum, was presented by Christian Wolff in 1728, in Chapter III of the "Preliminary discourse" to his Philosophia rationalisis sive Logica: 'Technology is the science of skills and works of skill, or, if one prefers, the science of things made by man's labour, chiefly through the use of his hands.'"
^Mitcham, Carl (1994). Thinking Through Technology: The Path Between Engineering and Philosophy. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-53196-1. LCCN 93044581. OCLC 29518988.
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