Anaxe made of iron, dating from the Swedish Iron Age, found at Gotland, Sweden: Iron—as a new material—initiated a dramatic revolution in technology, economy, society, warfare and politics.
Atechnological revolution is a period in which one or more technologies is replaced by another novel technology in a short amount of time. It is a time of accelerated technological progress characterized by innovations whose rapid application and diffusion typically cause an abrupt change in society.
A technological revolution may involve material or ideological changes caused by the introduction of a device or system. It may potentially impact business management, education, social interactions, finance and research methodology, and is not limited to technical aspects. It has been shown to increase productivity and efficiency. A technological revolution often significantly changes the material conditions of human existence and has been seen to reshape culture.[1]
A technological revolution can be distinguished from a random collection of technology systems by two features:
1. A strong interconnectedness and interdependence of the participating systems in their technologies and markets.
2. A potential capacity to greatly affect the rest of the economy (and eventually society).[2]
Universal (interconnected radical changes in more than one sector, the universal technological revolution can be seen as a complex of several parallel sectoral technological revolutions, e.g. Second Industrial Revolution and Renaissance technological revolution)
The concept of universal technological revolutions is a "contributing factor in the Neo-Schumpeterian theory of long economic waves/cycles",[5] according to Carlota Perez, Tessaleno Devezas, Daniel Šmihula and others.
Information and telecommunications revolution, also known as the Digital Revolution or Third Industrial Revolution (1975–2021)
Some say we’re on the brink of a Fourth Industrial Revolution, aka “The Technological Revolution” (2022- )
Comparable periods of well-defined technological revolutions in the pre-modern era are seen as highly speculative.[7] One such example is an attempt by Daniel Šmihulato to suggest a timeline of technological revolutions in pre-modern Europe:[8]
Some economists do not think that technological growth will continue to the same degree it has in the past. Robert J. Gordon holds the view that today's inventions are not as radical as electricity and the internal combustion engine were. He believes that modern technology is not as innovative as others claim, and is far from creating a revolution.[18]
List of intellectual, philosophical and technological revolutions[edit]
The Price Revolution: a series of economic events from the second half of the 15th century to the first half of the 17th, the price revolution refers most specifically to the high rate of inflation that characterized the period across Western Europe.
The Scientific Revolution: a fundamental transformation in scientific ideas around the 16th century.
The First Industrial Revolution: the shift of technological, socioeconomic and cultural conditions in the late 18th century and early 19th century that began in Britain and spread throughout the world.
^Klein, Maury (2008): The Technological Revolution, in The Newsletter of Foreign Policy Research Institute, Vol.13, No. 18.[1]
^Perez, Carlota (2009): Technological revolutions and techno-economic paradigms., in Working Papers in Technology Governance and Economic Dynamics, Working Paper No. 20, (Norway and Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn) [2]
^, for example, Perez, Carlota (2009): Technological revolutions and techno-economic paradigms., in Working Papers in Technology Governance and Economic Dynamics, Working Paper No. 20, (Norway and Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn) [3]
^based on: Šmihula, Daniel (2011): Long waves of technological innovations, Studia politica Slovaca, 2/2011, Bratislava, ISSN1337-8163, pp. 50-69. [4]
^for example: Drucker, Peter F. (1965): The First Technological Revolution and Its Lessons.[5]
^
Schwab, Klaus. "The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what it means, how to respond". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 2017-06-29. The possibilities of billions of people connected by mobile devices, with unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge, are unlimited. And these possibilities will be multiplied by emerging technology breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing.
^Jeremy Rifkin (2011). The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World.
