Courtesy : Diploma in Hotel Management and Catering Technology Syllabus
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word technology may also mean the product of such an endeavor.: 117 The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, industry, communication, transportation, and daily life. Technologies include physical objects like utensils or machines and intangible tools such as software. # ISO certification in India
Many technological advancements have led to societal changes. The earliest known technology is the stone tool, used in the prehistoric era, followed by fire use, which contributed to the growth of the human brain and the development of language in the Ice Age. The invention of the wheel in the Bronze Age enabled wider travel and the creation of more complex machines. Recent technological developments, including the printing press, the telephone, and the Internet have lowered communication barriers and ushered in the knowledge economy.# ISO certification in India
While technology contributes to economic development and human prosperity, it can also have negative impacts like pollution or resource depletion, or cause social harms like technological unemployment caused by automation. As a result, philosophical and political debates have arisen over the role and use of technology, the ethics of technology, and the mitigation of technology’s potential downsides. Historical and contemporary movements like neo-Luddism and anarcho-primitivism criticize technology’s pervasiveness, while adherents to transhumanism and techno-progressivism actively support technological change, viewing it as emancipatory. Many negative impacts of technology can be mitigated through technological innovations like renewable energy in transportation and industry, genetically modified crops to address soil depletion, and space exploration to mitigate global catastrophic risks.# ISO certification in India
Etymology
Technology is a term dating back to the early 17th century that meant ‘systematic treatment’ (from Greek Τεχνολογία, from τέχνη ‘art, craft’ and -λογία, ‘study, knowledge’). It is predated in use by the Ancient Greek τέχνη, used to mean ‘knowledge of how to make things’, which encompassed activities like architecture.
Starting in the 19th century, continental Europeans started using the terms Technik (German) or technique (French) to refer to a ‘way of doing’, which included all technical arts, such as dancing, navigation, or printing, whether or not they required tools or instruments.: 114–115 At the time, Technologie (German and French) referred either to the academic discipline studying the “methods of arts and crafts”, or to the political discipline “intended to legislate on the functions of the arts and crafts.”: 117 Since the distinction between Technik and Technologie is absent in English, both were translated as technology. The term was previously uncommon in English and mostly referred to the academic discipline, as in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.# ISO certification in India
In the 20th century, as a result of scientific progress and the Second Industrial Revolution, technology stopped being considered a distinct academic discipline and took on its current-day meaning: the systemic use of knowledge to practical ends.: 119
History
Main articles: History of technology and Timeline of historic inventions
Prehistoric
Main article: Prehistoric technology
Hand axes from the Acheulian period
Tools were initially developed by hominids through observation and trial and error. Around 2 Mya (million years ago), they learned to make the first stone tools by hammering flakes off a pebble, forming a sharp hand axe. This practice was refined 75 kya (thousand years ago) into pressure flaking, enabling much finer work.# ISO certification in India
The discovery of fire was described by Charles Darwin as “possibly the greatest ever made by man”. Archeological, dietary, and social evidence point to “continuous [human] fire-use” at least 1.5 Mya. Fire, fueled with wood and charcoal, allowed early humans to cook their food to increase its digestibility, improving its nutrient value and broadening the number of foods that could be eaten. The cooking hypothesis proposes that the ability to cook promoted an increase in hominid brain size, though some researchers find the evidence inconclusive. Archeological evidence of hearths was dated to 790 kya; researchers believe this is likely to have intensified human socialization and may have contributed to the emergence of language.# ISO certification in India
Other technological advances made during the Paleolithic era include clothing and shelter. No consensus exists on the approximate time of adoption of either technology, but archeologists have found archeological evidence of clothing 90-120 kya and shelter 450 kya As the Paleolithic era progressed, dwellings became more sophisticated and more elaborate; as early as 380 kya, humans were constructing temporary wood huts. Clothing, adapted from the fur and hides of hunted animals, helped humanity expand into colder regions; humans began to migrate out of Africa around 200 kya, initially moving to Eurasia.# ISO certification in India
Neolithic
Main article: Neolithic Revolution
An array of Neolithic artifacts, including bracelets, axe heads, chisels, and polishing tools
The Neolithic Revolution (or First Agricultural Revolution) brought about an acceleration of technological innovation, and a consequent increase in social complexity. The invention of the polished stone axe was a major advance that allowed large-scale forest clearance and farming. This use of polished stone axes increased greatly in the Neolithic but was originally used in the preceding Mesolithic in some areas such as Ireland. Agriculture fed larger populations, and the transition to sedentism allowed for the simultaneous raising of more children, as infants no longer needed to be carried around by nomads. Additionally, children could contribute labor to the raising of crops more readily than they could participate in hunter-gatherer activities.# ISO certification in India
With this increase in population and availability of labor came an increase in labor specialization. What triggered the progression from early Neolithic villages to the first cities, such as Uruk, and the first civilizations, such as Sumer, is not specifically known; however, the emergence of increasingly hierarchical social structures and specialized labor, of trade and war amongst adjacent cultures, and the need for collective action to overcome environmental challenges such as irrigation, are all thought to have played a role.
Continuing improvements led to the furnace and bellows and provided, for the first time, the ability to smelt and forge gold, copper, silver, and lead – native metals found in relatively pure form in nature. The advantages of copper tools over stone, bone and wooden tools were quickly apparent to early humans, and native copper was probably used from near the beginning of Neolithic times (about 10 ka). Native copper does not naturally occur in large amounts, but copper ores are quite common and some of them produce metal easily when burned in wood or charcoal fires. Eventually, the working of metals led to the discovery of alloys such as bronze and brass (about 4,000 BCE). The first use of iron alloys such as steel dates to around 1,800 BCE.# ISO certification in India
