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20,000 BCE
Archery
Archery is the method by which a person uses the spring power stored in a bent stick to shoot a slender pointed projectile a great distance at rapid speed. A very useful technology, whether employed against game animals or against other human beings. Now it's considered just recreation. -
12,000 BCE
Pottery
The earliest known ceramics are the Gravettian culture figurines (little, faceless representations of fat women) that date back to between 29 and 25 thousand BC. These were shaped by hand, and fired in a pit. Somewhere around 12000 years ago, clever folk figured out that clay – often mixed with sand, grit, crushed shells, or bone – could be used to make more useful items: pots, cups, plates, bowls, storage jars, and so forth. In Japan potters began putting glaze on their earthenware pots. -
10,000 BCE
Animal Husbandry
The domestication of animals and the selective breeding for traits appears to have occurred around the same time as the development of agriculture. The dog is thought to be the earliest domesticated animal, probably to assist in hunting game and protect the camp. Evidence suggests that dogs were first tamed and bred in China. Goats and sheep were domesticated in the Middle East about 10,000 BC. Next, men domesticated cattle. Then horses were domesticated around 4000 BC. -
Period: 6000 BCE to 1000 BCE
Ancient Era
From the first stirrings of life beneath water... to the great beasts of the Stone Age... to man taking his first upright steps, you have come far. Now begins your greatest quest: from this early cradle of civilization on towards the stars. -
5500 BCE
Sailing
Since rowing a ship is a lot of work, men developed sails to let the wind push it along. Sailing gave humans a quicker, easier way to travel than over land, and has been used for trade, transport, fishing and warfare since the first mast was raised. The oldest representation of a ship under sail was found on a painted disc in Kuwait, dating to between 5500 and 5000 BC. Tomb paintings c. 3200 BC show reed boats under sail on the Nile. -
5000 BCE
Irrigation
Irrigation has been a central feature of agriculture for over 5000 years, and forms the basis for the economy and culture of many civilizations throughout history. Perennial irrigation was first practiced in Mesopotamia with water flowing through small channels connecting to a river or a small lake. In Egypt, several pharaoh used oases to store water for irrigation during the dry season. Ancient Nubians devised a waterwheel device to bring water to their fields around the second millennium BC. -
4500 BCE
Bronze Working
The earliest bronze artifacts – actually, arsenic bronze, alloys of metallic arsenic rather than tin – found by archaeologists in Iranian tombs date back to the fifth millennium BC. Tin-bronze was eventually found to be superior to arsenic-bronze ... and the fumes of the alloying process didn't kill the bronze worker, so that was a plus. The oldest (c. 4500 BC) tin-bronze items have been found in a Vinca site in Serbia, and other early examples include odd bits found in China and Mesopotamia. -
4000 BCE
Mining
If it can't be found laying about, dig it up. The Neolithics mined flint in England and France about 4000 BC; the ancient Egyptians mined malachite between 2600 and 2500 BC. These were generally open pit mines, or shallow shafts (less than 100 feet deep) such as the Athenian silver mines at Laurium, where over 20 thousand slaves labored. It was Roman engineers who developed large and efficient mining methods, like using aqueducts and thermal cracking. Their methods spread around the world. -
4000 BCE
Writing
Writing is a technology that quite literally changed the course of civilization. The ability to set things down so as to remember them unaltered beyond a single lifetime meant that every aspect of the human condition, every social structural and cultural more, altered significantly. Writing allowed civilization to become organized – organized religion, organized government, organized economy, organized war, organized science. And literature, a great advance over mere oral tales. -
4000 BCE
Wheel
The invention of the wheel comes in the late Neolithic Age, and along with the advance of several other technologies kicks off the Bronze Age. Archaeological evidence for wheeled vehicles appears in the fourth millennia BC, more or less at the same time in Mesopotamia, the Caucasus and Central Europe (obviously, an idea whose time had come). In China the wheel was certainly in existence by 1200 BC, when Chinese chariots appeared. -
4000 BCE
Horseback Riding
