The Nanotechnology Talk

I attended the recent talk on Nanotechnology given by visiting scholar Andrew Jamison on Tuesday. I enjoyed listening to his views and thought of sharing some here. Dr. Jamison started the talk with a brief, but what I thought to be very informative, historical account of technology. Remember, this talk focuses more on the cultural implications of technology rather than the future of it. He presents his views in a very interesting fashion. He describes these different accounts by calling them ‘Long waves of Technological change’. I know many readers will probably not take the time to go into great detail about this. Hence, I’m providing a brief synopsis of the talk.

There are 4 main phases in which these long waves of technological change took place.

1. 1800-1850 (Machanization)
-Romanticism/cooperation phase
-Samuel Morse and the telegraph (Romantic writer & inventor)

2. 1850-1900 (Capitalism)
-Socialism/ Popoulism phase
-Age of Capital

3. 1900-1950 (Imperialism)
-Age of Empire
-Electricity, automobiles, chemicals, airplanes (invention)
-Players: Wright Brothers, Henry Ford, Edison (Phonograph)
-This phase also gave birth to a new sentiment: "Lets bring the life back in technology"
-Lewis Mumford, said "The whole industrial world -and instrumentalism is highest conscious expression"

4. 1950-2000 (Technoscience)
-The new Industrial state
-Atomic/Nuclear power
-Rise of transnational technology corporations (IBM)
-Japan's contribution to technology making it efficient and profitable due to cultural reasons

Think of this:

-Transistors in 1950's --> led to consumer electronics --> led to Personal Computers

-Rachel Carson
Environmental Technology -->Biologist turned technologist -->led to hybrid energy

My take: The talk was indeed more historic than I had imagined. But it did give an insight into 'Hubris' and 'Hybrid' etc. The above mentioned patterns, in my mind show how increase in technology over time leads to progressive development, meaning it increases the rate of change. There's a lot more that happened in the later 'waves' than the one's that precede it. We are in, what is popularly called, the 'Age of Information'. And in this age, 'Converging Technologies' seem to be ruling the roost. Think of 'info-,bio-,cogno-,nano- technology. All culminating towards Information Technology or IT. IT is a term that is thrown around very often these days, but rarely is it properly understood.