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Introduction: The Substitution of Human Faculties with Technology: Early Tools |
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The development of modern technologies, led by men's curiosity and inquiring mind as well as the desire to facilitate work processes has a long and complex history.
Already in prehistoric times tools made of stone were developed to expand men's physical power. In the following millenniums simple mechanical devices and machines such as the wheel, the lever and the pulley were invented. The next step was the development of powered machines. For example, windmills, waterwheels and simple steam-driven devices.
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Galileo Galilee
Galileo Galilee (1564-1642), the Italian Mathematician and Physicist is called the father of Enlightenment. He proofed the laws of the free fall, improved the technique for the telescope and so on. Galilee is still famous for his fights against the Catholic Church. He published his writings in Italian instead of writing in Latin. Like this, everybody could understand him, which made him popular. As he did not stop talking about the world as a ball (the Heliocentric World System) instead of a disk, the Inquisition put him on trial twice and forbid him to go on working on his experiments.
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