There is archaeological evidence that around 4000 BC humans had used bits on their horses in the basins of the Dnieper and Don rivers; skeletons of horses found in the region shows signs that the horses chomped on bits. Thus, horseback riding. It is thought that the Scythians of the steppes may well have been the first to develop the stirrup and the saddle, although the historical argument is as yet unconvincing. -
4000 BCE
Iron Working
While the use of iron has been dated back to 4000 BC, the Hittites were the first to extract the ore, smelt it and fashion weapons – thus setting off the Iron Age around 1200 BC. In Asia, iron working developed at about the same time; iron Chinese artifacts have been unearthed dating back to around 600 BC. From those two places, using iron for weapons and tools spread quickly across the globe, except in the Americas where the natives continued to hit each other with rocks. -
3000 BCE
Construction
When the architects and engineers get done mucking about, the contractors take over. Once there was agriculture and a reason to stay in one place, the first huts were constructed by the people who would live in them. As cities grew during the Bronze Age, professional construction workers – just bricklayers and carpenters at first – arose. This new class of skilled workers, including lots of slaves, literally laid the foundations for civilization. -
2600 BCE
Masonry
The ancient Egyptians mastered the art of masonry as early as the fourth millennium BC constructing temples, palaces, pyramids and other edifices from limestone, sandstone, granite and basalt. The Assyrians of the Fertile Crescent lacked easy access to stone but possessed rich deposits of clay, which they sun-dried into bricks. The Babylonians too used brick, held together with mortar made of lime and pitch. The Harappa city in now-Pakistan was built around 2600 BC with bricks and gypsum mortar. -
2500 BCE
Shipbuilding
Shipbuilding is, of course, the building of ships. Archaeological evidence indicates that humans have sailed as far as 120 thousand years ago to Borneo. And later to New Guinea and Australia some 50 thousand years ago. In the fourth millennium BC, the Egyptians were constructing boat hulls from planks of wood, using treenails to hold them together and pitch to make them watertight. Across the ocean in India, the first shipbuilding docks were being utilized by the Harappans around 2500 BC. -
2500 BCE
Engineering
Engineering is the science (or perhaps “art,” if engineers themselves are involved in the discussion) of using science to design things: buildings, roads and bridges, machines, and other materially useful things. The term is somewhat vague – consider for example, software “engineering.” Originally the term referred only to creating “engines” of war; the Romans applied it to all sorts of public works, since their legions were building roads, bridges and walls all over the empire. -
2000 BCE
Currency
Currency, where something relatively worthless in itself represents some amount of actual value, has been the bane of civilization since around 2000 BC The Egyptians soon adopted the practice for their own grain warehouses, so that individuals could claim a portion they had “banked” therein. Then small bits of rare metals came to represent certain amounts of various commodities, able to be exchanged … or hoarded. Thus, wealth was determined by how many of these bits a person had. -
2000 BCE
Machinery
When humans began to develop tasks that they or their animals could not do, they invented machines. From those first simple machines that Archimedes went on about, a machine civilization has evolved on Earth. Later Greek thinkers added the wedge and the wheel/axle to the list of the five simple machines. Heron of Alexandria in his work Mechanica described their fabrication and uses. But the Greeks, while they understood statics and friction, had no understanding of dynamics. -
1600 BCE
Education
Humans learn things, and civilization results. Obviously education has been around as long as mankind has. Parents teaching their children the skills they needed to know to survive and be productive. As a tribe expanded and grew more prosperous, village elders and priests might educate the children while the healthy adults gathered food, built stuff and made war. Eventually a wealthy society might have formal classes for the more important children. -
1200 BCE
Printing
No technology since writing so impacted civilization as did movable-type printing. Woodblock printing had been used for decades in China, India and Europe. The pecia system developed in the early 13th Century at Italian universities gave booksellers a method for producing multiple copies of a book in a relatively short time. But books remained expensive, and possessions only for the educated elite. -
