SCIENCE

TECHENOLOGY
AND
SOCIETY
Objectives At the end of this topic, you should be able to:

1. Describe science, technology, and society and their

interactions.

2. Discuss how scientific and technological developments

affect society.

3. Identify paradigm shifts in history brought by science

and technology
 Timeline table of inventions and
discoveries chronologically listed from
prehistory to the present day
Below is a timeline table of inventions and discoveries chronologically listed from
prehistory to the present day

1. Browse through the list and search for as much as possible

all those inventions or discoveries that you think are relevant to your course.
TIME LINE STS

PRE HISTORY

Date Invention or Discoveries Resent Inventions

4–5 billion years ago Sun starts to produce energy Solar cells

10 million years ago Humans make the first tools from stone, wood, antlers, Tools and machines
and bones

1–2 million years ago Humans discover fire Biofuels; Candles

10,000 BCE Earliest boats are constructed Ships and boats

8000–9000 BCE Beginnings of human settlements and agriculture Water

6000–7000 BCE Hand-made bricks first used for construction in the Middle
East Brick (ceramics)
ANCIENT TIME

Date Invention or Discoveries Resent Invention

4000 BCE Iron used for the first time in decorative ornaments Iron and steel

3500– 5000 BCE Glass is made by people for the first time Glass

3500 BCE Humans invent the wheel Wheels and axles

3000 BCE First written languages are developed by the Sumerian

people of southern Mesopotamia (part of modern Iraq) Digital pens; Typewriters

~2500 BCE Ancient Egyptians produce papyrus, a crude early version

of paper Paper

c1700 BCE Semites of the Mediterranean develop the alphabet Digital pens

600 BCE Thales of Miletus discovers static electricity Electricity

400BCE– 300BCE Chinese experiment with flying kites Airplanes

~300– 200 BCE Chinese invent early magnetic direction finders. Compasses
~250 BCE Archimedes invents the screw pump for moving water and
other materials Tools and machines

c.50 BCE Roman engineer Vitruvius perfects the modern, vertical

water wheel Turbines

62 CE Hero of Alexandria, a Greek scientist, pioneers steam

power Steam engines

105 CE Ts'ai Lun makes the first paper in China Paper

27 BCE–395 CE Romans develop the first, basic concrete called pozzolana Steel and concrete
MIDDLE AGE

Date Invention or Discoveries Resent Invention

700–900 CE Chinese invent gunpowder and fireworks Bullets; Fireworks

1450 Johannes Gutenberg pioneers the modern printing press,

using rearrangeable metal letters called movable type Printing

16TH CENTURY

1530s Gerardus Mercator helps to revolutionize navigation with

better mapmaking Satellite navigation

1590 A Dutch spectacle maker named Zacharias Janssen

makes the first compound microscope Microscopes

17th CENTURTY

~1600 Galileo Galilei designs a basic thermometer Thermometer

1609 Galileo Galilei builds a practical telescope and makes

new astronomical discoveries Space telescopes

mid-17th century Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and Robert Hooke independently

develop microscopes Microscopes

1643 Galileo's pupil Evangelista Torricelli builds the first

mercury barometer for measuring air pressure Barometers

1687 Isaac Newton formulates his three laws of motion Motion

18TH CENTURY

1701 English farmer Jethro Tull begins the mechanization of

agriculture by inventing the horse-drawn seed drill Tractors

1703 Gottfried Leibniz pioneers the binary number system now

used in virtually all computers
Computers
1769 Wolfgang von Kempelen develops a mechanical speaking
machine: the world's first speech synthesizer Speech synthesizers

1770s Abraham Darby III builds a pioneering iron bridge at a

place now called Ironbridge in England Bridges

~1780 Josiah Wedgwood (or Thomas Massey) invents the

pyrometer Pyrometers
19TH CENTURY

1800 Italian Alessandro Volta makes the first battery (known as

a Voltaic pile) Batteries

1801 Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents the automated cloth

weaving loom. The punched cards it uses to store patterns
help to inspire programmable computers Programmable
computers

