National Development, Science and Technology in

A Brief History

Up until the late Middle Ages (beginning in the 14th century), Western Europeans lagged behind the Middle East, South Asia, and China both scientifically and technologically. The West's ascendancy began during the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution era and was completed during the [Page 502]Industrial Revolution. That the West drew heavily from the East's technology is shown in the West's adoption of gunpowder, magnetic compass, horse harness, and printing press from China and the windmill and waterwheel from the Middle East. In mathematics, the origin of the number system adopted by the West and the whole world is clear from its name, the Hindu-Arabic system. In science, the Copernican revolution that defined the Earth as the center of the solar system also relied on works from the Middle East. Yet it was the once-backward Western Europeans who developed modern science. The risk-taking of the merchant capitalists there created an environment conducive to new ideas on nature, society, and man's role in the order of things. The result was technology that made possible the economic and political domination by Europeans that has lasted from the Renaissance era up until the present.

If societal factors affect the development of science, the converse is equally true. Science affects the development of society, and this became clear during the Industrial Revolution of the mid-19th to early 20th centuries. In particular, unlike the technologies developed in earlier eras, those based on the physics of electromagnetism (including the telegraph and early wireless communication) require an understanding of the works of Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell. Aside from spawning new industries (including communication and entertainment) and facilitating the flow of capital and information, the new technologies also led to better science because of greater precision in measurements. As a result, from the mid-19th century onward, we see evidence of the symbiotic linkage between S&T development and the significant, long-term effects of S&T on society.

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