1100 BCE
Military Engineering
Military engineering dates back to the Roman legions, which each had a small, specialized corps devoted to overseeing the building of fortifications and roads. They were also the ones to build the catapults, battering ram and siege towers when needed to stamp out some unruly town. But for over five centuries after the fall of Rome in the west military engineering barely progressed it wasn't until late in the Middle Ages that the need for siege warfare spurred the advance of military engineering. -
1000 BCE
Celestial Navigation
Celestial navigation is the practice of taking angular measurements between a celestial body and a point on the horizon to determine one's position on the globe. A very useful skill for early sailors venturing out of sight of land. The altitude of the sun above the horizon at noon when compared with the altitude of other bodies gave, for instance, the latitude of the ship. -
Period: 1000 BCE to 500
Classical Era
From humble beginnings, you have shown remarkable growth. Leave your bronze for iron and rule with horse and sword. The sky above begins to reveal its secrets, a collection of heaven that uplifts our hearts and guides us to foreign shores. -
600 BCE
Mathematics
The term “mathematics” is derived from the Greek mathema, meaning “knowledge, study, or learning.” Appropriate, given that it is the science of science, focused on quantity, measurement, structure, logic and change. Mathematics, according to some, is also the art of art, focused on space, shape, relationship, perspective, and fractals. Not to mention mathematics relationship to music. -
350 BCE
Stirrups
The stirrup is considered one of the basic inventions needed to spread civilization. Like all great innovations, it seems such a simple idea. Humans had domesticated the horse around 4500 BC, but where to put one's feet and how to stay on when the horse began running? The saddle, invented around 800 BC. But adding two pieces of leather with a loop on the end hanging down didn't come about until around a half-millennia later, no one knows for sure but historians know it was in use around 322 BC. -
100
Cartography
There is lots of debate on when maps were first made. The oldest “map” to have been discovered is a depiction of what may be local terrain features about Catal Huyuk in Anatolia, dated to 7000 BC. But the first ink splatters that are definitely a map is the “House of the Admiral” wall painting dating to the Minoan civilization 1600 BC. Around 4000 BC, the Greeks and the Romans were making somewhat more portable maps. And Ptolemy produced his famous treatise on cartography in the 2nd Century AD. -
Period: 500 to 1350
Medieval Era
You have built great cities of stone and seen early empires rise and fall. Soon you will stand under the towering pinnacles of castles alongside your gallant knights. That is where the story of your people will be written. Just as the young apprentice learns to carry a sword, so shall you grow to understand your place in this world. -
800
Gunpowder
The invention of gunpowder is usually attributed to Chinese alchemists during the Tang dynasty. The earliest written record of it was supposed to be an elixir for immortality. But the Chinese did discover that it burned explosively and the resultant gases expanded rapidly when exposed to heat; so it was useful for making fireworks. The Chinese found a more practical use for gunpowder in crude bombs. -
900
Castles
Great piles of stone dominate the varied landscapes of Europe, castles dating back to the early 10th Century AD when feudal lords sought to insure their power and influence. Some were little more than cold, dirty square stone boxes; others were fairy structures with tall towers, crenelated parapets and flying buttresses. But rather than the romantic visions of noble knights, damsels in distress, great feasts and throwing the barbarians back from the moat. -
1275
Banking
Although there had been “banks” before mostly these were private individuals that made loans, with various unsavory methods to insure repayment. With the fall of Rome in the West and the fall of money lending, Banks did not reappear in Europe until the Middle Ages, rediscovered by rulers looking for ways to fund their bloody and expensive Crusades. Benches were used by Jewish Florentine money-lenders as temporary exchange tables, and hence the term “bank.” -
1350
Square Rigging
The first two-mast square-rigged ships appeared in the Mediterranean in the mid-14th Century AD, replacing the triangular-rigged lanteen sailing ships that had been used for the previous thousand years. Perpendicular square sails had been used on sailing ships in Northern Europe before, and the design was adopted by the Crusaders for their transports, giving more speed and maneuverability so they could get to the Holy Land quicker. -
