Editor's Note: Technology originates from the needs of human survival and evolution. The acquisition of technology (tools) has separated humans from the surrounding animals. With the wisdom of practice, technology has aided human progress, moving from ignorance to civilization. The history of humanity is a history of technology.

Science originates from the interest in the mysteries of nature and the pursuit of spirit. At the end of the Bronze Age, science began in Greece. For more than three thousand years thereafter, even after experiencing the scientific and industrial revolutions of the 16th to 18th centuries, technology and science remained as distant as different professions. Scientific activities followed the tradition of Aristotle, pursuing intellectual and spiritual satisfaction without considering the application of theories. Technologists also did not absorb the nutrients of science, knowing what is but not necessarily why it is. Science and technology each went their separate ways.

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In the 19th century, science gradually matured, forming the basic laws of physics and chemistry. Electromotive force brought about the second industrial revolution. Unlike history, this revolution was the application of the laws of physics and material science in industrial practice. Science was no longer pure theory; science and technology began to join hands, promoting each other.

After the 20th century, the union of science and technology has led to revolutionary progress in society, with technological innovation becoming increasingly dense, reshaping people's lifestyles, and creating a fast and efficient culture. The emergence of artificial intelligence has further accelerated this process, redefining the paradigm of science, and more scientific discoveries based on artificial intelligence are applied to technology more quickly.

However, science and technology still belong to different sources and will develop independently according to their own laws. Many scientists will still follow the pure theoretical tradition of ancient Greek philosophers, and many technologies will still precede science in practice, opening up new realms. Technology is increasingly dominating humanity, and in the era of artificial intelligence, this concern is more prominent, which may be the ultimate problem that science and technology have to face.For more in-depth and specific case discussions, see the new book "Top of Technology (20th Anniversary Collector's Edition): Global Breakthrough Technological Innovations and Future Trends." The book collects more than 200 breakthrough technologies that may change the world and invites experts from China and abroad to comment. Since 2001, MIT Technology Review has selected the "Top 10 Breakthrough Technologies" every year, known as "TR10." These technologies are all the brilliant ideas of the world's smartest engineers or the culmination of years of exploration by scientists, and are worth special attention over the next decade.

The following is the preface of "Top of Technology 1," with some modifications.

"Man and ape parted ways, with only a few stones ground." Human development has gone through a long period, and the most important evolution is learning to use tools, having "technology." The earliest technology was born from the grinding of stones, and now, the technology invented by humans has begun to possess intelligence.

Without tools, humans are a fragile species, and no race can face nature unarmed. The acquisition of technology has separated humans from the surrounding animals. Technology has accompanied human growth, from barbarism to civilization. Human history is a history of technology.Over 100,000 years ago, the Paleolithic Age began. Humans learned to grind stone tools, developing "stone knife technology," creating thin flakes from stone cores to cut food, hunt or slaughter animals, and skin animals. Later, they created spears with tips made of animal bones, horns, or flint, as well as ropes, slingshots, spear-throwers, crossbows, and bows and arrows. After that, they learned to make fire.

Fire was to ancient humans what electricity is to modern people. Fire could cook food, making previously inedible tubers, seeds, and meats into edible meals, increasing the sources of food. Fire provided warmth, allowing humans to survive the Ice Age. It provided light, enabling activities even after dark and allowing entry into dark places like caves. Fire could prevent attacks from wild animals. It could also create new tools, accelerating human evolution.

Language was another significant technology besides fire, allowing humans to exchange wisdom. Language evolved from singing, shouting, and calling, with the earliest languages consisting of a few interjections and nouns, gradually developing to express actions and relationships.

Around 12,000 years ago, the Neolithic Age began, marked by the technology of pottery making. Pottery technology belonged to "pyrotechnic technology," which later developed into metallurgy, using naturally occurring crude copper for cold processing to create many useful tools. By the Neolithic Age, houses were already built using lime and mortar, utilizing clay, adobe, and stone blocks. By the late Neolithic Age, there were specialized potters, weavers, masons, and toolmakers.

