What Is Technology?

By Alan

This column tends towards talking about new technology, and as a result, tends to concentrate on computer, internet, or websites. But, what really is considered to be Technology?

One of the preeminent Internet personalities Leo Laporte has a weekend radio show called “The Tech Guy” that he broadcasts from his cottage in Petaluma, California. He opens his show with a definition of “Let's talk technology: computers, TVs, cellphones, anything with a chip in it.” But, he agrees that technology is much more than that. There's materials science, there's biotech (which may soon redefine what a “chip” is); there's optics, applied thermodynamics, nanotechnology and micromachines. Find the silicon chips in those things.

Leo once heard a statement that perhaps “technology is anything that was invented after you were born.” That's probably one of the better defnitions.

Strictly speaking, the definition of Technology is anything that uses advanced science applied to life. But, does that mean that old technology isn't technology anymore?

We probably would look at blacksmith tools, and figure they were old tech. Sure, iron work was around since the end of the Bronze Age, but blacksmiths making horseshoes worked with soft iron, and didn't really use nailed horseshoes until 600AD or so. The Middle Ages in Europe were shaped by cavalry that had nailed horseshoes. It changed all of history.

But, technology advances in the 1500s brought about the ability to not just make iron supple, but to actually make it liquid. Poof! The invention of Cast Iron, which is still the backbone of many hard material uses. [Okay, “Poof” probably describes a span of a century or so of refining the process, but the technology still advanced daily human life.] The same tech that helped melt (not just soften) iron and burned coal in furnaces also fueled the steam engines, and the industrial revolution began. Is a steam engine still useful technology today? You better believe it!

The concepts are not only still useful, but Steam is essential to current modern everyday life. Nearly all power plants (Nuclear, coal, even geo-thermal) use steam turbines for energy generation. Old technology? Sure. Outdated? Nope.

There are some people, including Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway two-wheeled personal transporter, who think the Stirling engine is the wave of the future. It was invented almost 200 years ago. High Technology? You betcha. Brand new? Not really.

But, is technology just about inventions? Is it reasonable to say that technology is about research, or design, or processes, or physical objects? Certainly so.

So, the next time someone says, wow, that's pretty cool technology, you can show them a horseshoe, and say, “Yep, it can change the world.”