Category Archives: Technology
17. Reflections on Technology: Jolts to Traditional Values
One may legitimately ask how technology could be blamed for some of the social problems mentioned above. In answer, we may first point out to the correlation between the advent of a complex technological society on the one hand and the recorded increase in the number of cases of social problems on the other. One …
16. Reflections on Technology: Social Problems
I noted that the problem of spending leisure time could become very serious when technology disengages our attention and energies from exertions for the satisfaction of our basic needs. If healthy and appropriate alternative channels are not taken advantage of, other kinds of difficulties might arise. Whether this is a major factor contributing to social …
15. Reflections on Technology: Electricity at Home
In its first phase, the impact of the Industrial Revolution was only through its manufactured goods. Whether it was paper or cloth, the locomotive or the telegraph, it was only the final product of technology that the layman witnessed. No new process was introduced into the home. In 1888 something of enormous significance happened. A …
13. Reflections on Technology: Scholarship and technology
Technology has had an enormous impact on human civilization. It has revolutionized human life styles in innumerable ways. In particular, changes of great moment have occurred in human history in the past century or so. Some of the major technological additions to society and to civilization were unheard of and undreamt of just two or …
12. Reflections of Technology: Aesthetic Aspects
It is said that when the Eiffel Tower was built in Paris the great French writer Guy de Maupassant was so shocked by its ugly presence in the beautiful French capital that he left the city in disgust. Since then, however, millions of people, both of more and less refined tastes, have come to Paris …
11. Reflections on Technology: Interactions between Science and Technology
Scientific knowledge gave a significant boost to the Industrial Revolution in the course of the l9th century. Of no less significance is the contribution of technology to science. Indeed, science would not be at the highly sophisticated level at which it is today without the enormous support it has received and continues to receive from …
10. Reflections on Technology: Energy Sources
There are essentially four kinds of energy sources: (a) Cyclic sources: Some of our energy sources, though they are being used up, are also being continually re-formed. The most important example of this is food energy. Although it is being consumed regularly and ceaselessly, food is also being formed at the same time by the …
9. Reflections on Technology: Energy Aspects
Much of technology consists in getting things done for us without our having to exert much towards the attainment of the goals. We exploit the laws of nature in ways that make non-human entities do the work for us. Work implies the expenditure of energy. Hence the importance of understanding the nature and principles of …
8. Reflections on Technology: Phases in Technological Evolution
Technological changes are taking place at a very rapid pace. What prompts such changes? Why is it that, even when many people speak out eloquently and point out clearly that many of these changes are wrought with dangerous consequences, societies continue to develop all kinds of technologies? Although there are no simple answers to these …
7. Reflections on Technology: R&D and Productivity
In the field of science once a problem has been solved, one goes on to a new problem, unless some unexpected difficulty arises in the context of the first. Thus, for example, when the motions of planets were adequately explained in terms of gravitation, one was quite happy with the solution, until some problems arose …