People observed the sky to determine direction, seasons, and harvest times. Relying on technological transformation, humans shifted from food gathering to food production, starting agriculture and nomadic herding, and developing pastoral and agricultural technologies. Grains had to be collected, threshed, and ground. From hunting to raising and herding, domestication and breeding could produce more cattle, sheep, eggs, and milk. Weaving technology emerged, shearing sheep, planting flax and cotton, spinning, and weaving cloth. Humans began to live a settled life, starting a more complete food production and lifestyle.About 6,000 years ago, marked by the emergence of bronze ware (an alloy of copper and tin), humanity entered the "Bronze Age" until the beginning of the Common Era. Compared to stone tools, metal tools have greater advantages. Metal manufacturing involves complex technologies such as mining, smelting, forging, and casting, requiring blast furnace bellows. Gold and silver processing, as well as bread brewing techniques, also appeared subsequently.

Animals were used for traction and transportation, and vehicles and ships emerged. With new irrigation and agricultural technologies, productivity increased, the population grew, and states began to emerge. To distribute surplus products, it was necessary to record oral and quantitative information, so writing and calculation appeared.

From "knotting to record events" to writing, cuneiform, hieroglyphics, and alphabetic scripts emerged. Writing replaced oral transmission, and gradually produced components with literary value. Calculation is a technology that developed alongside writing, used for counting, exchanging, accounting, and other affairs.

Astronomy, astrology, meteorology, and magic appeared alongside the calendar. The calendar was not only used for agriculture but also for ceremonial activities and economic activities, such as determining the dates for signing and fulfilling contracts. Astronomy, astrology, and esoteric knowledge were used to predict crop yields, military operations, or the future of emperors. Medical science also developed, and there were dedicated royal physicians who accumulated experience and knowledge in anatomy and herbal medicine.

In the late Bronze Age, ancient civilizations such as Egypt, Huaxia, India, Greece, and Rome emerged. The powerful Roman Empire spanned the Mediterranean, Europe, and the Near East.The ancient Romans were the greatest engineers and technicians of antiquity. Roman civilization was a civilization of technology, and technology forged the invincible Roman legions. The extensive road network and water supply system provided crucial infrastructure. The Roman political system was democratic, and the laws were comprehensive, which were extremely important social technologies to ensure the operation of the imperial machine.

Around 100 BC, the Romans invented cement. This was a key technology for creating the world. It changed the field of construction engineering and became the building block of Roman civilization. It can be said that cement supported the expansion of the Roman Empire, with technology and engineering activities everywhere. Engineers were recognized by society, and some even achieved the highest status in the national field of engineering, such as Vitruvius, who served as the architect of the Roman Emperor Augustus.

Around 600-300 BC, known as the ancient Greek era. A strange new spiritual force sprouted in the minds of the Greeks, and they began to discover the world and abstractly think about understanding nature. Science, also known as natural philosophy, originated from this.

The Greek coastline is winding, the mountains are rugged, and the cold wind is biting, and the living conditions are not superior, but it has given birth to a vibrant race and built an advanced civilization. No ancient society has produced as many sages as ancient Greece, and no society has established such a good political system in ancient times. The perfect democratic system released a free atmosphere, giving the Greeks the leisure and pleasure to think. If one can rationally discuss the social system, one can also rationally explore the principles of nature. The birth of science in Greece is not accidental.

Thales of Miletus (625-545 BC) may be the world's first scientist. He used the principle of triangles to measure the distance of ships at sea, proposed that the annual flooding of the Nile River was caused by the Mediterranean monsoon, the earth floats on water like a ship, earthquakes are caused by some kind of movement of the water that supports the earth, and water is the source of all things that give birth to life. His views may be naive, but the method is scientific. He used rational thinking, without involving gods or supernatural things, don't forget that it was an ignorant era when witchcraft and superstition were prevalent. Thales and his followers were theists, and he warned people that "God is everywhere," for example, magnets have a "soul." Thales, however, detached the natural world from divinity, took nature as the research object, thought rationally, and proposed explanations.Greece has continuously produced scientists. Pythagoras (Pythagoras, 580-500 BC) proved the Pythagorean theorem (the Pythagorean theorem). Empedocles (Empedocles, 495-435 BC) proposed that the moon shines by reflection, and solar eclipses are caused by the position of the moon in between. Democritus (Democritus, 460-370 BC) proposed that everything is composed of atoms. Euclid (Euclid, 330-275 BC) summarized the five axioms of plane geometry and compiled the immortal work "Elements of Geometry".

