When we describe technological advancements we tend to refer to modern systems, methods, techniques and tools which permit scientific discoveries to take place. Then, we tend to believe that at the very core of these developments is the “discoverer”: manipulating, trying out, controlling, measuring, adapting, experimenting, combining all these systems, methods, techniques and tools to, out of the blue, come up with something “new.”
But let me tell you that such ‘discovering’ is non-existent. Nothing in this material world could be developed without its previous counterpart: an idea. Some time before, some enquiring mind with plenty of innovative ideas for the time had already been paving the way for every technological advance.
Take the case of the telephone. Although its history goes back to the year 1665 when a man called Robert Hooke experimented sound transmission through a distended wire, and tin cans and paper cups became the most transcendent means of communication of the time, we only remember Alexander Graham Bell when talking about the history of the telephone. Then, nobody actually remembers the other guy when talking about the mobile phone.
Modern societies are used to rapid changes so they quickly forget what seemed to be a novelty yesterday. Then, newer trends replace anything in any field and we throw old goods, names, and ideas as well, away.
Technological advancements are much more than current inventions: they are the future, the present, and the past. They are the result of history, the result of necessities that have existed throughout different generations, and the result of people who once worked hard to satisfy that ‘particular need.’
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