Historical Account of Science, Technology & Society

Pre-Historic Times

• Paleolithic Age (Old Stone Age, $100{,}000\,\text{B.C.}$): discovery of fire; four stone-tool traditions (pebble, bifacial/hand-axe, flake, blade).
• Neolithic Age ($9000{-}5000\,\text{B.C.}$ ): settled villages; agriculture (cereals, livestock); pottery & early metallurgy; first metal writing tools.
• Bronze Age ($3500{-}2500\,\text{B.C.}$): copper smelting → bronze weapons & tools.
• Impacts: fire → wider diet & habitats; specialized stone/metal tools; agriculture/domestication ended nomadism.

Ancient Times ($3500\,\text{B.C.}{-}1200\,\text{A.D.}$)

• Sumer: cuneiform writing; canals & reservoirs; wheeled vehicle; ox-plow; standardized measures; early medicine ⇒ centralised city-states.
• Babylon: Code of Hammurabi ( $282$ laws); bookkeeping; refined calendar ( $12$ months, $7$-day week); astronomy & irrigation.
• Egypt: hieroglyphics on papyrus; pyramids, canals, mud-brick houses; solar calendar; anatomy, surgery, embalming; cosmetics & trade.
• Persia: uniform coinage; weights & measures; postal roads; common calendar; legal code.
• Greece: four phases – Ionian (Thales: water as primal substance), Athenian (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Democritus-atoms), Hellenistic (heliocentrism, Archimedes’ principle, Euclid’s geometry), Roman phase (Ptolemaic geocentric refinements).
• Rome: roads, aqueducts, concrete architecture (Colosseum, Pantheon); water-pipes, toilets; extensive communications.
• Iron Age ($1500\,\text{B.C.}{-}450\,\text{A.D.}$): low-temp charcoal reduction → wrought iron bars.

Middle Ages ($400{-}1300\,\text{A.D.}$)

• Church dominance; universities (Paris $1160$) rekindled study of science & math.
• Key medieval advances: optics (Alhazen → Dietrich/Freiburg), motion (Buridan, Oresme), zoology (Frederick II).
• Islamic World: Hindu-Arabic numerals; algebra systematised; chemistry, optics (glass lenses); Canon of Medicine, pulmonary circulation (Al-Nafis); gunpowder arrow-gun.
• China: compass, gunpowder, papermaking, printing press; silk, lacquer; iron casting; seismograph; water-mills; acupuncture.
• Indus-Hindu: planned cities, surgery & pharmacology; concept of zero, trigonometry, calculus precursors.

Pre-Columbian Civilizations ($1500\,\text{B.C.}{-}1500\,\text{A.D.}$)

• Maya: positional zero; slash-and-burn farming.
• Aztec: pyramids; fertilized chinampa fields; maize-based cuisine (taco/tortilla).
• Inca: terraced agriculture; chili & avocado cultivation; road network.

Renaissance ($1300{-}1600\,\text{A.D.}$)

• Printing press (Gutenberg $1440$) → mass knowledge diffusion, increased paper demand.
• Engineering sketches by Leonardo (submarine concept); early submarine prototypes (Borne $1578$, Drebbel $1620$).
• Humanism revived classical learning; rapid spread of new ideas in astronomy & anatomy.

Scientific Revolution ($1500{-}1700\,\text{A.D.}$)

• Core ideas: mechanical & corpuscular philosophy; experimental method; reason over religion.
• Major figures: Copernicus (heliocentric model); Gilbert (geomagnetism, coined "electricity"); Brahe (precise observations); Bacon (empiricism, scientific method); Galileo (kinematics); Kepler ( $3$ planetary laws); Descartes (analytic geometry, rationalism); Hooke (microscopy); Newton ( $3$ laws of motion, gravity).
• Key instruments: microscope (Janssen $1590$), telescope (Lippershey $1608$), pendulum clock (Huygens), wave theory of light.
• Outcome: mathematics + experiment solved ancient problems and opened new domains, setting stage for industrial science.

Industrial Revolution ($1700{-}1930\,\text{A.D.}$)

• Mechanization: shift from handwork → machines; steam engine converted thermal to mechanical work.
• Textile innovations: flying shuttle (Kay), spinning jenny (Hargreaves $1767$), spinning mule (Crompton), cotton gin (Whitney $1793$).
• Metallurgy: puddling furnace (Cort), Bessemer converter, open-hearth (Siemens) → cheap steel.
• Transportation: steam automobile (Cugnot), steamboat (Fitch), locomotive "Puffing Billy" (Hedley), macadamized roads.
• Communication: electric telegraph (Morse), radio (Marconi).
• Energy shift: coal → oil; chemical industry & synthetic products.
• Factory system: division of labour; rise of capitalist management; harsh urban working conditions; growth of middle class & labour unions.
• Global impact: imperial expansion spread industrial tech; uneven geographic & social distribution of wealth.