Portal:Technology

The Technology Portal

P:TECHP:TECH

Technology is the application of conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word technology can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible tools such as utensils or machines, and intangible ones such as software. Technology plays a critical role in science, engineering, and everyday life.

Technological advancements have led to significant changes in society. The earliest known technology is the stone tool, used during prehistory, followed by the control of fire—which in turn contributed to the growth of the human brain and the development of language during the Ice Age, according to the cooking hypothesis. The invention of the wheel in the Bronze Age allowed greater travel and the creation of more complex machines. More recent technological inventions, including the printing press, telephone, and the Internet, have lowered barriers to communication and ushered in the knowledge economy. (Full article...)

Outline of technology

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Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.

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Platinum is a chemical element; it has symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish platina, a diminutive of plata "silver".

Platinum is a member of the platinum group of elements and group 10 of the periodic table of elements. It has six naturally occurring isotopes. It is one of the rarer elements in Earth's crust, with an average abundance of approximately 5 μg/kg. It occurs in some nickel and copper ores along with some native deposits. Because of its scarcity in Earth's crust, barely a few hundred metric tonnes are produced annually, and given its critical and important uses, it is highly valuable as well as a major precious metal commodity. (Full article...)
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Amtrak No. 315 F40PHR on the eastbound California Zephyr at Tunnel No. 17 near Newcastle, California in 1995

The EMD F40PH is a four-axle 3,000–3,200 hp (2.2–2.4 MW) B-B diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division in several variants from 1975 to 1992. Intended for use on Amtrak's short-haul passenger routes, it became the backbone of Amtrak's diesel fleet after the failure of the EMD SDP40F. The F40PH also found widespread use on commuter railroads in the United States and with VIA Rail in Canada. Additional F40PH variants were manufactured by Morrison-Knudsen and MotivePower between 1988 and 2007, mostly rebuilt from older locomotives.

Amtrak retired its fleet of F40PHs in the early-2000s in favor of the GE Genesis, but the locomotive remains the mainstay of VIA Rail's long-distance trains; a depiction of the locomotive hauling The Canadian is featured on the reverse of the Frontier series Canadian $10 bill. The F40PHs are still a common sight on many other commuter railroads throughout the United States. In addition, Amtrak has kept 22 of its F40PHs in use as non-powered control units. (Full article...)
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New York State Route 474 (NY 474) is a state highway located entirely within Chautauqua County in the westernmost corner of New York in the United States. It begins at the section of the Pennsylvania state line that runs north–south and runs eastward, initially paralleling the state line before taking a more northeasterly alignment toward Chautauqua Lake. The route ends adjacent to the lake at a junction with NY 394 in the town of Busti. NY 474 was originally designated as New York State Route 74 in 1930 before being renumbered to NY 474 on July 1, 1972. The route continues westward into Pennsylvania as Pennsylvania Route 474 (PA 474), which was assigned in the 1980s. (Full article...)
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M-183 is a north–south state trunkline highway in the Upper Peninsula of the US state of Michigan. It serves Fayette State Park as an access route from US Highway 2 (US 2). The highway runs through rural farmlands of the Garden Peninsula and next to Big Bay de Noc, a bay of Lake Michigan. The community at Fayette dates back to the 1860s. It has been a state park since the late 1950s, and the connecting road has been a state highway since the 1980s. (Full article...)
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Interstate 195 (I-195) is an auxiliary route of the Interstate Highway System located in the US state of New Jersey. Its western end is at I-295 and Route 29 just south of Trenton in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, while its eastern end is at the Garden State Parkway, Route 138, and Route 34 in Wall Township, Monmouth County. I-195 is 34.17 miles (54.99 km) in length. The route is mostly a four-lane highway that mainly runs through agrarian and wooded areas in Central Jersey. It has an interchange with the New Jersey Turnpike (I-95) in Robbinsville Township and serves as a main access road to New Jersey's state capital of Trenton, the Horse Park of New Jersey, Six Flags Great Adventure, and the Jersey Shore. I-195 is occasionally referred to as the Central Jersey Expressway. On April 6, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed H.R. 4263 naming I-195 in New Jersey the James J. Howard Interstate Highway, in honor of the late James J. Howard.

