Evolving technologies—only the sky is the limit

Shreeyash Raj Khanal

DAV School, Class-8

Throughout history, technology has been an achievement of humanity giving us an

unimaginable leap over nature. From the creation of the lightbulb to the
development of intercontinental nuclear warheads, technology has always played a
crucial role in shaping our world according to our desires. It's not just an object or a
natural force, but it also represents our ability to utilize the resources around us to
create convenience and entertainment in our lives. It embodies a curiosity that
drives us to expand and progress without risking regression in our innovative
endeavors.

‘Wheel,’ one of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind said to be invented
during 4000 BC, managed to change the course of humanity. Previously, used to lift
heavy objects, it was soon used for irrigating crops in the agricultural sector. Indeed,
it was also used for transport service sometimes after its discovery. The history of
mankind keeps changing due to these revolutionary inventions.

Fire too was able to chart the way of man to move forward, even though it may not
be an actual invention and just a discovery. However, even the most crucial
inventions throughout humanity go unnoticed, currency, is one of those inventions
which is not talked about much but is the backbone for trade and balance in
civilization.

While talking about such inventions, the article itself could never even exist without
the geniuses who invented language, a way of communication through sounds, not
necessarily a technology but one of the most essential tools we have used since the
dawn of man.

Simple trinkets and handy tools like the compass were also a very vital tool at the
time, invented first in China during the 11th or 12th century. Since the technology was
still primitive, there were no options of looking up google maps on phones nor to
even look for signage and maps would be extremely vague. Due to this, a simple
compass could mean getting lost or going back to dinner on the table.

Even nails were a futuristic perception during the primitive era, however, during
ancient Rome, Roman cities were to be constructed with iron nails in the Ancient
Roman period and became possible only after humans developed the ability to cast
and shape metal. Previously, wood structures had to be built by interlocking
adjacent boards geometrically, a much more complicated construction process.
Evidence suggests that as early as 700 B.C., people in ancient Egypt noticed that they
could look through crystals to improve vision. The earliest official addition to the
magnifying glass was by Franciscan friar and Oxford University scholar Roger Bacon
in 1268. Meanwhile, 200 years later in Germany, in around 1440, the
goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press, which
started the printing revolution.

Moving away from the primitive to a more modern era, while the pendulum
clock had already been invented in the 17th century, a clock that could withstand
the vagaries of the sea, humidity, and air temperature remained an elusive dream.
This led John Harrison to develop an accurate Marine Chronometer for this very
purpose. The marine chronometer wasn’t the only invention nor discovery in the
17th century, as in 1712, after ten years of conducting experiments with steam
pumps, Thomas Newcomen created the first ever steam engine, useful for the global
trade of goods.

The last major invention came 40 years later and it was big and is mostly used in our
day to day lives—electricity. Initially, the effects weren’t big as it was only used
locally. However, in the 18th century, its larger impacts started to appear on a higher
scale.

The first modern computer was invented by Charles Babbage in the early 18th
century. But it still took till 1991 to genuinely expand for possible commercial usage.
Before this, the ENIAC was the first general purpose computer invented in 1945.
Only after 38 years, internet was invented on January 1, 1983, through which the
global networking of computers was achieved and was very successful.

It may come as shocking but the first modern lightbulb came into existence only a
few years before modern computers. On January 27, 1880, Thomas Edison
successfully invented a proper light source, this was however, much farther from
the end. In 1962, Nick Holonyak Jr. was emerged as the inventor of the first LED
light bulbs; these were red in color and were the earliest versions. But only in 2010
did these pocket lights set out its journey for commercial usage.

A big portion of the 18th century was related to our most modern transport systems.
In 1864, Nicolaus Otto discovered the first commercially successful gas
engine. George Brayton invented the first commercial liquid-fueled internal
combustion engine in 1872. In 1876, Nicolaus Otto, working with Gottlieb Daimler
and Wilhelm Maybach, patented the compressed charge, four-stroke cycle engine.
The best way of long-distance communication now is through phone texting or calls,
which makes sense, why wouldn’t you text a small sentence in a minute to someone
instead of formatting a letter to put in a parcel to have to trust a bus or even people
to transfer to the correct destination.

