Induction week formative coursework

To be submitted in both electronic form via Blackboard, and hard copy to Sarah
Foster by 3pm Thursday 21st October.

1000 words (not including references)

Question

“Taking a case of your choice, what do you understand by the evolution of

technologies?”

Reading

The evolutionary approach to Technology

Joel Mokyr, The Lever of Riches, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990
Chapter 11: Evolution and the Dynamics of Technological Change, pages 273-299, and
Chapter 12, Epilogue, pages 301-304

The following book covers a wide range of industries and is very good on the emergence
of a dominant design, but does not have an explicitly evolutionary approach:
James M. Utterback, Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation, Boston, Mass.: Harvard
Business School Press, 1994, especially chapter 2.

The Development of the Jet Engine

The locus classicus is a sumptuous book issued by Rolls-Royce, now on its 6th edition
Rolls-Royce, The Jet Engine, London: Rolls-Royce plc, 2005

Two very different approaches are provided by two different authors. Constant discusses
how the idea of the jet engine emerged. He discusses the technological communities that
developed engines in the USA. Scranton focuses on the interplay between science and
technology and shows how the technology of the jet engine was ahead of the science of
materials and shows the fallacy of the “linear model” of science. Both sets of papers look
at US developments which lagged behind the UK.

Edward W. Constant, The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution, Baltimore: The John
Hopkins University Press, 1980 (John Rylands Library 629.1309 C 1, there are multiple
copies in the Joule Library)

Edward W. Constant, “Communities and Hierarchies: Structure in the practice of science

and technology”, pp.27-46 in Rachel Laudan (ed.), The Nature of Technological
Knowledge: Are Models of Scientific Change Relevant ? Dordrecht: D. Reidel
Publishing Company, 1984 (John Rylands Library 601 L 1)

Philip Scranton, “Technology-led innovation: The non-linearity of US jet propulsion

development”, History and Technology, vol.22, no.4, December 2006, pp.337-367
The Textile Mill Engine
The railway steam engine is well covered by anoraks, but technology scholars have
neglected the stationary engine which powered the industrial revolution in mining,
metals, textiles, machine tools, flour mills, breweries, water supply and wherever
something needed to be rotated or lifted or liquids circulated and pumped.

R.A. Buchanan and George Watkins, The Industrial Archaeology of the Stationary Steam
Engine, London: Allen Lane, 1976

George Watkins, The Textile Mill Engine, Volume 1, Newton Abbot: David and Charles,
1970
George Watkins, The Textile Mill Engine, Volume 2, Newton Abbot: David and Charles,
1971

Richard L. Hills, Power from Steam: A History of the Stationary Steam Engine,
Cambridge UP, 1989
To see the textile mill engine in its original context, try:
http://www.archive.org/details/recentcottonmill00nasm

Addendum from PD: You can choose any technology you like to demonstrate what you
understand by the term 'evolution of technologies'. Jonathan lists a few general references
and then gives you the references to support the two talks you had preceding and at the
museum. But you can demonstrate you understand what the term means with reference to
any case. You could choose one that you saw at the museum or one that was talked about,
but equally you could choose something else, anything you choose. My advice is to
understand what 'evolution of technology' means and then find an example, something
you're interested in, to exemplify your argument.