The calculating machine of Blaise Pascal (around 1650)
Technological developments The history of the techniques is the history of the efforts made by the man to control the material framework of its existence in order to ensure its survival initially, to increase its comfort and its power of action then.
The reflection on this progress exceeded simple historical curiosity today, even the discovery method which consists in understanding the conditions of appearance and success of an innovation, to make a step of the technological forecast of it. The history of the techniques seems a capital element of the history of the companies, and it takes part in the great interrogation on the destiny of humanity at the dawn of XXIe century.
War of fire to the conquest of the sun Prehistory Perhaps the hominisation starts it with the technique of fire, the first stage of the energy domestication of the biomass. This one enters its second phase with the “Neolithic revolution” which gears down the resources of the man in biological energy by the domestication of the plants (food) and the animals (work). Thanks to the appropriation of solar energy fixed by the photosynthesis of the plants, humanity starts a population growth which leads it to occupy the major part of our planet.
Antiquity
As of the old historical periods, new inventions develop the energy asset (the wheel) or collect new primary sources (wind, used initially by the veils of the ships, more tardily by the wings of the mill; running water, by the paddle wheel appeared at the time Roman).
The Middle Ages
It is marked out many technical improvements which improve the output and the modes of use of the traditional energy sources. Around the 13th century in Europe, and in the past in China, one starts to exploit the combustible properties of coal.
The modern time
It is necessary to await the large opening of the scientific spirit in Europe of 17th and 18th centuries so that the other large cut of the human history prepares, the first industrial revolution which is also an energy revolution. It is indeed the focusing of the steam engine of James Watt between 1760 and 1783 who allows the systematic mechanization of work the 19th century. It is at the same time the massive recourse to the coal, substitute of the too rare wood, which allows the indefinite multiplication of these machines.
The contemporary time
Since, the diversification of the types of engines increases at the same time the means of action and the energy needs of the men, at the same time as it makes it possible to resort to new energy sources, oil and hydraulic electricity in the last quarter of the 19th century. The middle of the 20th century introduces the nuclear energy, whose techniques are in full evolution; fissile metals, uranium, tomorrow perhaps thorium, lengthen the list of the primary energy sources, therefore stock available.
XXIe century
“New energies” raise great hopes. That includes as well improvements, sometimes decisive, former techniques (exploitation of the biomass for example), that authentic innovations, especially in the field of solar energy (for example photovoltaic conversion).