Unit 1 - General Concepts in Science, Technology, and Society

Lesson 3: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN

EARLY CIVILIZATIONS AND THE MODERN WORLD

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
At the end of this lesson, the students are expected to:
1. Explain the historical timeline of science and technology
2. Evaluate the development of science and technology during the early
civilization and the modern world
3. Identify inventions and discoveries that changed the course of the
world over the course of history

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN DIFFERENT PERIODS

Science and technology are evident through different periods of time. New
knowledge leads to the creation of new things that help people improve
their everyday living. Science and technological developments have
facilitated human life and made us feel comfortable and enabled us to live
in a modern way of life.
Scientific knowledge allows us to develop new technologies, solve practical
problems, and make informed decisions — both individually and collectively.
Because its products are so useful, the process of science is intertwined
with its applications. New scientific knowledge may lead to new
applications. Studying the history of science allows us to have a glimpse
into both the history of the world and into just how we discovered
everything we know about the world.
We will look into the history of science and
technology thru different periods, namely,
the Ancient Period (3000 BCE -500 CE),
Medieval Period (500 CE – 1500 CE),
Renaissance Period (1500 – 1750), Industrial

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Revolution (17-50 – 1900), 20th Century, and until today, the 21st Century.
ANCIENT PERIOD (3000 BCE – 500 CE)
Ancient history is the aggregate of past events from the beginning of writing
and recorded human history and extending as far as late antiquity. The span
of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian
cuneiform script. Ancient history covers all continents inhabited by humans
in the period 3000 BCE – 500 CE. The three-age system periodizes ancient
history into the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, with recorded
history generally considered to begin with the Bronze Age.
The Stone Age marks a period of prehistory in which humans used primitive
stone tools. Lasting roughly 2.5 million years, the Stone Age ended around
5,000 years ago when humans in the Near East began working with metal
and making tools and weapons
from bronze. The Stone Age
was a broad prehistoric period
during which stone was widely
used to make tools with an
edge, a point, or a percussion
surface. The technique of
fixing the stone head to a haft
converted these hand tools
into more versatile tools and
weapons. Other substances
were brought into service, such as clay for pottery and brick, and increasing
competence in handling textile raw materials led to the creation of the first
woven fabrics to take the place of animal skins. The use of fire was another
basic technique mastered at some unknown time in the Old Stone Age.
The Bronze Age marked the first-time humans started to work with metal.
Bronze tools and weapons soon replaced earlier stone versions. Ancient
Sumerians in the Middle East may have been the first people to enter the
Bronze Age. Humans made many technological advances during the Bronze

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Age, including the first writing systems and the invention of the wheel,
systematic irrigation for food production,
potter’s wheel for spinning clay, including
wine/oil pressing machine. In the Middle East
and parts of Asia, the Bronze Age lasted from
roughly 3300 to 1200 BCE, ending abruptly with
the near-simultaneous collapse of several
prominent Bronze Age civilizations.
The Iron Age was a period in human history that started between 1200 BCE
and 600 BCE, depending on the region, and followed the Stone Age and
Bronze Age. During the Iron Age, people across much of Europe, Asia and
parts of Africa began making tools and weapons from iron and steel. The
use of iron became more widespread after
people learned how to make steel, a much
harder metal, by heating iron with carbon.
Other mechanical contrivances such as the
screw, the pulley, lever, pumps, wind and
hydraulic organs, compressed-air engines, and
screw-cutting machines were introduced during this period. This provided
a starting point for modern mechanical practice with the transition of simple
mechanisms to more complex devices or machines with the introduction of
the treadmill and development of the waterwheel.

MEDIEVAL PERIOD (500 CE – 1500 CE)

The period of European history extending from
about 500 to 1400–1500 CE is traditionally known
as the Middle Ages. The term was first used by
15th-century scholars to designate the period
between their own time and the fall of the Western
Roman Empire. Some of the key inventions of the
period include the windmill, gun powder and silk
working.