Archimedes (Archimedes, 287-212 BC) was the founder of statics and hydrostatics. He used the method of approximation (the prototype of calculus) to calculate the surface area and volume of spheres, parabolas, and ellipses, and studied the properties of spiral curves ("Archimedean spirals"). Seeing that farmers were struggling to water the fields by lifting water, he invented the "Archimedes' screw pump", which became the ancestor of later screw propellers. He studied the principles of screws, pulleys, levers, gears and other machinery, and proposed the concepts of "lever principle" and "torque". He once said, "Give me a fulcrum, and I can lift the whole earth". He designed and manufactured various devices such as lifting pulleys, irrigation machines, and water-lifting machines. To resist the invasion of the Roman army, he manufactured catapults, launchers and other weapons, and finally died under the sword of a Roman soldier.

These scientific pioneers either owned their own assets or served as private teachers and doctors, and did not regard themselves as "scientists" (the term "scientist" did not appear until the 1840s, more than two thousand years later). Why do apples fall to the ground, and why do stars hang in the sky? The ancient Greeks explored science purely out of interest in the mysteries of nature or spiritual pursuit, forming Aristotle's tradition of pure science.

Aristotle (Aristotle, 384-322 BC), along with Plato (Plato, 428-347 BC) and Socrates (Socrates, 469-399 BC), is known as the founder of Western philosophy.

Socrates was fond of natural philosophy when he was young, but his preference for philosophy led him to abandon natural research and focus on thinking about human experience and a good life, establishing the ethical thought system of "knowledge is virtue", "bringing philosophy from heaven to the earth". Socrates was later sentenced to death by the Athenian court for the crime of insulting the gods of Athens and corrupting the thoughts of young people. He could have fled, but he believed that fleeing would undermine the authority of the law, and he voluntarily drank the poison. His legacy was passed on to Plato. Plato established a private school (the Academy of Plato, which lasted for 800 years), teaching and researching philosophy and science. There is a motto above the gate of the academy: "Let no one who is not a geometer enter". Aristotle and Euclid were among the students.After Plato's death, Aristotle traveled throughout the Aegean region. In 343 BC, he was summoned to be the tutor of a prince, who later became Alexander the Great. Like all Greek scientists, he did not accept the supervision of the state authorities and had no subordinate relationship with the powers that be. His lecture hall was located in a garden in the suburbs of Athens. His pure scientific research involved logic, physics, cosmology, psychology, natural history, anatomy, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics. It was both the pinnacle of Greek enlightenment and the source of learning for the next two thousand years.

He shaped the academic thought of the Middle Ages and his influence extended to the Renaissance period. He discussed mechanical problems, explained the theory of levers, observed the motion of free falling bodies, and proposed that "the speed of an object's fall is proportional to its weight." He believed that "everything in motion must have a mover," thus "there must be a first mover," that is, the existence of supernatural divine power. The terrestrial world is composed of four elements: earth, water, air, and fire. White is a pure light, and other colors are impure lights that have changed for some reason.

He also classified more than 500 different plants and animals, conducted anatomical studies on more than 50 animals, and was the first person to categorize biology and write about the life history of various animals. His notable characteristic was to ask questions to the root: Why do organisms develop from a fertilized egg into a complete adult? Why are there so many purpose-oriented activities and behaviors in the biological world? He believed that the raw materials that make up the body alone do not have the ability to develop into complex organisms. There must be some additional substance, which he called eidos, and the meaning it represents is quite similar to what modern biologists express with genetic programs. Aristotle firmly believed that the world is fundamentally perfect and flawless, excluding the view of evolution.

He was focused on science but stayed away from technology, believing that scientific activities should not consider utility or application. In the eyes of scientists who followed Aristotle, he represented the essence and purity of science—a non-utilitarian, rational exploration of nature and humanity's place within it, thinking purely for the sake of truth.

Aristotle's scientific methodology has been regarded as a classic and has influenced later generations for two thousand years. Science is aloof and does not touch on practical issues, let alone solve practical problems (Archimedes is the only exception). Moreover, since Plato, there has been a trend of looking down on manual labor and rejecting any practical or economic application of science, separating theory from practice.In contrast to Greece, where engineering and technology flourished, science was in decline in Rome. The Romans did not value—actually, they despised—scientific theories and Greek learning.

