The document discusses the profound changes in technology and society during the 20th century, highlighting the shift from craft-based individual work to highly specialized and professional technological activities. It emphasizes the evolution of technology into a science in its own right, marked by systematic research and innovation, particularly catalyzed by World War I. The impact of technology on social institutions and the environment is also examined, noting the dependency on modern technology and the paradox of technological advancement creating new challenges for humanity.

1. Science, Technology, & Society
in the
20th Century

2. Technology and Society in the 20th Century

3. Technology is central in war and peace.
The changes in change in structure, methods,
and scope led to an increased production of
technology.
There is remake in man’s way of life all over the
globe.

4.  There are three separate aspects:
1. Structural Changes
 the professionalization, specialization, and
institutionalization of technological work
2. Changes in Methods
 the new relationship between technology and science
3. The “Systems Approach”

5. The Structure of Technological Work

6. Technological
activity (19th
century) is craft.
This is done by
individuals alone
and without much
formal education.
By the 20th century, the
technological activity has
become highly
specialized and
thoroughly professional.

7.  The 19th century:
A. Formal Education
 Typical inventor: a mechanic starting at age 14 years old or below
 Notable people consider themselves as mechanics and inventors

8. B. Technology–University Buildings
Universities
a. Ecole Polytechnique
b. California Institute of Technology
 People
a. Henry Ford
b. Wright Brothers

9. Technically educated man with the college degree
began to assume leadership about the time of
World War I.
Technological work since 1940, as primarily been
done by men who were educated in universities
and degrees eventually became prerequisites for
technological work.

10.  Charles Franklin Kettering:
inventive genius of General
Motors
 Electric self-starter
(automobiles)
 Non-toxic freezing
compound (refrigeration)
 Tetra-ethyl lead (high-
performance automobile
and aircraft engine)

11.  Specialists in Invention
 Thomas Edison  Werner von Siemens

12.  Justus von Liebig  George Westinghouse

13.  Emile Berliner  Edwin H. Land

14.  Laboratories
A. Size of a laboratory has no relation to its research and its results; it
needs:
 exclusive interest in research, discovery, and innovation
 brings together men from a wide area of disciplines
 embodies a new methodology of technological work squarely
based on the systematic application of science to technology
B. Strength of laboratories: “specialist” and “generalist”

15.  What distinguishes today's research laboratory from any
predecessor is, first, its exclusive interest in research,
discovery, and innovation.
 Secondly, the research laboratory brings together men from a
wide area of disciplines,
each contributing his specialized knowledge.
 Finally, the research laboratory embodies a new
methodology of technological work squarely based on the
systematic application of science to technology.

16. The Methods of Technological Work

17.  Technology has become science-based. Its method is now
"systematic research." And what was formerly "invention" is
"innovation" today.
 It was World War I that brought about the change.
Technology has become in this century somewhat of a
"science" in its own right. It has become "research"—a
separate discipline having its own specific methods.
 Technologists followed the work of scientists, therefore
electrical technology has been closely related to the physical
science of electricity.

18.  Alexander Graham Bell on
telephone
 Hermann von Helmholtz
on the reproduction of
sound

19.  Guglielmo Marconi on
radio
 James C. Maxwell on
electromagnetic-wave
propagation theory

20.  World War I, scientists were mobilized for war effort:
science’ power to spark technological ideas and to
indicate technological solutions and technological
problems

21.  Technology is NOT, then, ‘the application of science
to products and processes,’ as is often asserted.”
 “Know-how” of technologists > “know-what of
scientists”
 Science as the basis and starting point of today’s
technology
 Technology has become a science in its own right; a
separate discipline

22. “Invention” = “flash of insight”

23. Technological "research" has not only a
different methodology from "invention"; it leads to
a different approach, known as "innovation," or
the purposeful and deliberate attempt to bring
about, through technological means, a distinct
change in the way man lives and in his
environment.

24.  Research method
 Research team
 Other elements of research discipline
1. A definition of the need
2. A clear goal
3. Identification of the major steps to be taken and the
major pieces of work that had to be done
4. Constant "feedback" from the results of the work on the
plan
5. Organization of the work so that each major segment is
assigned to a specific work team

25. Scientific "discovery" has always been measured
by what it adds to our understanding of natural
phenomena. The test of invention is, however,
technical--what new capacity it gives us to do a
specific task. But the test of innovation is its
impact on the way people live.

26.  First major innovation: mass production of Model T
automobile by Henry Ford

27. Innovation defined:
“a technical solution to the economic problem of
how to produce the largest number of finished
products with the greatest reliability of quality at
the lowest possible cost.”

28. The Systems Approach

29. Mass production exemplifies, too, a new
dimension that has been added to
technology in this century: the systems
approach.

30. The Pre-Technological Civilization of
1990

31. Only Japan, of the non-European, non-western
countries, had then begun to build up a
modern industry and modern technology.

32. It was, indeed, almost an axiom--for
Westerner and non-Westerner alike--that
modern technology was, for better or worse,
the birthright of the white man.

33. Technology, as a creature of man, is a
problematical, as ambivalent, and as capable
of good or evil, as is its creator.

34. Technology Remakes Social Institutions

35. Emancipation of Women

36. Changes in the Organization of Work

37. The Role of Education

38. Change in Warfare

39. A Worldwide Technological Civilization

40. Man–Moves into a Man–Made Environment

41. Only sixty years ago, men depended on nature
and were primarily threatened by natural
catastrophes, storms, floods or earthquakes. Men
today depend on technology, and our major
threats are technological breakdowns. The largest
cities in the world would become uninhabitable
in forty-eight hours were the water supply or
the sewerage systems to give out.

42. Modern Technology and the Human Horizon

43. News, data, information, and pictures
have become even more mobile than
people. They travel in "real time", that
is, they arrive at virtually the same time
as they happen.

44. Technology and Man

45. The metropolis has become the
habitat of modern man. Yet
paradoxically we do not know how
to make it habitable.

46. In the final analysis this surely means
mastery by man over himself, for if
anyone is to blame, it is not the tool but
the human maker and user. "It is a poor
carpenter who blames his tools"

47. It is also true that "better tools"
demand a better, more highly
skilled, and more careful
"carpenter".