Evolution of Technology
3.3 million years ago: The first tools
Australopithecus
Sharp flakes of stone used as knives and larger unshaped stones used as hammers and anvils have been uncovered at Lake Turkana in Kenya. The tools were made 3.3 million years ago and thus were likely used by an ancestor such as Australopithecus.
Fire
1 milion years ago: Fire
When humanity first used fire is still not definitively known, but, like the first tools, it was probably invented by an ancestor of Homo sapiens. Evidence of burnt material can be found in caves used by Homo erectus beginning about 1 million (and maybe even 1.5 million) years ago.
Neolithic Revolution
20,000 to 15,000 years ago: Neolithic Revolution
During the Neolithic Period several key technologies arose together. Humans moved from getting their food by foraging to getting it through agriculture. People came together in larger groups. Clay was used for pottery and bricks. Clothing began to be made of woven fabrics. The wheel was also likely invented at this time.
Evolution of Technology
6000 BCE: Irrigation
Irrigation
The first irrigation systems arose roughly simultaneously in the civilizations of the Tigris-Euphrates river valley in Mesopotamia and the Nile River valley in Egypt. Since irrigation requires an extensive amount of work, it shows a high level of social organization.
Sailing Ship
4000 BCE: Sailing
The first sailing ships were used on the Nile River. Since the Nile does not allow as much space for free sailing as the ocean, these ships also had oars for navigation.
The multiple ramparts at Maiden Castle, an Iron Age hill fort in Dorset, England.
1200 BCE: Iron
The production of iron became widespread as that metal supplanted bronze. Iron was much more abundant than copper and tin, the two metals that make up bronze, and thus put metal tools into more hands than ever before.
Evolution of Technology
Powder horn and Gunpowder
850 CE: Gunpowder
Alchemists in China invented gunpowder as a result of their search for life-extending elixirs. It was used to propel rockets attached to arrows. The knowledge of gunpowder spread to Europe in the 13th century.
Windmill
950: Windmill
The first windmills were in Persia. They were horizontal windmills in which the blades were set on a vertical shaft. Later, European windmills were of the vertical type. It has been speculated that the windmill may have been invented independently in Persia and in Europe.
Compass
1044: Compass
The first definitive mention of a magnetic compass dates from a Chinese book finished in 1044. It describes how soldiers found their way by using a fish-shaped piece of magnetized iron floating in a bowl of water when the sky was too cloudy to see the stars.
Evolution of Technology
Mechanical Clock
1250–1300: Mechanical clock
Hourglass and water clocks had been around for centuries, but the first mechanical clocks began to appear in Europe toward the end of the 13th century and were used in cathedrals to mark the time when services would be held.
Steam Engine
1765: Steam engine
James Watt improved the Newcomen steam engine by adding a condenser that turned the steam back into liquid water.
Steamboat
1807: Steamboat
Robert Fulton put the steam engine on water. His steamboat that was eventually called the Clermont took 32 hours to go up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany. Sailing ships took four days.
Evolution of Technology
1844: Telegraph
Optical Telegraph
Samuel Morse was a successful painter who became interested in the possibility of an electric telegraph in the 1830s.
Telephone
1876: Telephone
Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call, on March 10, 1876, when he asked his assistant Tom Watson
¡Lorem ipsum!
1927: Television
Early television used a mechanical disk to scan an image. As a teenager in Utah, Philo T. Farnsworth became convinced that a mechanical system would not be able to scan and assemble images multiple times a second.
Evolution of Technology
1937: Computer
Computer
Iowa State mathematician and physicist John Atanasoff designed the first electronic digital computer. It would use binary numbers (base 2, in which all numbers are expressed with the digits 0 and 1), and its data would be stored in capacitors.
Transistor
1947: Transistor
On December 23 Bell Labs engineers John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley gave the first public demonstration of the transistor, an electrical component that could control, amplify, and generate current.
Astronaut outside the International Space Station
1957: Spaceflight
The Soviet Union surprised the world on October 4, when it launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, a small 83.6-kg (184.3-pound) metal sphere.
Evolution of Technology
1974: Internet
Internet
Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn produced the TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), which describes how data can be broken down into smaller pieces called packets and how these packets can be transmitted to the right destination.
CRISPR-Cas9; gene editing
2012: CRISPR
American biochemist Jennifer Doudna and French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier developed CRISPR-Cas9, a method for editing genes—that is, making changes to DNA sequences.
Artificial intelligence
2017: Artificial intelligence
The team behind the AlphaGo artificial intelligence program announced that it had become the world’s best go player. Go is a game with very simple rules but many possible positions.