In 476 AD, the Roman Empire fell and was replaced by barbarian cultures. Most of Roman civilization was destroyed, and Europe entered the dark "Middle Ages" (approximately from 476 AD to 1453 AD). Advanced Roman knowledge and technologies, including cement manufacturing techniques, were lost. For the next 1,200 years, Europeans had to rely on backward sand and clay binding materials to build houses until 1568, when French engineer Philibert de l'Orme (1514-1570) rediscovered the Roman cement formula.

Over the next thousand years, China became the center of technological export, sending many inventions to the Eurasian continent, such as woodblock printing, movable type printing, metal movable type printing, papermaking, gunpowder, magnetic compass, magnetic needle compass, maritime compass, stern rudder, cast iron, porcelain, flat chain, wheeled mill, water-powered mill, water-powered metallurgical bellows, impeller-type rotary wind selector, piston bellows, draw spinning machine, hand-cranked silk spinning machine, wheelbarrow, maritime transportation, cart mill, breast harness, yoke, stone bow, kite, propeller, movable picture cylinder (rotated by hot air), deep drilling method, suspension, flat arch bridge, iron chain bridge, canal lock gate, maritime cartography, and so on.

The British philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626) wrote: "We should pay attention to the power, efficacy, and results of these inventions, although they are far less famous than the three great inventions. Printing, gunpowder, and the compass, these three great inventions have changed the appearance and state of many things in the world in literature, warfare, and navigation, and have caused countless changes, so that it seems that no empire, no faction, no star, can have a greater impetus and influence on human affairs than these technological inventions."

The so-called extreme must be reversed, the "darkness" of the Middle Ages has promoted a series of technological innovations in Europe, including agricultural technology, military technology, and wind and water power technology, leaping into a vibrant, aggressive, and highly civilized society.Europe is blessed with abundant water sources, so its farmlands do not require irrigation, but the soil is compacted and must be plowed deeply. The two major technological innovations of the European agricultural revolution are, first, the adoption of heavy plows for deep plowing. The heavy plow is equipped with an iron plowshare, mounted on wheels, and is pulled by eight oxen, which can turn over the soil from deep down; second, horses are used instead of oxen as draft animals. Horses pull faster and have more endurance. Europe traditionally used oxen, and the collars worn on their necks were only suitable for the short necks of oxen, not for horses.

The Chinese chest strap harness was introduced to Europe. This harness, similar to a collar, moves the force point to the horse's shoulders, without compressing the windpipe, increasing the horse's traction force by 4 to 5 times. Europe then switched to using horses as draft animals, the heavy plow was widely promoted, and the two-field rotation was improved to a three-field rotation, increasing productivity. The replacement of oxen with horses reduced transportation costs and expanded people's range of activities, making society more colorful.

Technology has not only promoted the rise of medieval Europe in agriculture. The stirrup changed Europe's military technology. Knights are the representative image of the European feudal system, wearing full armor and riding on armored war horses. However, Europe did not have stirrups. Knights rode high horses with their feet suspended in the air, unable to sit steadily. Once facing the enemy, they had to roll off the horse and fight on foot.

The stirrup was introduced from China. It has no moving parts, but it is simple and allows the rider to sit steadily on the horse's back and not fall off during combat. A rider equipped with a stirrup forms a formidable stable whole, capable of rapid galloping, generating strong impact, and forming the so-called "cavalry charge." European cavalry was simply the "tank" of the Middle Ages. The new type of warfare technology of the cavalry charge made knights professional soldiers, supported by noble lords, which led to the emergence of feudal relations. This regional feudal relationship is free and decentralized, without the need for a strong central government management like an autocratic society.

At the same time as these changes, European engineers invented new machinery and found new energy sources. The most prominent was the improvement and perfection of water wheels, windmills, and other machinery, using wind power to drive windmills, and using tidal power to drive water wheels. There are abundant small rivers throughout Europe, and water wheels can be seen operating everywhere. Water wheels drive a variety of machines, such as sawmills, flour mills, and forging machines, and are even used for land reclamation from the sea. The use of machinery saved labor, and the slave system gradually disappeared as well.Gunpowder, invented by the Chinese in the 9th century, was transmitted to Europe in the 13th century, and by the early 14th century, Europeans had created cannons. By 1500, the manufacture of firearms and cannons had become a very common technology in Europe. In the 16th century, the smoothbore gun appeared. In the face of cannons and smoothbore guns, bows and arrows, swords, cavalry, and spears were phased out of the battlefield. The "Gunpowder Revolution" weakened the military role of knights and feudal lords, and the army and navy equipped with gunpowder took their place. The Portuguese invented the multi-masted sailing ship driven by the wind, replacing the old oar-driven boats. Equipped with cannons, they became gunboats. Ultimately, it had a global impact, paving the way for mercantilism and colonialism.

