A look behind Inventions
	by Arnold Pacey, Neil Postman, Caroll Pursell, and Mark Eberhart.
		Homework
The powers of tools in coming together to form any technology shape cultures.

Pursell | Pacey–World| Pacey–Meaning | Postman | Tenner | Eberhart | Snow | Kaku

On our last meeting day we talked about a three different perspectives when viewing certain tools and their relation to the inherent power of technology.

These three facets of all tools are both in Pursell and in Pacey; in addition they are explained on the web site:

Three ways the tools create powerful influences!

Three distinct elements in any tool are: material, social, & symbolic.

The material differs from the social organization required to make or use the tool or associated tools and its related technology. Both of these facets differ from the cultural constraints as expressed in language or the symbolic significance tools possess based on what people do with them (adapt and exapt).

In the history of technology, changes in the use of tools have had profound impact on power, accumulation of wealth, success in raising agricultural and manufacturing production, and land-use.

Pursell, Pacey and Postman insist that technology has such great power in our hands, society, and in our heads and souls that Eberhart insists we ar too confused to know the difference between why and when tools and materials fail us. Pursell explores the social, Pacey the material, and Postman the symbolic; though all three authors analyze all three facets.  

We are aware of the three aspects of technology but how has that shaped history and why, for example in film –a form of modern technology that is widespread and influential—are we unaware of what motion pictures really are?

See a film at the Global Peace Film Festival and explain what the film is about, how it is evocative, and how the images convey that meaning to you.

How are documentary films real in a way that other commercial films are not?

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Synonyms:

material, what a tool does, how it does it, and effectiveness is determined by what it is made from and how it fits together into a technical complex,

social: organizational, political, cultural in terms of how labor performs as a team, or we economically adapt to a technology, technique  

symbolic: metaphors, cultural icons, images, imagination, stories.

Technology has always been an extension of the human capacity for language, thought and action -- so it finds a place --if not a home-- "in the dreams and fantasies of a society or its rulers."

• Fine technology:
• dreams of world dominance.
• Chinese belief in authority derived from the "will of heaven."
• Islamic dream of well watered gardens in the desert.

Other kinds of inspired thoughts with a technical outcome:

• Alchemist's dream of "the elixir of life"
• craftsmen's dreams of perpetual motion machinery
• the drudgery of mechanized labor lead to dreams of robots .

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	Fine technology
	That is a term of historian Donald Hill that "denotes small but relatively sophisticated mechanisms of which we may note two kinds, one connected with gardens and the other with astronomy." p. 34.
These were technologies that allow for some predictive change or a capacity to predict changes more accurately.
fountains in India and Islam clocks in China and Islam

These adaptive mechanisms led eventually to water raising wheels and turbines and weight driven clocks and watches.

Chinese Clock

Clocks

Current examples of fine technology.

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Fine technology	Gardens
Dreams too are enormously important motivators of invention.

Current threads in existing tool complexes or technical webs:

By analogy and application of Hill's ideas about "fine technology," we can look at 19th century developments in dynamos or radios and 20th century developments and suggest that thermostats, diodes, transistors, cyclotrons, and lasers, are examples of the refinements essential for technical innovation. All are examples of fine technology and the role of components in developing new applications such as mobile phones, PCs, CDs, wireless and music players.

Current examples of.

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Mechanization through the application of fine technology ushered in automation.

Gears transfer power vertically and horizontally to the main drive shafts
This gearing is an example of fine technology.	Motion is transferred perpendicularly from one plane to another.
Can you discover more examples of fine technology in the Kaku book and, also, in the last chapters of Pursell or Pacey?
Automobile engineering is a trigger.	What makes machinery a key step in automation?

As automation made gender less of an obstacle to work women were portrayed as denizens of leisure.

Make a list of these refinements that you find and their page numbers:

Bring your lists to class to compare.

Artificial Intelligence | Robots | mechanization

Pursell | Pacey–Meaning | Pacey | Tenner | Postman–Tech | Postman–Television | Eberhart | Snow | Kaku

	Tulips as tools?
	Tools of Toil: what to read.
	Tools are historical building blocks of technology.
Technology can be understood if tools have three facets.
Tools used in both Music and Architecture led to mechanization and automation.
Tools and the study of technology require us to reflect on the power of instruments,

Technology index landscape index words index photograph index