Evolution of Technology
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Created on February 2, 2021
Evolution of Technology
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Transcript
Evolution of Technology
3.3 million years ago: The first tools
Australopithecus
Sharp flakes of stone used as knives and larger unshaped stones used as hammers and anvils have been uncovered at Lake Turkana in Kenya. The tools were made 3.3 million years ago and thus were likely used by an ancestor such as Australopithecus.
Fire
1 milion years ago: Fire
When humanity first used fire is still not definitively known, but, like the first tools, it was probably invented by an ancestor of Homo sapiens. Evidence of burnt material can be found in caves used by Homo erectus beginning about 1 million (and maybe even 1.5 million) years ago.
Neolithic Revolution
20,000 to 15,000 years ago: Neolithic Revolution
During the Neolithic Period several key technologies arose together. Humans moved from getting their food by foraging to getting it through agriculture. People came together in larger groups. Clay was used for pottery and bricks. Clothing began to be made of woven fabrics. The wheel was also likely invented at this time.
Evolution of Technology
6000 BCE: Irrigation
Irrigation
The first irrigation systems arose roughly simultaneously in the civilizations of the Tigris-Euphrates river valley in Mesopotamia and the Nile River valley in Egypt. Since irrigation requires an extensive amount of work, it shows a high level of social organization.
Sailing Ship
4000 BCE: Sailing
The first sailing ships were used on the Nile River. Since the Nile does not allow as much space for free sailing as the ocean, these ships also had oars for navigation.
The multiple ramparts at Maiden Castle, an Iron Age hill fort in Dorset, England.
1200 BCE: Iron
The production of iron became widespread as that metal supplanted bronze. Iron was much more abundant than copper and tin, the two metals that make up bronze, and thus put metal tools into more hands than ever before.
Evolution of Technology
Powder horn and Gunpowder
850 CE: Gunpowder
Alchemists in China invented gunpowder as a result of their search for life-extending elixirs. It was used to propel rockets attached to arrows. The knowledge of gunpowder spread to Europe in the 13th century.
Windmill
950: Windmill
The first windmills were in Persia. They were horizontal windmills in which the blades were set on a vertical shaft. Later, European windmills were of the vertical type. It has been speculated that the windmill may have been invented independently in Persia and in Europe.
Compass
1044: Compass
The first definitive mention of a magnetic compass dates from a Chinese book finished in 1044. It describes how soldiers found their way by using a fish-shaped piece of magnetized iron floating in a bowl of water when the sky was too cloudy to see the stars.
Evolution of Technology
Mechanical Clock
1250–1300: Mechanical clock
Hourglass and water clocks had been around for centuries, but the first mechanical clocks began to appear in Europe toward the end of the 13th century and were used in cathedrals to mark the time when services would be held.
Steam Engine
1765: Steam engine
James Watt improved the Newcomen steam engine by adding a condenser that turned the steam back into liquid water.
Steamboat
1807: Steamboat
Robert Fulton put the steam engine on water. His steamboat that was eventually called the Clermont took 32 hours to go up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany. Sailing ships took four days.
Evolution of Technology
1844: Telegraph
Optical Telegraph
Samuel Morse was a successful painter who became interested in the possibility of an electric telegraph in the 1830s.
Telephone
1876: Telephone
Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call, on March 10, 1876, when he asked his assistant Tom Watson
¡Lorem ipsum!
1927: Television
Early television used a mechanical disk to scan an image. As a teenager in Utah, Philo T. Farnsworth became convinced that a mechanical system would not be able to scan and assemble images multiple times a second.
Evolution of Technology
1937: Computer
Computer
Iowa State mathematician and physicist John Atanasoff designed the first electronic digital computer. It would use binary numbers (base 2, in which all numbers are expressed with the digits 0 and 1), and its data would be stored in capacitors.
Transistor
1947: Transistor
On December 23 Bell Labs engineers John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley gave the first public demonstration of the transistor, an electrical component that could control, amplify, and generate current.
Astronaut outside the International Space Station
1957: Spaceflight
The Soviet Union surprised the world on October 4, when it launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, a small 83.6-kg (184.3-pound) metal sphere.
Evolution of Technology
1974: Internet
Internet
Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn produced the TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), which describes how data can be broken down into smaller pieces called packets and how these packets can be transmitted to the right destination.
CRISPR-Cas9; gene editing
2012: CRISPR
American biochemist Jennifer Doudna and French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier developed CRISPR-Cas9, a method for editing genes—that is, making changes to DNA sequences.
Artificial intelligence
2017: Artificial intelligence
The team behind the AlphaGo artificial intelligence program announced that it had become the world’s best go player. Go is a game with very simple rules but many possible positions.