1803 Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier develop the papermaking

machine Paper

1806 Humphry Davy develops electrolysis into an important

chemical technique and uses it to identify a number of
new elements Electrolyzers

1827 Joseph Niepce makes the first modern photograph

Photography. Digital cameras
1830s William Sturgeon develops the first practical electric motor Electric motors

1830s William Henry Fox Talbot develops a way of making and

printing photographs using reverse images called negatives Digital cameras.
Photography

1839 Charles Goodyear finally perfects a durable form of rubber

(vulcanized rubber) after many years of unsuccessful experimenting Rubber

1840s Scottish physicist James Prescott Joule outlines the theory of the
conservation of energy Energy; Great physics
experiments

1840s Scotsman Alexander Bain invents a primitive fax machine

based on chemical technology Fax machines

1849 James Francis invents a water turbine now used in many

of the world's hydropower plants Turbines; Water

1850s Henry Bessemer pioneers a new method of making steel

in large quantities Iron and steel

1850s Louis Pasteur develops pasteurization: a way of preserving

food by heating it to kill off bacteria Pasteurization

1860s Frenchman Étienne Lenoir and German Nikolaus Otto

pioneer the internal combustion engine Car engines
1860s James Clerk Maxwell figures out that radio waves must
exist and sets out basic laws of electromagnetism Radio

1860s Fire extinguishers are invented Fire extinguisher

1861 Elisha Graves Otis invents the elevator with built-in safety brake Elevators

1867 Joseph Monier invents reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete

1868 Christopher Latham Sholes invents the modern typewriter

and QWERTY keyboard Typewriters

1876 Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone, though the

true ownership of the invention remains controversial
even today Telephones

1870s Thomas Edison develops the phonograph, the first

practical method of recording and playing back sound on
metal foil CD players;
MP3 players

1877 Thomas Edison invents his sound-recording machine or

phonograph—a forerunner of the record player and CD player Record players; Sound

1877 Edward Very invents the flare gun (Very pistol) for sending
distress flares at sea Flares
1880 Thomas Edison patents the modern incandescent electric lamp Incandescent lamps

1880s Thomas Edison opens the world's first power plants Power plants

1880s Charles Chamberland invents the autoclave (steam sterilizing machine) Autoclaves

1880s Carrie Everson invents new ways of mining silver, gold, and copper Copper

1883 George Eastman invents plastic photographic film Digital cameras; Plastics

1884 Charles Parsons develops the steam turbine Steam turbines

1885 Karl Benz builds a gasoline-engined car Car engines

1888 Friedrich Reinitzer discovers liquid crystals LCD screens and displays

1888 John Boyd Dunlop patents air-filled (pneumatic) tires Pneumatics

1888 Nikola Tesla patents the alternating current (AC) electric Electric motors
induction motor and, in opposition to Thomas Edison, Induction motors;
becomes a staunch advocate of AC power Power plants

1899 Everett F. Morse invents the optical pyrometer for

measuring temperatures at a safe distance Pyrometers

1890s French brothers Joseph and Louis Lumiere invent movie

projectors and open the first movie theater Projection TV

1890s German engineer Rudolf Diesel develops his diesel

engine—a more efficient internal combustion engine
without a sparking plug Diesel engines

1894 Physicist Sir Oliver Lodge sends the first ever message by
radio wave in Oxford, England Radio

1895 German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X rays X rays

1898 Nikola Tesla invents remote, radio control Remote control

20th century

1901 The first electric vacuum cleaner is developed Vacuum cleaners

1903 Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright build the first engine
powered airplane Airplanes; Jet engines

