Technology

Technology is a word with origins in the Greek word technologia (τεχνολογία), techne (τέχνη) "craft" and logia (λογία) "saying." It is a broad term dealing with the use and knowledge of humanity's tools and crafts.

t is difficult to obtain precise definition of technology. According to the involved science fields and engineering domain where it is developed, there are many kinds of technologies. Generally, the following distinctions can be made:

• Science is the formal process of investigating natural phenomena. It produces information and knowledge about the world.
• Engineering is the goal-oriented process of designing and building tools and systems to exploit natural phenomena for a practical human means. Engineers work within the constraints of natural laws and societal needs to create technology.
• Technology is the consequence of these two processes and societal requests. Most commonly, the term technology is used as the name of all engineering products.

For scientists and engineers, technologies are: conceptual tools - as methods, methodologies, techniques; instruments - as machines, aparatus, software programs; as well as, different artificial materials which they normally use.

Technologies are not direct products of science, because they have to satisfy such requirements as: utility, usability and safety, therefore the application of the scientific knowledge to concrete purposes requires the contribution of engineering research.

Until recently, it was believed that the development of technology was a concept akin and restricted only to human beings, but recent studies show that other primates (such as chimpanzees), and certain dolphin communities, have developed simple tools and learned to pass this knowledge to other generations, what would constitute a form of non-human technological development.