“A sufficiently advanced technology cannot be distinguished from magic.” Therefore, it holds the third and famous one. “Three Laws” Originally clarified by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clark. Even when it first came out in the late 1960s, Clark’s third law would have felt loyal to residents of developed countries. Naturally, even Truer now feels like it’s a quarter of 21st century digital. Certainly for everything we know about how they actually work, our credit cards, smartphones, computers, and the internet itself can actually be magical.
To best understand the technologies that make up our world more and more, we should try to understand the evolution of those technologies. For example, these smartphones could not have been invented in the form we know without the previous developments of chemically tempered glass, multi-touch screen interfaces and camera phones. Each of these technologies also has a predecessor. You’ll be able to move forward enough through the chain and eventually reach something like the mobile radio phone invented in 1946. A step-by-step array antenna invented in 1905. Glass was invented around 1500 BC. You can trace these and countless other paths Historical Technique Treean ambitious project of writers and programmers étienne Fortier-Dubois.
Fortier-Dubois celebrates the credits in his inspirational Sid Meier’s civilization Games, the very important “High Tech Tree”, James Burke’s TV Series connectionhighlighting the unpredictable processes that one innovation could lead to others over centuries or centuries. Even in the 70s Fortier-Dubois writes“Burke was already concerned that our lives rely on technological systems that few people have a deep understanding of. Of course, it is possible to live without understanding how computers, money or planes work. But it is easy for us to lose trust in technology solutions with technology solutions to our current problems when everything around us feels vaguely magical.” He offers it. Historical Technique Tree As a potential correction to that loss of understanding and the attitude it creates.
Fortier-Dubois himself admits that the project “has made me realize that I don’t know about the objects around me. “Electronics” didn’t know that “electronics” meant controlling the flow of electrons with vacuum tubes or semiconductors. Anyone who explores even this early version Historical Technique Tree As with this writing (includes 1886 technology and 2180 connections between them), there is an educational experience, and not just knowledge about technology.
But a sense of how much we lack. Our civilization has ranged from stone tools to robotaxis, mRNA vaccines, and LLM chatbots. We all could live in it even with a slightly clear idea of ​​how it did. Please visit Historical Technique Tree here.
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Based in Seoul Colin marshall Write and broadcasting stationTS about cities, languages, and culture. His projects include the Substack Newsletter Books about cities And the book The Stateless City: Walking through 21st century Los Angeles. Follow him on social networks previously known as Twitter @colinmarshall.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