The development of technology had such a huge impact in Europe, but science did not play much of a role in it. Major inventions such as gunpowder and the compass were invented in China. At that time, there was no knowledge in natural philosophy that could be used to develop weapons.

Navigation belongs to craftsmanship, not science. Artillerymen, foundry workers, blacksmiths, shipbuilding engineers, and navigators relied on experience and skills passed down from generation to generation when they were inventing and creating. Taking shipbuilding as an example, if the sails and rigging were not easy to use, they would be improved; if the gun ports were not flexible, they would try to install flexible and mobile gun carriages. Technology is gradually improved and perfected, and experience is accumulated through practice. Technology and industry are still the same as in ancient Rome, with no connection to science, neither contributing to science nor benefiting from it.

Europeans understood that there are inexhaustible resources in nature that should be studied and developed to benefit humanity. This created external conditions for science, and then created a unique institution for studying knowledge - the university, which became a turning point for the organization and standardization of science and knowledge.

However, early universities were not research institutions, and they did not pursue science or technology as their goals. Early universities mainly trained priests, doctors, and lawyers. Natural science was set in the faculty of arts, and the main course was logic. Aristotle's logic and analytical methods became the only conceptual tool for studying any problem, and scholars interpreted the world from a theological perspective, with the Earth at the center of the universe and the sun illuminating the stars. It was not until the emergence of Copernicus and Galileo.In 1543, the Polish scientist Nicolaj Kopernik (1473-1543) published his "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), which overthrew the geocentric theory and proposed the heliocentric theory. This marked the beginning of the Scientific Revolution, which was completed during the time of Newton, and allowed humanity to move from medieval perspectives to an infinite universe. In 1616, the Inquisition declared Copernicus's academic views as heretical.

The Italian scientist Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) studied inclined planes, inertia, and projectile motion. Building on the existing telescope, he created a telescope with a 30-fold magnification and pointed it towards the sky to explore the celestial world. He discovered the mountains on the moon, the moons of Jupiter, sunspots, the shape of Venus, and that the Milky Way is composed of stars, which verified Copernicus's theory.

In 1632, Galileo published "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems - Ptolemaic & Copernican," and in 1633, he was judged by the Inquisition as "the most suspicious heretic" and was imprisoned for life, forced to confess publicly. At the age of seventy, Galileo, who was half-blind, wrote another scientific masterpiece, "Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences," revealing two important discoveries: the mathematical analysis of the force on a cantilever and the motion of free falling bodies. The latter overturned Aristotle's 2,000-year-old assertion that "heavier objects fall faster," and modern science began.

The same year Galileo died, Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was born. At the University of Cambridge, he first studied optics and gained an understanding of the nature of light and color. In 1687, he published "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), which elaborated on the law of universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, demonstrating that the motion of terrestrial and celestial bodies follows the same natural laws, providing strong theoretical support for the heliocentric theory. He laid the foundation for physics and astronomy for the next three centuries. The astronomer Edmond Halley (1656-1742), who correctly calculated the return of comets using Newton's laws, praised in a poem in the preface of Newton's "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy": "Under the illumination of the light of reason, the clouds of ignorance will eventually be dispelled by science."

Newton proved the authenticity of scientific principles and demonstrated that the world operates according to mechanisms that humans can discover. The application of science to social discourse began to emerge, and people looked forward to the benefits of science for humanity. Francis Bacon, who regarded science as useful knowledge, theoretically elevated this view. Even when Newton discussed fluid mechanics, he casually mentioned, "I think this proposition may be useful in shipbuilding."However, that is all there is to it. Science is primarily stored as knowledge in books.

During the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe, the Scientific Revolution occurred without a technological or industrial revolution. Inventions such as the printing press, cannons, and gunboats did not rely on science. Apart from cartography, no scientific achievements had a significant impact on the economy, medicine, or military in the early modern period. Even Galileo's research on parabolic trajectories, which obviously had potential value in the field of cannons and ballistics, was in fact developed without any scientific or theoretical basis. With practical experience, the technology of cannons had already been quite complete, and artillery schools had a complete set of courses, including range tables and other technical guides, long before Galileo.

