Important technology

1. Miles Sletner & Gavin Smart Spring 2012 Important technology

2. Introduction Technology can be an invention to help advance mankind. These inventions began as ideas in the minds of average people and evolved as helping tools.

3. The Abacus 2400 B.C. The abacus works with wooden rods and beads. The beads slide along the rods for solving math equations. The abacus helped us a long time ago and may have inspired the creation of the calculator.

4. Leonardo DaVinci’s Flying Machines 1500 Leonardo’s helicopter functioned by having a propeller coiled around a pole with a circular platform underneath for support and a wheel attached to the pole for humans to push, resulting in the propeller spinning to lift the helicopter off the ground. Leonardo’s parachute worked by having a cone made out of canvas with a skinny pole down the middle and a handle as a grip. Also it had ropes for support. Da Vinci probably inspired other flyers like the Wright brothers to create airplanes. Now there are cargo planes, jet planes, and many other advanced aircraft.

5. Newton’s Physics 1687 Newton’s physics have helped us understand the world better. A few of these laws are “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction .” and “ What goes up must come down.” The laws of physics have always been at work, but if Newton hadn’t discovered them we may have not have realized them.

6. Morse Code 1835 Morse code functions by allowing people to communicate with each other with a series of dots and dashes. Previous to that people could only communicate with letters sent by mail, which took forever to receive. In its day Morse Code was important because it was only used for really important messages .

7. Typewriter 1843 The typewriter allowed people to write letters without using quills or pens, also the typewriter helped to write more clearly. Typewriters probably was the inspiration for the computer keyboard. The typewriter advanced our lives because instead of writing, we now could type.

8. Antibiotics 1928 Before antibiotics a small infection could spread and become deadly, but with antibiotics you would probably be cured. Antibiotics are very specific to infections and they don’t just cure everything. Antibiotics help humans in the present by stopping small, and large infections. Think about it would you want to have an infection and risk infecting other family members, or be cured quickly? Me too! I’d rather be cured and live a long happy life.

9. Powered Airplane 1903 The Wright brother’s airplane has two sets of wings and two propellers in the front. It also has a motor to power both propellers. It also has rudders for steering and ailerons for traveling up and down. The pilot lays on the lower wing and controls the plane with levers. Although this was not the first time man took flight, it is still a great inspiration to other people to take to the skies.

10. Microwave 1947 The microwave works by having a magnetron tube that sends out waves of energy to vibrate the food causing friction to heat up the food. The microwave was an invention so that mankind can heat up food without fire, and now it is pretty much an every day tool.

11. Moon Landing 1969 One of the most important moments in our history was the moon landing. This helped us learn about the moon and space. It also was the first time we set foot on another part of our solar system.

12. Google 1998 Google is a strong search engine that allows you to search for things you would like to learn about. When you type in a word or sentence, the Google program searches its data bases and shows you everything it finds related to your query. Google helps us in the present by allowing us to search any topic. This is important because now instead of driving to the library and finding a book about your topic your answer can be a lot faster with a click of a button.

13. Conclusion Technology has changed our lives by making them easier than they were before. For example we can cook without fire, communicate without talking and we can travel long distances through the air. Technology has really changed our society because even though people don’t realize it, technology is everywhere. Grocery stores are full of technology as seen in the conveyer belt, scanner and the cash register. Technology is even in ordinary things in our homes like televisions, computers, phones and even sofa beds. Our vision of the future is holographic televisions and phones. We think that kindles and nooks can never replace a real book. A cold of piece metal can never be better than actual paper. Technology has changed our values because some people are always on their phones and never talk, only text. Technology has also changed our values because now people don’t talk to their family or friends.

14. Conclusion ~ continued We think values have changed because now there is cyber bullying and anonymous people who will just stay on their computers for hours on end just to hurt others. Also people will value nature less because they are obsessed with technology and will go outside less and less. However old technology has fueled new ideas so there is more and more old technology to make ideas for new technology.