Abstract

Technology – understood here as machinery and equipment developed from the application of scientific knowledge for the solution of practical problems ¹ – is clearly an evolving and historically conditioned notion. As our scientific knowledge advances, new technologies are routinely developed that render previous technology obsolete. The devices that were considered ‘high-tech’ for one generation may often wind up as quaint antique store objects in the succeeding generation. Allow me to illustrate with a little bit of personal history.