It could be said that artillery technology influenced Galileo's research on parabolic trajectories (elevating practice to theory), rather than Galileo's science influencing the artillery technology of the time. For example, the biggest "longitude problem" in navigation was not solved by science. Due to the inability to measure the longitude of a ship, European maritime activities were limited and could only sail along the coast. Many astronomers, including Galileo, tried to find a solution, but failed.

In 1714, the British Parliament offered a reward of 20,000 pounds for "a method to determine the longitude of a ship," requiring the instrument to have an error of no more than 2.8 seconds per day at sea. In 1716, the French government also offered a similar huge bonus. The final solution was not science, but craftsmanship.

The British watchmaker Harrison (John Harrison, 1693-1776) made four marine chronometers in succession. His No. 3 clock used a bimetallic strip to sense temperature and compensate for temperature changes (still in use today), equipped with a balance gear (the predecessor of rolling bearings and gyroscopes) to prevent shaking, and offset the ship's bumps and swaying, more accurate than any land clock, with an error of less than 2 seconds per day, and at the end of a 45-day voyage, accurately predicted the position of the ship. His achievements met the award-winning conditions, but the British Parliament refused to fulfill the contract.Harrison continued to improve, and the No. 4 clock replaced the clock hammer with a spring, undergoing two sea voyage experiments from England to the West Indies, with an error of no more than 5 seconds in more than 3 months. This achievement is equivalent to landing a space probe on Neptune, with a landing point error of only a few feet. Congress still wanted to shirk responsibility. However, the navigation community determined that the No. 4 clock was much superior to the Royal Observatory's navigational charts. Harrison received the prize money on his 83rd birthday.

The 17th century was a period when experimental science emerged and spread. Gilbert (1544-1603) conducted experiments with magnets; Galileo let different spheres roll down slopes; Torricelli (1608-1647) discovered the principle of air pressure with a mercury-filled tube; Pascal (1623-1662) took the barometer to the mountain top to study the ocean of air; Harvey (1578-1657) dissected countless corpses and living bodies to understand the function of the heart; Hooke (1635-1703) obtained Hooke's Law by testing springs; Newton studied the composition of light by letting light beams pass through lenses and prisms. Experiments have become a convenient and necessary tool to test theories or conjectures.

Scientists rely on instruments, and the science of the same era relies more on technological assistance, but rarely helps technology. Take the telescope as an example. Astronomers have been using telescopes that have been continuously improved in technology, making many astonishing discoveries. The first telescope was invented by the Dutch spectacle maker Hans Lippershey (1570-1619). High-power telescopes produce dispersion, spherical aberration, and distortion after the light beam passes through the lens. The solution still comes from the field of technology, relying on the glass manufacturing process to solve it, using several glasses with different refractive indices to compensate each other to make composite lenses, which is already after 1730.

The world's first telescope

At the beginning of the 18th century, the scientific revolution led by scientific giants such as Newton and Galileo was gradually subsiding, and Europe was still a scene of agricultural society. 90% of the population lived in the countryside and engaged in agriculture. Even urban residents could see the finished products, either the products of the farmland or the products of skilled craftsmen. Resources were nothing more than wood, wind power, and water power.In the 1760s, James Watt (1736-1819) improved the steam engine based on the invention of Thomas Newcomen (1663-1729), triggering the Industrial Revolution. The steam engine drove the mining and use of new energy sources (coal), which were previously the main sources of power and heat, including iron smelting, mainly relying on the combustion of wood. Although Chinese blacksmiths invented the smelting method using coal as fuel in the 11th century, it was not until 1709 that Abraham Darby (1676-1717) invented coke, and Britain no longer relied on forests for fuel.

The iron smelting situation changed, and the world entered a new era of iron and machinery. The high-pressure steam engine of British inventor Richard Trevithick (1771-1833) was used in railways. The first steam locomotive appeared in 1814, and the railway era arrived in 1830. In 1886, German engineer Karl Friedrich Benz (1844-1929) manufactured the world's first automobile. This series of technological revolutions led to a significant leap from manual labor to power machinery and mass production.