Period: 1350 to
Renaissance Era
New powers call forth, from the barrel of muskets to flowers of fire in the sky. Even the quiet words on newly printed pages hold great changes within. The world, once so vast and mysterious, has grown smaller and more familiar. Yet, there are always questions to be answered, faiths to be tested, and national identities to be formed. -
1400
Mass Production
Until the Industrial Revolution, the idea of mass production was limited to pottery, Chinese crossbows with interchangeable parts, and assembly line production of books. But in the Renaissance, Venice began mass-producing ships to maintain their grip on the Mediterranean in their famed Arsenal, using prefabricated parts and assembly lines that would not be matched for output for three centuries. At it's peak it could produce a ship a day with 10,000 employed workers. -
1400
Metal Casting
Metal casting is the process by which a craftsman can make multiple, identical metal objects by pouring molten metal into a mold. The oldest such yet found is a copper frog cast in Mesopotamia around 3200 BC. The first production of cast iron was in China between 800 and 700 BC; using sand mold casting, the Chinese were making cast iron plowshares by 233 BC. Cast iron was also handy for making a lot of arrowheads, spearheads and cannonballs, as the Chinese soon discovered. -
1520
Rifling
Rifling is merely the cutting of helical grooves into the inner part of a gun barrel so as to induce spin in a ball or bullet which serves to gyroscopically stabilized the projectile, giving it greater accuracy and range. In short, all this means is that it took a skilled marksman to hit anything specific with a smoothbore musket, but any fool with a steady hand has a fair chance of success firing a rifle at a target. -
Sanitation
A clean water supply and sanitation has been rather important for the rise of civilization, since without such folk tend to fall prey to disease and death. Especially when crowded together in urban centers. The earliest signs of city sanitation have been found in the ruins of the Harappan settlements Mohenjo-daro and Rakhigarhi in the Indus Valley c. 2500 BC. There groups of homes obtained water from a common well, and wastewater was emptied into covered drains which lined the streets. -
Astronomy
Significant advances in astronomy have usually come with the introduction of new technology; it helps to be able to see things larger, farther away or in other spectrums when studying infinity. Better and better telescopes allowed William Herschel to create a detailed catalogue of nebulae and clusters, and to “discover” the planet Uranus in 1781. The German Friedrich Bessel managed to measure the distance to a star (61 Cygni) in 1838 for the first time. -
Ballistics
The mechanics of throwing things have been known for quite awhile; primitive cultures are quite adept at throwing things. The first ballistic weapons were sticks, stones and spears. Then bows get invented around 10 thousand years ago; then gunpowder and the study of the mechanics of launching things gets rather complicated. The motion, behavior and effects of bullets, shells, bombs, rockets and the like became of great interest to military and law enforcement forces throughout civilization. -
Steam Power
When heated to boiling, water produces steam. But harnessing that steam wasn't thought of until Taqi al-Din Muhammed ibn Ma’ruf described a hypothetical steam turbine for turning a spit in 1551 AD. The move towards a workable steam engine gets started a century later when Edward Somerset published a collection on his “inventions,” including a steam pump, a working model of which he built in Raglan Castle. In 1680 Huygens published memoirs describing an engine that drives a piston. -
Period: to
Industrial Era
The steady hum of machinery, the acrid smell of smoke, vision clouded by ash and soot - these are the signs of changing times. The lure of scientific and cultural advancement is the engine driving your realm forward. Now your challenge is to maintain the delicate balance between earth and man, between peace and war. -
Industrialization
Not many “technologies” give a label to a revolution and to an era. Industrialization is viewed by scholars as the transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one, which was historically accompanied by widespread social and economic upheaval. It is driven by the invention of new machinery and discovery of new power sources. The Industrial Revolution, beginning in Europe during the 18th century, brought about unforeseen changes in the way people lived their daily lives. -