The current I-195 was initially planned as a toll road called the Trenton–Asbury Park Expressway in the 1950s. In the 1960s, it became two proposed freeways Route 37 and Route 38 that were to cross the central part of the state. A compromise was reached for a single freeway between Trenton and Belmar which would get Interstate Highway funding as I-195. It was built in several stages during the 1970s and 1980s. There once existed a plan to extend the I-195 designation west to the interchange between the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-276) and I-95 in Bristol Township, Pennsylvania, but it was decided to extend the I-295 designation west and south, along existing I-95 instead. (Full article...)
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Illustration of a foundry stamp of Thomas Hatch on a bell at Langley, Kent, cast in 1599

The Hatch bell foundry at Ulcombe, near Maidstone, in Kent, England, was operated by three generations of the Hatch family from 1581 or earlier until 1664. The bellfounders were based at nearby Broomfield from about 1587 until at least 1639. Joseph Hatch, bellfounder from 1602 to 1639, cast at least 155 bells, including "Bell Harry", after which the central tower of Canterbury Cathedral is named. Most Hatch bells were used in churches east of the River Medway in East Kent. (Full article...)
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M-85, also known as Fort Street or Fort Road for its entire length, is a state trunkline highway in the U.S. state of Michigan. The highway serves several Downriver suburbs of Detroit, as well as neighborhoods in the city itself. From its southern terminus at exit 28 on Interstate 75 (I-75) to its second interchange with exit 43 on I-75 in southwest Detroit, M-85 is part of the Lake Erie Circle Tour. In between, it serves mostly residential areas running parallel to a pair of rail lines; the highway carries between 5,000 and 43,000 vehicles per day on average. Once in the city of Detroit, Fort Street runs parallel to I-75 for several miles before they separate near the Ambassador Bridge. The northern end of M-85 is at the intersection with Griswold Street in downtown Detroit, one block away from Campus Martius Park.

Two previous unrelated highways bore the M-85 designation. The first was in Montcalm County and the second near Caro. These uses were retired in the 1930s and the 1940s, respectively. The current M-85 was created in 1956 after the construction of the Detroit-Toledo Freeway; the original northern end was at an intersection with US Highway 25 (US 25) in downtown. The northern end was truncated in the late 1960s to the northern junction with I-75. The highway was then extended back into downtown Detroit in the first year of the 21st century. (Full article...)

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Burj Khalifa
Photograph: Donald Y Tong
Burj Khalifa is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and currently the tallest man-made structure in the world, at 829.8 m (2,722 ft). It was designed to be the centerpiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development known as Downtown Dubai. Construction took over five years, and the skyscraper was officially opened in January 2010.
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Australia Telescope Compact Array
Photograph credit: John Masterson, CSIRO; restored by Bammesk
The Australia Telescope Compact Array is a radio telescope operated by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) at the Paul Wild Observatory, 25 km (16 mi) west of the town of Narrabri in New South Wales, Australia. The telescope is an array of six identical dishes each 22 metres (72 ft) in diameter, which commonly operate in aperture synthesis mode to produce images from radio waves. Five of the dishes can be moved along a 3-kilometre (2 mi) railway track; the sixth is situated three kilometres west of the end of the main track. Each dish weighs about 270 tonnes (270 long tons; 300 short tons).

This photograph, showing five of the Australia Telescope Compact Array's dishes, was taken around 1984, in the late phase of the construction process. It is a long-exposure photograph taken in darkness in the late evening; during the exposure, the photographer, John Masterson, walked around the dishes firing off over 130 flashes using a hand-held flash gun.
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Windmill
Photo credit: Michael Reeve
Pitstone Windmill, believed to be the oldest windmill in the British Isles

