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An Encyclopedia of the History of Technology part 3

An Encyclopedia of the History of Technology part 3. This one of a kind encyclopedia presents the entire field of technology from rudimentary agricultural tools to communication satellites in this first of its kind reference source. Following an introduction that discusses basic tools, devices, and mechanisms, the chapters are grouped into five parts that provide detailed information on materials, power and engineering, transportation, communication and calculation, and technology and society, revealing how different technologies have together evolved to produce enormous changes in the course of history | INTRODUCTION is almost impossible to imagine a citizen of an English-speaking country being in a state of total ignorance of William the Conqueror of Henry VIII and his six wives of Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington of Lord Nelson of Abraham Lincoln and Gettysburg of Kaiser Wilhelm of Adolf Hitler and Auschwitz. These are the very stuff and characters that make up the pages of conventional history. Yet there are also Johann Gensfleisch zum Gutenberg Leonardo da Vinci McAdam and Telford the Stephensons and the Brunels Edison and Parsons Newcomen and Watt Daimler Benz and Ford Barnes Wallis Whittle von Braun Cockcroft Shockley Turing and von Neumann and many others. It is interesting to consider which group had the greater influence on the lives of their contemporaries. Even more which group has had the more long-lasting influence on the man in the street of later generations. It is a matter of regret that space does not allow us in the present volume to deal in a biographical manner with these and the many other inventors involved but only with their works. To do so would require a whole shelf of books rather than just a single volume. We might well question the value of studying the history of technology. One answer is much the same as that for history as a whole. By studying the past one should with wisdom be able to observe its successes while perceiving its mistakes. Study the past if you would divine the future Confucius is said to have written some 2500 years ago and even if this is an apocryphal quotation the precept holds good. In fact it seems self-evident that in the normal course of events in the process of invention or of engineering design the inventor or designer starts his quest with a good look at the present and the past. Inventors though not necessarily ill-natured tend to be dissatisfied with things around them. The endeavour to invent arises when their dissatisfaction becomes focused on a single aspect of existing technology. Typically the .