Economics
But no one save a few befuddled historians remembers those writings. Instead Adam Smith’s studies are considered the foundation of modern economics. In his book, Smith contends that a free market is the most efficient means of assigning worth to and for distributing goods and services. Moreover, when a person pursues his own financial self-interests he automatically is promoting the good of society in general through economic growth and investment. -
Chemistry
As astronomy evolved from astrology, chemistry evolved from another pseudoscience: alchemy. Alchemy spans four millennia and three continents; never underestimate mankind's ability to believe in the irrational. The roots of Western alchemy can be traced to Hellenic Egypt, where Zosimos of Panopolis claimed that the ancient priests had discovered a way to transmute metals from one to another. However, the method and the mix of elements that could bring this about had been lost. -
Electricity
Mankind has known electricity existed since the first bunch of Neanderthals got blasted by a lightning bolt; in fact, for millennia afterwards, electricity in this form was associated with angry gods. Greek, Roman, and Arabic physicians attested to the numbing effects of electric shocks delivered by various animals. Electricity, however, remained nothing more than a scientific curiosity through the 17th Century. -
Steel
Along with petroleum, steel is the backbone of modern civilization. In 1980, there were a half-million steelworkers in the United States alone. Between 2000 and 2005, demand for steel increased 6% worldwide, driven by the building boom in India and China. In 2005, China was the world's leading steel producer, followed (in order) by Japan, Russia and America. In 2008 steel began being traded as a commodity, first on the London Metal Exchange. Seems it really is worth (nearly) its weight in gold. -
Petroleum Refining
Fuel refining may be the most fundamental technology that underlies the industrial expansion of the 20th Century, for better and worse. The accelerating change to the world's climate and the incredible growth of material prosperity are both inextricably bound in this development, which is so common in this age that we take it for granted. -
Replaceable Parts
The development of interchangeable parts in manufacturing was due in large part to the innovation and invention of a number of manufacturing machines. Manufacturing was revolutionized by the slide rest lathe, screw cutting lathe, milling machine and metal planer. Add electrification of the machines for higher speed, and now hundreds of identical parts could be churned out each hour by skilled machinists. Configuration management evolved in the 1950s. Then came robots to work the assembly lines. -
Combustion
Although there were internal combustion engines described by engineers before the 19th Century – for instance, a piston-and-cylinder gas-fired engine by Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir in 1860 AD – until industrial-level drilling for petroleum and methods for refining it into gasoline, they really weren't much more than a curiosity. And a smelly and noisy one to boot. Even when Siegfried Marcus put a mobile gas-driven engine on a handcart in 1870 Vienna, the potential went unrecognized. -
Period: to
Modern Era
In the beginning, legends of flying men soared. And today, you are on the brink of transforming those legends into a reality. With flight and new forms of communication you can create a small and intimate world. But at what cost? Our competing ideas of how to govern and how to live threaten to bring conflict on a global scale. You must choose your own path through this rising din of ideological oratory. -
Radio
On 13 May 1897, Guglielmo Marconi sent the world's first radio message across open water, and he did it while visiting a seaside resort in Somerset. Marconi came to Weston-super-Mare looking to experiment with what he called "telegraphy without wires" - known to us now as radio. -
Flight
On December 17, 1903 the Wright flyer flew four times, at distances up to 852 feet. The years following the Wright brothers’ breakthrough saw rapid improvements in the technology of powered flight. In 1908 American Glenn Hammond Curtiss flew over one kilometer, and in 1909 Frenchman Louis Bleriot flew across the English Channel. -
Rocketry
Until the Second World War, rockets remained relatively short-range, inaccurate, clumsy weapons, or were used for making pretty fireworks. In 1792, iron-cased rockets were used by Tipu Sultan defending Mysore against the avaricious British East India Company. The British, sensing a good thing, developed the solid-fuel Congreve Rocket for use against the French, Americans and other unpleasant sorts. In 1914, Robert Goddard patented several concepts that proved pivotal in the history of rocketry. -
