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Record Nr. |
UNISA996466753703316 |
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Autore |
Ayres Robert U. |
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Titolo |
The history and future of technology : can technology save humanity from extinction? / / Robert U. Ayres |
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Pubbl/distr/stampa |
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Cham, Switzerland : , : Springer, , [2021] |
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©2021 |
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ISBN |
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Descrizione fisica |
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1 online resource (830 pages) |
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Disciplina |
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Soggetti |
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Technology - History |
Technology - Social aspects |
Technology and civilization |
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Lingua di pubblicazione |
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Formato |
Materiale a stampa |
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Livello bibliografico |
Monografia |
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Nota di bibliografia |
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Includes bibliographical references and index. |
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Nota di contenuto |
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Intro -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Part I: Before the Industrial Revolution -- 1: Introduction -- 2: Fire and Water: Technologies Extending Nature -- 2.1 Bipedalism: Down from the Trees -- 2.2 Pottery, Cooking, and Mobility -- 2.3 Keeping the Dark at Bay -- 2.4 Pain, Anesthesia, and Surgery -- 2.5 Water Management and Farming -- 2.6 Agriculture -- 2.7 Extensions of the Legs: Mobility and Transport -- 3: Extensions of the Body -- 3.1 From Skin to Fibers -- 3.2 From Fibers to Fabrics and Clothing -- 3.3 From Caves to Walls to Settlements -- 3.4 From Teeth and Claws to Bows and Arrows -- 3.5 Metallurgy -- 3.6 Firearms and Explosives -- 4: Words and Music -- 4.1 Cave Art -- 4.2 Writing and Stories -- 4.3 Tokens, Numbers, Ideographs, Pictographs, and Cuneiform -- 4.4 Logography: Shift from Visual to Aural -- 4.5 The Alphabet: Segmentation of Sounds -- 4.6 Musical Notation -- 4.7 Musical Instruments -- 4.8 From Numbers to Arithmetic And Algebra -- 5: Printing, Movable Type, and Books -- 5.1 Precursors of Paper -- 5.2 Gutenberg, Movable Type, and the Bible -- 5.3 The Protestant Reformation and the Rise of Knowledge -- Part II: The Age of Fossile Fuels -- 6: The Enlightenment: The Rise of Science -- 6.1 Money and Credit -- 6.2 Universities and "Higher Learning" -- 6.3 Alchemy and Chemistry -- 6.4 Magnetism and Electricity -- 6.5 Philosophy |
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and Astronomy -- 6.6 Entropy, Complexity, and the Universe as a "Heat Engine" -- 7: The First Stage of Industrialization: Coking and Canals (1712-1820) -- 7.1 Coking and Iron Smelting -- 7.2 Coal and Canals -- 7.3 Foundations of Chemistry -- 7.4 The Alkali Industry and Soap Making -- 7.5 Phosphorus and "Safety Matches" -- 7.6 Rubber -- 8: Machine Tools and Mechanization -- 8.1 Attaching Metals: Welding, Soldering and Brazing, Riveting. |
8.2 Screws, Machines, and Machine Tools -- 8.3 Ball Bearings and Roller Bearings -- 8.4 Printing Inventions -- 8.5 Clocks, Automata, and Watches -- 8.6 Locks and Keys -- 8.7 The Repeating Rifle and the Safety Pin -- 8.8 The Zipper Fastener -- 8.9 The Bicycle -- 9: The Triumph of Steam and Steel (1820-1876) -- 9.1 From a Pump to an Engine -- 9.2 Trevithick's High-Pressure Steam Engine -- 9.3 Mechanization of Textile Manufacturing -- 9.4 George Stephenson and the Railway Boom -- 9.5 The Hot Blast and Cheap Steel -- 10: Petroleum and Petrochemicals -- 10.1 Petroleum, the New "Black Gold" -- 10.2 Coal Gas for Streetlighting -- 10.3 Aniline Dyes -- 10.4 Synthetic Fibers: From Rayon to Orlon -- 10.5 Fertilizers and Nitrogen Fixation -- 10.6 Petroleum Refining Technology -- 11: Anesthesia, Surgery, and Modern Medicine -- 11.1 Anesthesia, Analgesics, and the Conquest of Pain -- 11.2 Antiseptics and Antibiotics -- 11.3 Immunology and Vaccines -- 11.4 Opiates and Drug Injection -- 11.5 Sulfa Drugs -- 12: Mobility: From Rails to Roads to Space Travel -- 12.1 From Pistons to Turbines -- 12.2 The Steam Turbine -- 12.3 Gas Turbine Technology -- 12.4 The Automobile Revolution -- 12.5 Powered Flight -- 12.6 From Airmail to Air Transport -- 12.7 Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel -- 13: Electricity and Electrification of Factories and Homes -- 13.1 Early Experiments -- 13.2 Michael Faraday, Joseph Henry, and Magnetic Induction -- 13.3 Dynamos and Motors -- 13.4 Arc Light -- 13.5 Edison's Jumbo Generator and Central Station Power -- 13.6 Trams, Street Railways and TGV -- 13.7 Household Electrification and Kitchen Appliances -- 14: Communications: From Carrier Pigeons to Telephones and Radio (1876-1976) -- 14.1 When Messages Are Urgent, Time Matters Most -- 14.2 The Semaphore and the Telegraph -- 14.3 The Telephone. |
