History of innovation

- Innovation with technology we attribute to things like smartphones, virtual reality or the internet. But in reality almost everything that has evolved for thousands of years is based on expansion of technology. While we think of technology as processors or pixels today, in centuries past it was about steam, electricity, iron, language, and even fire. Today innovation has hundreds of different paths that go out in almost all different directions, ranging from biology, chemistry, physics, communication, mathematics, geography, fashion and medicine. There are times of great leaps of innovation like the classical age with the Greeks and the Romans. And the renaissance in Italy and the industrial revolution in Britain and France. But even in times of great struggle like the middle ages times of war and conflict innovation has a way to help societies break out of these periods of difficulty with the printing press, physics and computer science. At each break through of innovation along the timeline it disrupts what was done before and creates a new field for us to explore and expand upon. Sometimes it replaces a previous field of study. Sometimes it creates a completely new parallel branch that grows and expands on its own. But each point of innovation, new jobs and paths are created. In this course we'll focus on the innovation of computer science which has transformed how we communicate, process information and conduct our daily lives. The idea of a computer was first created by Charles Babbage in the analytical engine. Many of the basic concepts of computer logic today existed in Babbage's work back in the early 19th century. The analytical engine was programmed by Ada Lovelace who is considered the first computer programmer. The birth of modern computer science is largely credited to Alan Turing who formalized the concepts of algorithm and computation using a general purpose computer called the Turing machine. With the concepts of computers and computer science this new industry started to take off. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries the center of gravity of computers moved from the room the size of a house to a desktop, to your lap and now in your pocket or even on your wrist. But all this innovation goes back to the basic principles of computer science. Programming, the internet and data storage are all possible through the basic abstraction of information that we all recognize into the native language of modern computer can interpret and understand. While we might be here today, when you look towards future innovation it will be based on the principles that have been built and have evolved in the past century. Even as new innovations like speech, virtual reality and social networking grow and expand they will do so based on the groundwork that exists today. The impact of the innovation of computers and computer science extends far beyond the computer. In the areas of art and fashion computers are used to build 3D printed clothing and pieces of art using code that generates patterns and designs using algorithms found in nature such as fractals. In the area of medicine robotics and sensors are able to enter the body and detect medical conditions that would otherwise have gone unnoticed and could lead to misdiagnosis or future complications. In transportation analyzing the data of how people commute and use vehicles and mass transit informs cities and urban planners on how to best configure train and bus routes, timing of traffic lights and the number of lanes needed to reduce congestion. All of these are industries that through computer science and technology have their own breakthroughs in innovation.