The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves - Hardcover

Arthur, W. Brian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 184614017X ISBN 13: 9781846140174

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2009

Synopsis

The Nature of Technology will change the way you think about this fundamental subject forever. W. Brian Arthur's many years of thinking and writing about technology have culminated in a unique understanding of his subject. Here he examines the nature of technology itself: what is it and how does it evolve? Giving rare insights into the evolution of specific technologies and a new framework for thinking about others, every sentence points to some further truth and fascination. At a time when we are ever more reliant on technological solutions for the world's problems, it is extraordinary how little we actually understand the processes that lead to innovation and invention. Until now. This will be a landmark book that will define its subject, and inspire people to think about technology in depth for the very first time.

About this title

About the Author

W. Brian Arthur's ideas have won him a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1987 and the Schumpeter Prize in Economics in 1990. He pioneered the modern study of positive feedbacks in the economy - in particular their role in magnifying small, random events. He is also one of the pioneers of the new science of complexity. He is an External Faculty Member at the Santa Fe Institute and from 1983 to 1996 was Dean and Virginia Morrison Professor of Economics and Population Studies at Stanford University. He holds a Ph.D. from Berkeley in Operations Research, and has other degrees in economics, engineering and mathematics.

From the Back Cover

'Like many people I take technology for granted; and like many people I am vaguely suspicious of technology. But I am also caught up by a wonderment at technology, a wonderment at what we humans have created. We hurtle through the sky on pieces of metal traveling at close to the speed of sound; we watch pictures that arrive through the air; we see deep inside our brains and track which of its circuits are active; we snip tiny slivers of molecules from DNA and paste them into bacterial cells. And all this from elements gleaned from nature and from ideas dreamed in our minds...'

From the Inside Flap

At a time when we are ever more reliant on technological solutions for the world's problems, it is extraordinary how little we actually understand the processes that lead to innovation and invention. W. Brian Arthur's many years of thinking and writing about technology, and his many groundbreaking contributions to the field, have culminated in a unique understanding of his subject. Here, he seeks to answer the fundamental questions: what is technology and how does it evolve?

Giving rare insights into the origin and evolution of specific technologies - from radar beams to laser printers, from aircraft to powerplants- and a new framework for thinking about them all, every sentence points to some further truth and fascination. Arthur shows how technologies capture natural phenomena, how they combine and build on existing technologies, how they deepen and develop and how they revolutionize our understanding of the world and of the possibilities within it. With this new lens through which to understand the subject, he also reveals to us more clearly than ever just how our own role of creative problem solving and imaginative vision can be involved. Arthur shows not only how science itself is a form of technology but also how we can better understand the economy, as it functions and grows as an expression of its technologies.

This will be a landmark book that will re-define its subject, and inspire many people to think about technology in depth for the very first time.

Edition details

• Publisher: Allen Lane
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 184614017X
• ISBN 13: 9781846140174
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256