While Italian innovator, Antonio Meucci is credited with inventing the first basic
phone in 1849, and Frenchman Charles Bourseul devised a ‘make and break’ phone
in 1854. No one can beat the technological advancement first made by Alexander
Graham Bell. The telephone became a true reality, able to call anyone on a line from
a distance, it was the earliest model for these future power houses of day to day
lives of humanity.

No doubt electricity is the bigger invention, but the batteries are great tools to
conserve and protect energy, using it in a controlled manner. The first battery dates
back to 1800, when Italian physicist Alessandro Volta wrapped stacked discs of
copper and zinc in a cloth, submerged it in salty water and discovered that it
conducted energy.

The ability for humans to fly has captured the imagination of inventors for centuries,
with the first human-operated flight taking place in 1783 when Joseph-Michael and
Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier took to the skies in a hot air balloon. In 1853 British
engineer George Cayley designed the first glider to successfully take flight, but it
wasn’t until 1903 that Orville and Wilbur Wright's plane became the first airplane to
have a successful voyage. It not only took off from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina using
its own power, but it also flew and landed without destruction.

Furthermore, nuclear energy was first discovered in the 1930s by Italian

physicist Enrico Fermi, who found that overloading atoms with neutrons could split
them, generating huge amounts of energy. He went on to develop the first nuclear
chain reaction at the University of Chicago. This successful experiment led to the
development of several nuclear plants in the 1950s, with Idaho launching the first
nuclear plant in 1951.

Getting off track here, not all inventions need to be mechanical or related to energy.
The medical world has a plethora of inventions of its own. It's one of the most
famous discovery stories in history. In 1928, the Scottish scientist Alexander
Fleming noticed a bacteria-filled Petri dish in his laboratory with its lid accidentally
open. The sample had become contaminated with mold, and wherever the mold
was, the bacteria was dead. That antibiotic mold turned out to be the fungus
Penicillium. Over the next two decades, chemists purified it and developed the
drug penicillin, which fights a huge number of bacterial infections in humans
without harming the humans themselves.
Moving on, the earliest rudimentary vaccination is thought to date back to the 10th
century in China, when people inoculated small scratches in the skin with small
doses of smallpox to provide protection against the disease. But in 1796, English
physician Edward Jenner discovered that milkmaids rarely caught or died of
smallpox because they were previously infected by the cowpox virus, also called
Vaccinia. So, he used cowpox to develop a smallpox vaccine. After such information,
A plethora of diseases were faced with their own vaccines through different
techniques.

Like many famous inventions, the X-ray was discovered by accident. In 1895,
German engineer and physicist Wilhelm Conrad was undertaking a two-month study
into the potential of radiation. In an experiment testing whether cathode rays could
pass through glass, he noticed that the radiation was able to pass through screens of
considerable thickness, leaving a shadow of solid objects. He soon discovered that X-
rays could pass through human tissues to show a clear picture of the skeleton and
organs. A year later, a group of physicians took the earliest X-rays on patients. These
observations led to the development of radiology as we know it today and has since
helped medical professionals diagnose broken bones, tumors, organ failures and
more.

Moving away to the most modern technology, it is now time for artificial Intelligence
as a reality. In 1950 Alan Turing publishes his seminal work, Computing Machinery
and Intelligence, and the term “artificial intelligence” was expressed by John
McCarthy. McCarthy also develops the popular programming language, which is used
in AI research.

AI has since then evolved into various states, through Chat-GPT as a personal helper
in essays, equations and various techniques in research to self-generating pictures
and videos from AI. It is now to be developing from a larger scale and benefiting in
work industries to day-to-day life or even to develop new ideas into scientific
studies. But what exactly is AI or Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the simulation of human intelligence processes by

machines, especially computer systems. Although the height for expansion is
reached for now, but this is only the tip of the ice berg, who knows, what else is to be
discovered next. Who knows in the next century what will be invented; mysteries lie
and our curiosity for expansion will not stop technology.