Technology Essay Samples

- What innovations or invention (technology) had the biggest impact on civilization throughout history, and why? The technology that you choose must be at least 100 years old or older. Consider how civilization has been affected by this technology over time.
We have often witnessed little new-born babies in the hospitals being cruelly injected with long needles. We hear the doctors saying, “It’s for their own good.” This is because those babies are being administered with vaccines to help them develop immunity against specific diseases that can ultimately prove fatal. Today, myriad vaccines exist that almost completely guarantee to stave off any future exposure to dangerous and lethal diseases.
Although the origin of the practice of vaccination is, usually, traced to Edward Jenner back in 1796, this practice existed long before that amongst the Chinese. A contagious disease called smallpox was proving to be fatal for thousands of people in the Egyptian Dynasties and for the Indians. Then it arrived in Europe and spread like a plague. By the 16th Century, Europe was completely in the clutches of smallpox. By the 18th century, it had spread throughout the world, and around 400,000 people were dying in Europe annually due to smallpox. Whether it was the king or a peasant, a baby or an adult, this disease was not sparing anyone. In around 1000 BC, a process called ‘variolation’ was being practiced in India and by the 10th century, the Chinese were also using it. It partially worked like vaccination but could not prove to be very effective. As this lethal smallpox continued to wipe out cities, a British physician by the name of Edward Jenner plucked up the courage to experiment with what is in today’s parlance called a vaccine.
In my opinion, this invention has had a drastic effect on the civilization because in its absence; thousands of lives would have continued to be destroyed. In 1885, Louis Pasteur developed a vaccine for rabies that carried inestimable influence on human lives. Almost everyone used to be a victim of measles in America before any vaccine existed for it, and hundreds of lives were lost annually. Today, most of the doctors claim to have never received a measles patient. What brought this change? Vaccines. Next, in America alone, approximately 15,000 people breathed their last in 1921 due to the disease called diphtheria. Once a vaccine was introduced, only one case of diphtheria has been reported to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA (CDC) since 2004. This perfectly explains the importance of vaccines to the civilizations.
A very pertinent question to ask here is what would happen if vaccinations would stop. A relevant example is that of Japan and the whooping cough disease. In 1974, it was ensured that eighty percent of the children were getting the vaccine for whooping cough. During that year, a few hundred cases of this disease appeared and none proved fatal. Once the attention was diverted, and immunization rate reduced, only ten percent of the children got inoculated. Consequently, in 1979, around thirteen thousand people became victims of this disease while 41 passed away.
Today, vaccines for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, polio, chickenpox, diphtheria, measles, mumps, pertussis, and numerous other diseases are being used in USA. We can proudly claim to have conquered many of these diseases, but our pride will suffer a significant fall if we suddenly stop vaccinations. Thus, in my opinion, vaccines have brought immeasurable impact on the human civilization.
- What innovations or invention (technology) had the biggest impact on civilization within the past 100 years, and why?
In old movies and cartoons, we often see an inkpot sitting on a table in front of the protagonist, while he moves a feather across the paper in front of him, writing a billet-doux. The very first word that comes to my mind when I see a feather being dipped into the inkpot after writing every word is ‘inconvenient’. Later, fountain pens ruled the market. Even though, they could work for quite a long while once filled with ink, inkpots were still a necessary accessory that had to be carried and kept everywhere. Still, the invention of fountain pens was probably a blessing for the people who could imagine cavemen using stones to carve out drawings on the rocky walls of the caves.
The principle of the ballpoint pen was first employed by John J. Loud in order to write on leather. However, its application to letter writing could not be popular because it was too rough and messy. In 1938, Laszlo Biro, a Hungarian journalist, invented the first ball-point pen. He noticed the ink used for newspapers for its smudge-free and quickly dried the nature and decided to use the same type of ink in order to make a new pen. The name ‘ball-point’ points to the actual working of the pen. There is a rotating ball at the end that rotates as we move it on the surface and during its rotation picks up ink from the ink tube. This ingenious invention changed the convenience of writing overnight.
Today, thousands of brands exist that sell different ball-pens of different qualities. Ranging from excessively cheap ones to extremely expensive ones, ball-points brought easy access to writing for everyone.. It is particularly inexpensive in the developing nations where even the smallest vendors and shopkeepers hold these pens for their book-keeping. Moreover, there is no longer a need to wait for the ink to dry. Even at my house, there is a separate ball-point for every place that makes it extremely convenient. I have kept a ball-point by the side of my landline telephone to note down numbers in urgency; I have a ball-point in my everyday journal; my mother keeps a ball-point in her bag in case she needs it when she goes out. Thus, ball-points have completely eradicated the need to carry an inkpot with you everywhere you go.
Ball-points with inks of different colors have made them even more attractive. Instead of having an inkpot and fountain pen of each color separately, you just have to buy ball-points of different colors. Some brands have also launched a single ball-point that contains tubes of several colors, making it hugely expedient. Thus, I believe that by the invention of ball-points, the whole civilization has been affected due to the enormity of the ease with which we all have been bestowed.