Explaining Technology
Published on 30. August 2023
978-1-009-38627-2 (ISBN)
Description
A long tradition explains technological change as recombination. Within this tradition, this Element develops an innovative combinatorial model of technological change and tests it with 2,000 years of global GDP data and with data from US patents filed between 1835 and 2010. The model explains 1) the pace of technological change for a least the past two millennia, 2) patent citations and 3) the increasing complexity of tools over time. It shows that combining and modifying pre-existing goods to produce new goods generates the observed historical pattern of technological change. A long period of stasis was followed by sudden super-exponential growth in the number of goods. In this model, the sudden explosion of about 250 years ago is a combinatorial explosion that was a long time in coming, but inevitable once the process began at least two thousand years ago. This Element models the Industrial Revolution as a combinatorial explosion.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
File size
3,09 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-009-38627-2 (9781009386272)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Roger Koppl | Roberto Cazzolla Gatti | Abigail Devereaux
Explaining Technology
Book
08/2023
Cambridge University Press
€24.00
Shipment within 15-20 days
Persons
Content
1. Introduction; 2. Competing explanations of technology; 3. The theory of combinatorial evolution; 4. Our model; 5. Our Tri-data result; 6. Niche theory; 7. Homo tinkerus; 8. Entrepreneurship and innovation; 9. CODA; Appendix; References.