A windmill is an engine powered by wind energy. In Europe, windmills have been used since the Middle Ages. They were developed from the 12th century, apparently from technology gained by crusaders who came into contact with windmills in the Middle East. Persian sources indicate windmill use as early as the 7th century BC. In the United States, the development of water-pumping windmills was a major factor in allowing the farming of vast areas of North America.
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Bucket-wheel excavators
Photograph: Raimond Spekking
Bucket-wheel excavators (BWEs) are heavy equipment used in surface mining. The primary function of a BWE is to act as a continuous digging machine in large-scale open pit mining operations. These BWEs were photographed at the Garzweiler surface mine in Germany.
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Trojan Room coffee pot
Picture: Quentin Stafford-Fraser
The Trojan Room coffee pot was the inspiration for the world's first webcam. The coffee pot was located in the corridor just outside the so-called Trojan Room within the old Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge. The webcam was created in 1991 to help people working in other parts of the building avoid pointless trips to the coffee pot by providing, on the user's desktop computer, a live 128×128 pixel greyscale picture of the state of the coffee pot. The webcam was shut down on 22 August 2001, following the Computer Laboratory's move to the William Gates Building.
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Mark IV tank
Photograph: Peter Trimming
The Mark IV tank was introduced by the British in May 1917 to fight in World War I. The "female" version, as pictured here, was armed with five machine guns. Production of the Mark IV ceased at the end of the War in 1918. A small number served briefly with other combatants afterwards.

This Mark IV tank, on display in Ashford, Kent, was presented to the town after the end of World War I. The engine was removed to install an electricity substation inside it, though this substation was subsequently removed; the tank's interior is now empty.
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Telephone
Credit: Berthold Werner
A telephone, or phone, is a telecommunications device that converts sound, typically the human voice, into electronic signals suitable for transmission via cables or other transmission media over long distances through satellite.
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Laptop computer
Credit: Mike McGregor
The OLPC XO-1 is an inexpensive subnotebook laptop computer intended to be distributed to children in developing countries.
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Nice tramway
Photograph: Myrabella
The Nice tramway crossing Place Garibaldi, Nice, where it lowers its pantograph and is powered by batteries. This 8.7-kilometre (5.4 mi), single-line tramway is operated by Veolia Transdev. It opened on 24 November 2007, replacing bus lines 1, 2, 5 and 18.
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SOCATA TBM
Photograph credit: Michael Mainiero
The SOCATA TBM (now Daher TBM) is a family of high-performance single-engine turboprop business and utility light aircraft manufactured by Daher. This SOCATA TBM 900 was photographed in flight during the 2015 EAA AirVenture Oshkosh airshow in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The aircraft features a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-64 engine, and a five-blade carbon-fiber propeller, which increases performance and decreases cabin noise. In a passenger configuration, the pressurized cabin is typically fitted with highly finished interiors, featuring luxury materials such as leather and wood veneers.
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Assut de l'Or Bridge
Photograph: Diego Delso
The Assut de l'Or Bridge is a white single-pylon cable-stayed bridge in the City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia, Spain. Completed in 2008, it was designed by Valencian architect and civil engineer Santiago Calatrava as a variant of his cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge in Seville.
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Fuel injection
Image credit: WikipedianProlific
An animated cut-away diagram of a typical fuel injector, which is used to spray controlled amounts of petrol (gasoline) into an internal combustion engine. A solenoid is activated when fuel is intended to be delivered to the engine, causing the plunger to become pulled toward the solenoid by magnetic force. This uncovers the valve opening, allowing fuel to flow into the atomiser and out the spray tip. The route of fuel is shown in orange; grey/blue indicates no fuel present.
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Escalator
Credit: Stig Nygaard
An escalator is a moving staircase for carrying people between floors of a building. The device consists of a motor-driven chain of individual, linked steps that move up or down on tracks, allowing the step treads to remain horizontal.
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Hybrid-propellant rocket
Photograph credit: Matt Steiner and Kees08
A hybrid-propellant rocket is a rocket with an engine that uses propellants in two different phases, one solid and the other gaseous or liquid. The concept can be traced back to at least the 1930s.

