How did we get so far into technology in such a short time. like for instance went from phone on a string to the iphone in 131 years.
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Not only does technology build upon itself but also the population of humans increases exponentially so there’s bound to be some innovation
First flight to moon landing in 66 years!
Instead of nearly everyone having to spend all of their time farming or hunting and gathering, we can afford to have large numbers of people making figuring out technological problems their full-time jobs. Our ancestors couldn’t afford that. They had to be relatively conservative, because for them, a failed experiment meant very bad things. For us, it’s just a Tuesday!
Technology stands upon the shoulders of those who came before.
A couple examples are things like agriculture. Instead of needing 10 people to make food for 20(not actual ratios and numbers but they’re easy and neat), advances like machinery, chemistry, and fertilizer mean more people can stop only making food to survive.
A more modern example is computing.
Instead of calculations and engineering needing teams of people, it’s now possible to make computer aided designs, or 3d print prototypes. The instead people doing equations by hand, they can instead be done very rapidly by computers. Which then can be used for more production.
Wonder what other scientists are working on? Instead of occasional conferences, just call them, or video conferences.
It all started with electricity which was discovered in the 1700s. Computers are just 1s and 0s which are electric pulses. So really to get to the iPhone we really just needed to discover electricity.
Using the analogy of a puzzle imagine electricity was the first piece. But when you’re doing the puzzle the more pieces you have in place the more the picture starts to come together and you start to complete the rest faster and easier.
Also I think another reason things have sped up so much in the past few decades is because the invention of the internet itself has allowed everyone to pool their information together where anyone can access it. In the 80s if you wanted to learn about something you would have had to go to the library to learn about it through the books and papers you could get your hands on. now with a few key strokes I can get everything, even ongoing research on my subject from any university. Everything is connected and available to everyone now.
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