14.4 Cables -- 14.5 Microwaves, Radar, and Communications Satellites -- 14.6 Communications Satellites -- 14.7 Fiber Optics -- 15: The History of Artificial Light -- 15.1 Wax Candles and Oil Lamps -- 15.2 Gaslight -- 15.3 Incandescent Lights -- 15.4 Fluorescent Lamps -- 15.5 Halogen Light -- 15.6 Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) -- 15.7 Organic LEDs -- 15.8 Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation (Lasers) -- 15.9 Multiangle Light Scattering (MALS) -- Part III: Information Age -- 16: Electronic Broadcast Media: Radio and TV -- 16.1 Radio -- 16.2 Television -- 16.3 Videophones, Video Conferencing, and Interactive Games -- 16.4 LCDs and Flat-Panel Displays -- 17: Photography and Movies -- 17.1 Photography from the Camera Obscura to the Brownie -- 17.2 Movies and Sound Recordings -- 17.3 Kirlian Photography -- 17.4 Digital Cameras -- 17.5 Copying Machines and Xerography -- 17.6 X-rays and X-ray Microscopy -- 17.7 Laser Holography -- 17.8 Electron Microscopy -- 17.9 Radar and Lidar -- 18: The Transistor Transition: 1945-1969 -- 18.1 Semiconductors and Transistors -- 18.2 Magnetic Disk Storage and Core Memories -- 18.3 Static and Dynamic Semiconductor Memories: SRAM and DRAM -- 18.4 Image Processing and Digital Cameras -- 18.5 Integrated Circuits and Microprocessors -- 18.6 Mobile Phones -- 19: Machine Computation and Digitization -- 19.1 Computation by Machines -- 19.2 Electronic Computation -- 19.3 |
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Computer Languages Before the Intel Microprocessor -- 19.4 Computer Languages and Operating System After Intel's Microprocessor -- 19.5 Mobile Operating Systems -- Android -- 19.6 Data Interface Technology -- 19.7 ASCII, Bar Codes, Credit Cards, and Chargers -- 20: The Internet and the World Wide Web -- 20.1 The Internet -- 20.2 The Increasing Speed of the Internet -- 20.3 The World Wide Web. |
20.4 Web Browsers -- 20.5 Search Engines and the Rise of Google -- 20.6 The Internet: Agent of Personal Freedom or Autocratic Control? -- 20.7 The Blockchain: Is It a Game Changer? -- 20.8 Quantum Computing -- 20.9 Some Critiques of the Internet and the WorldWideWeb -- 21: The Eco-Footprint of Material Wealth: Pollution, Climate Change, and Epidemics -- 21.1 The "Circular Economy" Is an Unreachable Limit, Like Absolute Zero -- 21.2 On Water Pollution and Fresh Water Scarcity -- 21.3 Air Pollution and Climate Change -- 21.4 Global Warming, Climate Change, and Sea Level Rise -- 21.5 On Pests, Eco-Pathologies and Extinctions -- 22: Nuclear Power -- 22.1 Background: Nuclear Weapons -- 22.2 Nuclear Power and Atoms for Peace -- 22.3 Nuclear Power Problems -- 22.4 Nonconventional (Thorium-Based) Nuclear Power -- 22.5 Nuclear Fusion -- ITER -- 22.6 Nuclear-Powered Aircraft and Spaceships -- 23: Solar Power and Renewables -- 23.1 The Transition to Zero Carbon -- 23.2 Photovoltaics -- 23.3 Superconductors -- 23.4 EROEI and Fossil Fuels Vs. Renewables -- 23.5 Electric Energy Storage -- 23.6 Electric Vehicles (EVs) -- 23.7 Electric Battery Technology -- 23.8 Solid-State Batteries -- 23.9 Self-Driving (Autonomous) Vehicles -- 23.10 Robotics -- 24: Scarce Elements and Scarce Metals -- 24.1 Lithium Availability -- 24.2 The Periodic Table -- 24.3 Sources, Hitch-Hikers, and By-Products -- 24.4 Reduction of Ores to Metal -- 24.5 On Materials That Do Not Recycle -- 24.6 The Supply-Demand Disconnect -- 24.7 Recycling and Metal Rental: The "Circular Economy" -- 24.8 Resource Depletion as a Limit to Growth -- 25: Food and Agriculture -- 25.1 Historical Background -- 25.2 The Fertilizer Problem -- 25.3 The Phosphorus Problem -- 25.4 Indoor Farming with LEDs -- 25.5 Light Quality (Fig. 25.5) -- 25.6 History of Vertical Agriculture. |
25.7 Cultured Meat -- 26: Biotechnology and Human Health -- 26.1 Birth Control Technology: Toward the Pill -- 26.2 Medical Progress and Declining Death Rates -- 26.3 DNA and RNA -- 26.4 Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes -- 26.5 Genetic Modification and Cloning -- 26.6 Epigenesis -- 26.7 Bacteriophages -- 26.8 The Rise of New Diseases and Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria -- 27: Can Technology Save Homo Sapiens from Extinction? Utopia 2120 -- 27.1 Things Are Changing -- 27.2 The History of Looking Ahead -- 27.3 Pessimism Rampant -- 27.4 Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) Come to the Rescue? -- 27.5 A Case for Cautious Optimism -- 27.6 New Utopia 2120? -- 27.7 End of Report -- Appendix: On Impossibilities -- References -- Index. |
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