Before the 18th century, people did not know what a factory was. After the Industrial Revolution, factories developed highly centralized large-scale production, and the manufacturing system of standardized parts (originating in Britain and more widely applied in the United States) was developed into an assembly line by Henry Ford (1863-1947) in the automotive industry, greatly improving productivity.

All the technologies that made up the foundation of the 18th-century Industrial Revolution were still made by engineers, technicians, and craftsmen, with almost or no contribution from scientific theories. Later generations took it for granted that the scientific revolution promoted the technological progress of the Industrial Revolution. For example, a professor named John Robison at the University of Edinburgh made up some stories, such as Newcomen being guided by the great scientist Hooke, and Watt being inspired by Black's (Joseph Black, 1728-1799) latent heat theory, and so on. Such stories are endless, and history has proven that they are all fictional.

At that time, scientific activities still followed the Aristotelian tradition, pursuing intellectual and spiritual satisfaction, without considering the application of theories, or rather, not putting them into practice. Technical experts also did not absorb the essence of science, just like ancient Roman engineers, pursuing practicality, and not interested in theories. Knowing the "what" does not necessarily require knowing the "why," science and technology each went their separate ways, which continued until the 19th century.In 1821, the British scientist Michael Faraday (1791-1867) discovered the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction, laying the foundation for electromagnetism; he summarized the laws of electrolysis, forming the basis of electrochemistry.

In 1870, James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) summarized the electromagnetic theory equations (Maxwell's equations) based on Faraday's work, unifying the principles of electricity, magnetism, and optics. Before Faraday, when night fell, the world was plunged into darkness. Faraday is known as the person who lit up the world.

From fire to electricity, humanity has taken a hundred thousand years. In Albert Einstein's (1879-1955) study, there are photos of Faraday, Maxwell, and Newton hanging on the wall.

In the 19th century, science gradually matured. In addition to the theory of electricity, significant progress was also made in the fields of chemistry and thermodynamics, forming the basic laws of physics and chemistry. Electromotive force brought about the second industrial revolution. Unlike history, this revolution was based on physics and material science. Science is no longer pure theory, but is developed based on experimental research on machinery and materials. Machinery and materials have become models for people to understand natural forces and comprehend scientific laws, and then use these laws to design more sophisticated technologies and processes. Science and technology have finally begun to work together to promote each other.

After the 20th century, the combination of science and technology has brought revolutionary progress to society. Technological innovation is endless and increasingly dense, reshaping human lifestyles and creating a fast and efficient culture. The human brain uses computers to discover and think, the Internet wraps the Earth in a bag, robots enter the production line, artificial intelligence's deep learning ability surpasses humans, new materials such as nanotubes have started, 3D printing of aircraft engines, the cracking of life genetic codes, the gradual unveiling of the mysteries of the universe and matter, genetic technology is about to transform life and species, and humanity quickly passes through the information age, the mobile Internet era, and the intelligent manufacturing era...Only when the era of artificial intelligence became a reality did we realize that the number of problems to be solved was not fewer, but more. People regard the Dartmouth Conference held in 1956 as the birth year of artificial intelligence. Computer scientists such as John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, and Claude Shannon set several key topics for artificial intelligence, including automation, neural networks, the ability to understand abstract concepts, and most importantly, randomness and creativity. The birth of ChatGPT has concretized these imaginations, just as the birth of human language did. Robots began to have a brain, and all the knowledge and information of the ancestors were uploaded to the cloud, participating in the construction and reshaping of human society in various forms.

While engineers and scientists collaborate in the pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI), the continuous deterioration of the climate, the continuous tension in geopolitical relations, and the explosive growth of the population have placed the fate of humanity at a new node. Artificial intelligence has challenged the power energy system and the servant relationship between machines and humans, with robots continuously eroding human employment. At the same time, artificial intelligence is increasingly indispensable in scientific research and the discovery of new materials. Scientific discoveries and technological applications have formed a rapidly spinning flywheel. Elon Musk, the most famous engineer of the moment, is trying to use artificial intelligence and advanced rocket tools to send humans to Mars.

However, technology and science still belong to different sources and will develop independently according to their own laws. Many scientists will still follow the pure theoretical tradition of the ancient Greek philosophers, and many technologies will still precede science in practice, opening up new horizons. Humans are increasingly dependent on technology, or rather, technology is increasingly dominating humans. Whether this is a joy or a worry may be the ultimate problem that science and technology have to face.