Computers
If one thinks of a computer as a device simply to aid computation, then these have been around for millennia. An abacus, used as early as 2400 BC, is just such as device. A mechanical astrolabe with a calendar calculator was devised by Abi Bakr in Persia in 1235 AD. The slide rule was invented around 1620. The “differential analyzer,” a mechanical analog calculator, was first proposed by Lord Kelvin in 1876, and by the 1920s Vannevar Bush and others had built such contraptions. -
Plastics
Synthetic or semi-synthetic organic polymers derived (generally) from petrochemicals of high molecular mass that are incredibly durable, malleable, lightweight and now pervasive in modern civilization. Plastic. It comes in many forms, some tougher, some more flexible, some with a greater or lesser tolerance to heat. Plastic can be molded, pressed, or extruded into virtually any shape desired. It's found in every facet of life today. -
Advanced Flight
The first flight of a jet aircraft was made by the Italian Caproni Campini N.1 prototype in August 1940. The Germans had kept their own work, the Messerschmitt Me-262, under wraps. Although successfully test flown as early as 1941, mass production didn't start until mid-1944 when several Luftwaffe jet squadrons took to the skies against the Allied bombers. The first jet fighter to see combat, its appearance was too late to affect the war significantly, but Me-262s did shot down 542 enemy planes. -
Synthetic Materials
It wasn't only fibers that were being produced from synthesized polymers; chemists were inventing all sorts of artificial materials in their corporate and college labs. The Naugahyde was a composite of fabric overlaid with polyvinyl chloride developed by Byron Hunter of the U.S. Rubber Company. The first synthetic diamond was created in 1953. The year 1960 saw a team of researchers in North Carolina create the first artificial turf. -
Nuclear Fission
Mushroom clouds and boundless energy; utopia or annihilation. The technology of nuclear fission carries the promise of both, or neither. In physics and chemistry, nuclear fission is the decay whereby the nucleus of an atom breaks down into lighter nuclei, spinning off neutrons and photons, thus releasing significant amounts of energy. If a chain reaction can be started, whereby these free neutrons and photons cause other nuclei around them to split, a lot of energy gets released all at once. -
Period: to
Atomic Era
New frontiers of discovery expand our understanding, from the tiny atom to the majesty of outer space. Mysteries long tolerated are closer than ever to revealing their deepest secrets, beyond what we can easily see. You will choose how to use this knowledge, and push back the greatest darkness we have yet faced. -
Nuclear Fusion
In contrast to nuclear fission – where energy is generated by the division of a nucleus – nuclear fusion occurs when two or more atomic nuclei slam together hard enough to fuse, which also releases photons in quantity. Fusion reactions power the stars of the universe, giving off lots of light and heat. -
Satellites
“Beep … beep … beep.” So it began. Sputnik, with an onboard radio signal transmitter, was launched in October 1957 AD by Soviet Russia. Orbiting overhead, the artificial satellite (as opposed to natural satellites like the Moon) Sputnik served notice to the humans huddled on the surface that the world had dramatically changed ... for better or not remained to be determined. Sputnik 2 was launched in November, with the first living creature in space aboard, a dog named Laika. -
Lasers
The term “laser” is an acronym for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation,” which pretty much describes what it happens to be. The theory dates back to a paper by Albert Einstein in 1917 which offered a derivation of Planck's Law concerning stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. In 1928, the atomic physicist Rudolf Ladenburg confirmed the phenomena of stimulated emission and negative absorption. -
Composites
A composite is any material made from two or more materials with significantly differing physical or chemical properties; composites are distinct from alloys or chemical compounds (in which the components do not retain their original properties). -
Stealth Technology
The ability to creep around unseen and unleash havoc is the fantasy of every five-year-old; modern scientists are close to making it reality. Modern stealth technology is a combination of multiple military projects and experimental science expanded beyond what humans can see, trying to both hide and detect objects by radar, acoustics, thermal readings, or other less readily visible methods. Low observable technology, as stealth tech is also known, has been used by hunters to sneak up on animals. -