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The Western world of 500–1500 was forced to solve most of its problems
on its own initiative and transformed an
agrarian society based upon a subsistence
economy into a dynamic society with increased
productivity sustaining trade, industry, and
town life on a steadily growing scale. Even
more significant was the success of medieval
technology in harnessing water and wind
power.

RENAISSANCE (1500-1750)
The Renaissance marked a period of consciously dynamic, progressive
attitude. Even while they looked back to Classical models, Renaissance men
looked for ways of improving upon them. The
use of the telescope by Galileo to observe the
moons of Jupiter was a dramatic example of
this service, but the telescope was only one of
many tools and instruments that proved
valuable in navigation,
mapmaking, and
laboratory experiments. The more significant
innovation during this period was the theoretical
preparation for the invention of the steam engine.
Also, of particular importance were experiments of
the iron industry in using coal instead of charcoal to
smelt iron ore and to process cast iron into wrought
iron and steel.
Three inventions in particular — the printing press, firearms, and the
nautical compass — were indeed seen as evidence that the Moderns could
not only compete with the Ancients, but had surpassed them, for these three
inventions allowed modern people to communicate, exercise power, and
finally travel at distances unimaginable in earlier times.

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INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (1750-1900)
Industrial revolution describes a period characterized by an extraordinary
quickening in the rate of growth and change. It first occurred in Britain, and
its effects spread only gradually to continental Europe and North America,
and the process was carried further to change radically the socioeconomic
life of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Australasia.
Britain by the early 18th century came to possess the combination of social
needs and social resources that provided
the necessary preconditions of
commercially successful innovation and a
social system capable of sustaining and
institutionalizing the processes of rapid
technological change.
An outstanding feature of the Industrial Revolution has been the advance in
power technology. Steam became the characteristic and ubiquitous power
source of the British Industrial Revolution. Basically, they converted the
engine from a single-acting (i.e., applying power only on the downward
stroke of the piston) atmospheric pumping
machine into a versatile prime mover that
was double-acting and could be applied to
rotary motion, thus driving the wheels of
industry. It was adopted for use in a cotton
mill, large grain milling, and many other
industries. Higher steam pressures were
further introduced, and led to the first
successful steam locomotive, large beam
pumping machines used in the tin and copper mining industries. The steam
turbine was developed and used for generating electricity. Engineers
evolved the most satisfactory forms of armature (the coil of wire) and
produced the dynamo, which made the large-scale generation of electricity
commercially feasible.

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By the end of the 19th century, the internal-combustion engine was
challenging the steam engine in many industrial
and transport applications. Whereas the
pioneers of the steam engine had been almost
all Britons, most of the innovators in internal
combustion were continental Europeans and
Americans.

20th and 21st CENTURIES

Technological leadership passed from Britain and the European nations to
the United States by the 20th century by demonstrating its ability to adopt
new ideas from whatever source they come. The airplane, the rocket and
interplanetary probes, electronics, atomic power, antibiotics, insecticides,
and a host of new materials have all been invented and developed to create
an unparalleled social situation, full of possibilities and dangers, which
would have been virtually unimaginable before the present century.

The 20th century witnessed a colossal expansion of electrical power

generation and distribution, the beginning of the petrochemical industry,
scientific management and the modern studies of industrial administration,
organization and method, and particular managerial techniques.

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Many great inventions have already marked the 21st century, and some of
these have been pivotal compared to
previous centuries. Although we are only 21
years into the new millennium, so much
has happened. A boom in technology has
promoted the development of new
inventions that continue to impact our lives
in many ways. These include social media,
drones, blockchain, electric vehicles,
smartphones, tablets, big data analytics,
internet of things, and a host many more,
changing the way we live today.

References:
Bautista, D.H., Burce, N.S., et al. (2018). Science, Technology and Society.
MaxCor Publishing House Inc.
McNamarra, D.J., Valverde, V.M. & Beleno III, R. (2018). Science, Technology
and Society. C & E Publishing Inc.
Quinto, E.J.M. and Nieva, A. D. (2019). Science, Technology and Society. C &
E Publishing Inc.
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