1905 Albert Einstein explains the photoelectric effect Photoelectric cells

1906 Willis Carrier pioneers the air conditioner Air conditioners

1906 Mikhail Tswett discovers chromatography Chromatography

1907 Leo Baekeland develops Bakelite, the first popular

synthetic plastic Plastics

1907 Alva Fisher invents the electric clothes washer Washing machine

1906 Frederick Gardner Cottrell develops the electrostatic

smoke precipitator (smokestack pollution scrubber) Electrostatic
precipitators

1908 American industrialist and engineer Henry Ford launches cars

the Ford Model T, the world's first truly affordable car

1909 German chemists Fritz Haber and Zygmunt Klemensiewicz pH meters

develop the glass electrode, enabling very precise
measurements of acidity

1912 American chemist Gilbert Lewis describes the basic

chemistry that leads to practical, lithium-ion rechargeable Lithium-ion batteries
batteries (though they don't appear in a practical,
commercial form until the 1990s)

1912 Hans Geiger develops the Geiger counter, a detector for Geiger counters
radioactivity

1916 Robert Hutchings Goddard, an American physicist, Space rockets

publishes influential ideas on building space rockets
1919 Francis Aston pioneers the mass spectrometer and uses it Mass spectrometers
to discover many isotopes

1920s J John Logie Baird develops mechanical television Television; LCD TV

1920s Philo T. Farnsworth invents modern electronic television Television; LCD TV

1920s German engineer Gustav Tauschek and American Paul

Handel independently develop primitive optical character
recognition (OCR) scanning systems OCR

1920s Albert W. Hull invents the magnetron, a device that can

generate microwaves from electricity Magnetrons; Microwave ovens

1921 Karel Capek and his brother coin the word "robot" in a play
about artificial humans Robots

1921 John Larson develops the polygraph ("lie detector")

machine Forensic science

1928 Thomas Midgley, Jr. invents coolant chemicals for air

conditioners and refrigerators Air conditioners;
Refrigerators

1928 The electric refrigerator is invented Refrigerators

1930s Peter Goldmark pioneers color television Television; LCD TV

1930s Laszlo and Georg Biro pioneer the modern ballpoint pen
Digital pens

1930s Wallace Carothers develops neoprene (synthetic rubber

used in wetsuits) and nylon, the first popular synthetic
clothing material
Kevlar; Nomex;
Nylon; Wetsuits

1930s Arnold Beckman develops the electronic pH meter

pH meters

1938 Chester Carlson invents the principle of photocopying

(xerography)
Photocopiers

1938 Roy Plunkett accidentally invents a nonstick plastic

coating called Teflon
Gore-Tex;
Nonstick pans

1939 Igor Sikorsky builds the first truly practical helicopter

Helicopters

1945 Arthur C. Clarke conceives the idea of the communications

satellite, a space-based signal "mirror" that can bounce
radio waves from one side of Earth to the other
Satellites

1947 John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley

invent the transistor, which allows electronic equipment
much smaller and leads to the modern computer
revolution
Amplifiers;
Electronics;
Transistors
1949 Bernard Silver and N. Joseph Woodland patent barcodes—
striped patterns that are initially developed for marking
products in grocery stores
Barcodes
and barcode scanners

1950s Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow invent the maser

(microwave laser). Gordon Gould coins the word "laser"
and builds the first optical laser in 1958
Lasers

1950s Percy Spencer accidentally discovers how to cook with

microwaves, inadvertently inventing the microwave oven
Microwave ovens

1954 Indian physicist Narinder Kapany pioneers fiber optics

Fiber optics

1955 US electrical engineer Eugene Polley invents the TV

remote control
Remote control

1957 Soviet Union (Russia and her allies) launch the Sputnik
space satellite
Satellites

1957 Lawrence Curtiss, Basil Hirschowitz, and Wilbur Peters

build the first fiber-optic gastroscope
Endoscopes

1958 Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce, working independently,

develop the integrated circuit
Integrated circuits;
Transistors
1959 IBM and General Motors develop Design Augmented by
Computers-1 (DAC-1), the first computer-aided design
(CAD) system
Computer graphics