This picture shows a transparent 3D-printed hybrid-rocket fuel grain with dual helical fuel ports, a post-combustion chamber, and a de Laval nozzle, photographed prior to the hot-fire test. The motor used nitrous oxide as the oxidizer and Pyrodex pellets for the igniter.
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Semi-submersible
Photo: Agência Brasil
The semi-submersible oil platform P-51, operated by Brazilian energy company Petrobras, being positioned by tugboats. Semisubs sit on pontoons located under the ocean surface, with the operating deck atop columns, above the sea level. In this manner, they are relatively protected from wave action.
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Commodore 64
Photo: Evan Amos
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced in 1982 by Commodore International. Its low retail price and easy availability led to the system becoming the market leader for three years. It remains the best-selling single personal computer model of all time.
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Let L-410 Turbolet
Photo: Łukasz Golowanow
The Let L-410 Turbolet is a twin-engined short-range transport aircraft, manufactured by the Czech aircraft manufacturer LET, mostly used for passenger transport. The L-410 first flew in 1969, and with more than 1100 produced, is the most popular 19-seat plane in history.
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Wheel
Credit: fir0002
A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axial bearing. The wheel is one of the main components of the wheel and axle which is one of the six simple machines.
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Overhead power line
Credit: Simon Koopmann
An overhead power line is a structure used in electric power transmission and distribution to transmit electrical energy along large distances. It consists of one or more conductors suspended by towers or utility poles.
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Kitty Joyner
Photograph: NACA
Kitty Joyner (1916–1993) was an American electrical engineer with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and then the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She was hired in 1939 as the organization's first woman engineer, shortly after she had become the first woman to graduate from the University of Virginia's engineering program.
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The following are images from various technology-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Solid-state air batteries
Li-Air composition (from Emerging technologies)
Image 2Dome of Florence Cathedral (from History of technology)
Image 3The compartmented water wheel, here its overshot version (from History of technology)
Image 4Johannes Gutenberg's printing press was voted the most important invention of the second millennium. (from Invention)
Image 5The preserved Rocket (from History of technology)
Image 6Agriculture preceded writing in the history of technology. (from History of technology)
Image 73D printer (from Emerging technologies)
Image 8Clock from Salisbury Cathedral, ca. 1386 (from History of technology)
Image 9Design for a flying machine (c.1488) by da Vinci (from History of technology)
Image 10A water-powered mine hoist used for raising ore, ca. 1556 (from History of technology)
Image 11Eric M. C. Tigerstedt (1887–1925) was known as a pioneer of sound-on-film technology. Tigerstedt in 1915. (from Invention)
Image 12Newcomen steam engine for pumping mines (from History of technology)
Image 13Thomas Edison with his second phonograph, photographed by Levin Corbin Handy in Washington, April 1878 (from History of technology)
Image 14Alessandro Volta with the first electrical battery. Volta is recognized as an influential inventor. (from Invention)
Image 15Ford assembly line, 1913. The magneto assembly line was the first. (from History of technology)
Image 16An axehead made of iron, dating from the Swedish Iron Age (from History of technology)
Image 17Pont du Gard in France, a Roman aqueduct (from History of technology)
Image 18A late Bronze Age sword or dagger blade (from History of technology)
Image 19Walls at Sacsayhuaman (from History of technology)
Image 20'BUILD YOUR OWN TELEVISION RECEIVER.' Science and Invention magazine cover, November 1928 (from Invention)
Image 21The wheel, invented sometime before the 4th millennium BC, is one of the most ubiquitous and important technologies. This detail of the "Standard of Ur", c. 2500 BCE., displays a Sumerian chariot. (from History of technology)
Image 22A variety of stone tools (from History of technology)
Image 23NASA Fuel cell stack
Direct-methanol cell (from Emerging technologies)
Image 24Edison electric light bulbs 1879–80 (from History of technology)
Image 25Self-replicating 3D printer (from Emerging technologies)
Image 26A rare 1884 photo showing the experimental recording of voice patterns by a photographic process at the Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Many of their experimental designs panned out in failure. (from Invention)
Image 27Top 30 AI patent applicants in 2016 (from Emerging technologies)

Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that Zirconic was a U.S. government effort to create reconnaissance satellites equipped with stealth technology?
... that scholars have described the 1946 book The Failure of Technology as a precursor to the environmental movement?
... that Aileen Davies sang roles on the first two D'Oyly Carte Opera Company recordings using the new electrical-recording technology?
... that Carmel Naughton, having been told that girls were "stupid and couldn't do maths", sponsored a STEM scholarship fund?
... that the Japanese manga series Mink featured futuristic technology even though its creator was unfamiliar with computers?
... that the Illinois Institute of Technology created Chicago's smallest park by deeding a 54-square-foot (5 m²) granite slab to the city?
... that Justin Yu, the current Classic Tetris World Champion, is also a cellist in MIT's video game orchestra?
... that, after an attempt to sell the Tokamak de Varennes to Iran failed, it became a display at the Canada Science and Technology Museum?