Robots
In 1942 AD, the science fiction author Isaac Asimov proposed three “laws of robotics.” In 1948 the American mathematician Norbert Wiener formulated the “principles of cybernetics” as the basis for practical robotics. And in 1961 the first programmable robot – “Unimate” – was constructed to lift and stack hot pieces of metal from a die casting machine. -
Period: to
Information Era
A world of information rests in the palm of your hand, and networks for instantaneous communication span the globe. Yet a unified vision of our future has never been built. We compete in technology, culture, and politics. We have deadly weapons that could destroy our planet. Lead us carefully, but boldly, and build a global community that can stand for years to come. -
Telecommunications
In cultural terms, the advent of satellite telecommunications has increased the public’s access to cultural markers and memes from distant peoples; the world may be on the verge of a single, homogeneous human culture. In financial terms, the international telecommunication industry generated $149 billion in 2007; the world may be on its way to an information economy. Whatever may come, the telecommunications genie is well out of the regulatory bottle. -
Nanotechnology
Tiny machines inside animals and humans snipping, slicing, splicing, melding or mutating cells. Tiny machines creating new materials on the molecular level. Or tiny machines making more tiny machines. Whatever use it may be put to, nanotechnology is just beyond the edge of science fiction. -
Advanced AI
As to whether AI will ever be mistaken for a human, it is hard to imagine a future where frustrated people dealing with computerized phone systems do not continually mash the “0” button in search of a human operator. -
Advanced Power Cells
The first true solid-state device for generating electricity was created by the Italian inventor Alessandro Volta in 1800. There have been countless refinements to Volta's electrochemical cell design since then, and with the digital revolution the development of battery technology has undergone ever-greater investment and interest. A live electronic device is capable of marvels. One without a working battery is an expensive hindrance. -
Cybernetics
The term "cybernetics" is taken from the ancient Greek term to describe the skill of a ship's helmsman, and was re-invigorated in 1948 by American mathematician Nobert Weiner, who used it as a term for the study and practice of controlling complex systems, particularly with regard to human sensory input and locomotor function. One of the earliest projects of scientists in the cybernetic program was interest in developing more effective artificial limbs. -
Period: to
Future Era
The world contains marvels beyond the dreams of ancient prophets, and terrors more fearsome than any apocalypse. Machines search for meaning and new matter weaves dream-like forms. Choices made long ago bear grave consequences in this age and demand resolute answers. Go now, and achieve your vision for the future of civilization. -
Offworld Missions
If human beings are to settle away from planet Earth, it will be necessary to develop competencies for life isolated from the main planet—simple matters like “growing food” and “finding enough water” and “not having to run home for spare parts.” Approaches for sustained life away from Earth are still in the theoretical stages in the early Twenty-First Century. It is hoped that as human beings develop the ability to live away from our home planet. -
Predictive Systems
Artificial Intelligence systems can create sophisticated models of behavior, with good predictive power for future behavior. This is becoming widely exploited in commercial domains (as anyone who carefully observes the Internet advertisements served up them can tell you) but it is also being used in other areas as well. Medical and health professionals are interested in increased efficacy of targeted preventative programs. Law enforcement is interested in being able to anticipate crime. -
Smart Materials
Materials are usually selected for use on the basis of a single quality. A brick, for instance, should not be flexible if it is to be a good basis for construction. Smart materials are materials which can assume different properties on command, in response to different situations. An analogy would be a brick that is solid when used as a building material, but which could be flat and flexible for easy storage and portability otherwise.