1962 Nick Holonyak invents the LED (light-emitting diode) while

working at General Electric
Diodes and LEDs

1963 Ivan Sutherland develops Sketchpad, one of the first

computer-aided design programs
Computer graphics

1964 IBM helps to pioneer e-commerce with an airline ticket

reservation system called SABRE
E-commerce
F-
1965 Frank Pantridge develops the portable defibrillator for
treating cardiac arrest patients
Defibrillators

1966 Stephanie Kwolek patents a super-strong plastic called

Kevlar
Kevlar

1966 Robert H. Dennard of IBM invents dynamic random access

memory (DRAM)
Computer memory

1969 World's first solar power station opened in France

Solar cells; Energy
1969 Astronauts walk on the Moon
Space rockets

1960s Douglas Engelbart develops the computer mouse

Computer mouse

1960s James Russell invents compact discs

CD players

1973 Martin Cooper develops the first handheld cellphone

(mobile phone)
Cellphones

1973 Robert Metcalfe figures out a simple way of linking

computers together that he names Ethernet. Most
computers hooked up to the Internet now use it
Computer networks;
Internet

1980s Japanese electrical pioneer Akio Morita develops the Sony

Walkman, the first truly portable player for recorded music
CD players; MP3 players
1981 Patricia Bath develops laser eye surgery for removing
cataracts
Lasers

1981 Fujio Masuoka files a patent for flash memory—a type of

reusable computer memory that can store information
even when the power is off
Flash memory
1989 Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web
World Wide Web

1994 American mathematician John Daugman perfects the

mathematics that make iris scanning systems possible
Iris scans

1994 Israeli computer scientists Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty

invent VoIP for sending telephone calls over the Internet
VoIP

1995 Broadcast.com becomes one of the world's first online

radio stations
Streaming media

1995 Pierre Omidyar launches the eBay auction website

E-commerce
21st century
2001 Apple revolutionizes music listening by unveiling its iPod
MP3 music player
MP3 players

2001 Bram Cohen develops BitTorrent file-sharing

BitTorrent
2001 Scott White, Nancy Sottos, and colleagues develop self
healing materials
Self-healing materials

2007 Amazon.com launches its Kindle electronic book (e-book)

Electronic books

2007 Apple introduces a touchscreen cellphone called the

iPhone
Cellphone touchscreens

2010 Apple releases its touchscreen tablet computer, the iPad

Computer touchscreens

2010 3D TV starts to become more widely available.

3D Television

2015 Supercomputers (the world's fastest computers) are now a

mere 30 times less powerful than human brains
Supercomputers

2016 Three nanotechnologists win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

for building miniature machines out of molecules
Nanotechnology

2019 Google claims to have achieved "quantum supremacy"—

with a quantum computer that calculates faster than a
conventional one
Quantum computers
What is Science?

The dictionary (Merriam-Webster) defines science as a study of the

natural world based on facts learned through experiments and
observation.

The word ‘science’ came from the Latin word Scientia, meaning
‘knowledge.’

A widespread definition of science states that it is a systematic

enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of
testable explanations and predictions about the world.
What is Technology?

Technology is the application of scientific knowledge to the practical aims of human life or to the
change and manipulation of the human environment (Encyclopedia Britannica).

Science and technology (S&T) are two independent fields, but they work together in a
‘brains and hands’, ‘mind and action’, ‘knowledge and application’, ‘theory and practice’
partnership.

What is Society?

Society is a large group of people who live together in an organized way, making decisions about
how to do things, and sharing the work that needs to be done (Cambridge Dictionary). The word
‘society’ was derived from the Latin word Socius, meaning ‘companionship or friendship’.
Sociology is the field that studies society. It formally defines society as a group of people in the
same geographical territory, sharing a common culture, social structure, and laws. For example,
the people in the Philippines can be collective called the Filipino society.
What then is Science and Technology and Society (STS)?

STS is where the fields of Science, Technology, and Sociology meet. The integration of the three is
shown by the following framework:
The field of science provide data for innovation in technology, but technological
development requires more scientific knowledge. Technology improves the
quality of life in the society, but societal progress is highly dependent on
technological advancement.

Societal needs are accommodated by science, and scientific discoveries help

improve the
quality of life.
History of STS

It is not known whether science and technology created society, or that society created
S&T. But history has it that the three emerged almost indistinctly. The earliest record of
the existence of S&T was in ancient Mesopotamia (presently a region shared by Iraq,
Kuwait, Turkey, and Syria), which is the same place that the earliest civilization was also
recorded, and they both happened between 600 BC to 1400 AD. It was in ancient Greece
that science was first recognized as a distinctly separate field from human, artistic
philosophy. Science was originally called ‘natural’ philosophy by the Greeks, the
philosophy that concerns nature. Later, historical records show that the ancient China
and India have developed their own S&T which proliferated in the entire Asian
continent. In the Middle East, the development of S&T gave the Golden Age of Islam.
Worldwide, there came an ‘Age of Great Scientific Revolution’ in 1400–1700 AD. This
day, we can see that S&T have become so vast, from the study of the smallest matter on
Earth up to the gigantic extraterrestrial bodies in the universe. Meanwhile, human
societies on Earth continue to expand.
The timeline table in the Activity was originally a long list (10 pages) of scientific discoveries
and inventions, but it was trimmed down to 3½ pages to fit in this module. But take note, if we
would have to list down every discovery and invention in the world since the beginning of time
up to this modern day, we could have 10,000 pages, or more! Meanwhile, in the Philippines,
there were only a few records of S&T during the precolonization period, making it hard to say
if our country had flourished its own indigenous S&T during that time. However, the remnant
proofs that we still have today, such as the rice terraces in the Mountain Provinces, folkloric
medicines, to name a few, suggest that our ancient Filipinos had their own S&T. On the other
hand, we have strong historical records that our S&T proliferated through our educational
systems (Caoili, 1986), beginning from the Spanish colonization when our country started
producing scientistturned doctors, one of whom is our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal.
Paradigm Shifts

While STS is a unification of three fields (science, technology, and society), the unification
actually experiences paradigm shifting. Consider the following infographic that shows how
in a span of about 50 years, technology has great evolved, causing impact on the
development of social businesses.
It starts with the beginning of life on earth, and goes until the
founding of early modern technologies, such as computer and
nuclear power. The era of technology started when wheel was
invented which is one of the most important technology and
after it, more and more things were invented.

The combinatoric theory of technological change states that

every technology always consists of simpler technologies and a
new technology is made of already existing technologies. ...
They here described mechanism of technological change has
been termed “combinatorial evolution”. Others call it
“technological recursion”
Notice how technology evolves every decade. In the 1960-70’s, technology in business only
has minimal impact so that during this period, businesses focus more on price margins and
profit. In the 1980-90’s, new technology was slowly being integrated in
businesses so that companies tend to improve client communication. In the 2000-10’s, social
media technology boomed, thus requiring businesses to formulate new strategies as business
focus shifted to more customer satisfaction and building potential clients. Take note that this
paradigm shifting is true not only in business fields, but to other fields as well such as in
media communication, engineering,
Synthesis

Science, Technology, and Society are three interdependent yet

interacting, interrelated fields. The three have emerged
simultaneously in history that since then have given much of the
quality of human life in general. The list of discoveries and
inventions is endless, changing the world since the beginning of
time up to this modern day, and beyond. S&T proliferated
together with society; we can testify that here in our country. We
can identify paradigm shifts wherein S&T impacted much of
society.
Combinatory logic (henceforth: CL) is an elegant and powerful
logical theory that is connected to many areas of logic, and has
found applications in other disciplines, especially, in computer
science and mathematics.