origin of the machineregularity of/from devotion ->clock

profile of technicshunting+gathering -> weapons and tools are interchangeableagriculture -> along the rivers from the mountains to the valleysquantitative thoughtminingscience+technology

materials of technicswoodbone, sinewstoneclay -> vessels, storagemetal (soft)alloys

processes of technicsgatheringchipping and chopping -> spear and axedrilling -> fire and the wheelspinning and twisting -> thread and stringweaving -> fitted clothing, matssmithing -> forged metalschemistry -> alloys and glass

overlapping phases of technics: the technological complex1000 - 1750eotechnic phase: water and wood -> less use of humans as prime movers

-> water and windpower (sailing)1700 - 1900paleotechnic phase: coal and iron -> mining

1850 - 1920neotechnic phase: electricity and alloys

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many inventions span several phases -> the pen

Estimated Age of the Universe: 13.7 +/- 0.2 e+9 years

Estimated Age of Earth: 4.5 e+9 years

Estimated Start of Life on Earth: 3.5 e+9 years

Oldest multicellular organism: 1.2 e+9 years

First mammals: 70 e+6 years

Australopithecus: 3.6 e+6 years

Homo erectus: 2.0 e+6 years

Neandertal: 350 e+3 years

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/age.htmlhttp://solarsystem.nasa.gov/faq/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_timeline_of_our_universe

Stone Age (Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) end last ice age – 6'000 years

10'000 BC - 4000 BC

Jordan valley culture 9500 BC (?)

Jiahu culture (modern China) 7000 BC

Mesopotania (modern southern Iraq) 4000 BC

Indus valley culture (modern Pakistan) 3300BC

Predynastic Egypt 3100 BC

Elam (modern Iran) 3000 BC (?)

Earliest Agriculture

Fertile Cresent 9500 BCfounder crops of agriculture wheat, barley, peas, lentils,

bitter vetch, chick peas, flaxhttp://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/index2.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization

evolution of human cultural behavior:

(1) social life

(2) subsistence (the acquisition and production of food)

(3) the making and using of tools

(4) environmental adaptation

(5) symbolic thought and its expression via language, art, religion

(6) the development of agriculture and the rise of civilizations

2009: Ardipithecus ramidus: 4.4 million years old

Ardipthecus Ramidus: 4.4 million years oldArdipithecus ramidus: 4.4 million years old

A rock

The making and use of tools alone probably did not distinguish early humans from their ape predecessors.

Humans made the important breakthrough of using one tool to make another.

Stone toolmaking characterized the period sometimes referred to as the Stone Age, which began at least 2.5 million years ago in Africa and lasted until the development of metal tools within the last 10,000 years (at different times in different parts of the world).

The oldest stone tools were simple, used for cutting and bashing

200,000 years ago: new method of toolmaking is known as the prepared core technique.

This technique involves a planned removal of flakes, which produced pieces of stone from which tools of a preformed shape and thickness could be made. Tools made using this technique are known for their thinness and regular shape.

The making of a pre-shaped flake involves considerable cognitive ability; the maker has to be able to imagine the end product and work from that mental concept.

Automation is the last step of a process that began ... with the use of one part or the other of the human body as a tool (Mumford)

tool

an extension of the body, powered by the body

machine an assemblage of rigid moving parts that performs work in a predetermined manner.

a constructed thing whether material or immaterial (the social machine, the Protestant work ethic).

device

machine without moving parts

a first order machine ?

“The machine is not defined by its degree of complexity” (early weaving machine)

weave with plant fiber weave with carbon-kevlar for impact resistance

Fibers of wild flax, up to 34,000 years old, in the Dzudzuana Cave in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Some of the fibers were twisted and some were dyed, which indicates they were used for sewing clothes, weaving baskets or making ropes and cordes for hafting stone tools. That makes the fibers (to date) the oldest known to have been used by humans.

Science 11 September 2009:Vol. 325. no. 5946, p. 1359DOI: 10.1126/science.1175404

Simple machines Inclined plane, Wheel and axle, Lever, Pulley, Wedge, Screw

Clock Atomic clock, Pendulum clock, Quartz clock

Compressors and Pumps Archimedes screw, Hydraulic ram, Pump, Vacuum pump

Heat engines External combustion engines, Steam engine

Internal combustion engines Reciprocating engine, Wankel engine, Rocket,

Turbine Jet engine, Water turbine, Wind generator, Windmill

Computing machines Calculator, Computer, Analog computer

Biological machines Virus, Bacterium, Plant and animal, DNA computers, Human being

Miscellaneous Robot, Vending machine, Wind tunnel

Early clocks

http://physics.nist.gov/GenInt/Time/early.html

Mumford quoting Releaux:

“A machine is a combination of resistant bodies so arranged that by their means the mechanical forms of nature can be compelled to work accompanied by certain determinant motions.”

There are probably many 'origins' of the machine

The first manifestation of 'the machine' is a general perception of the world

The rise of quantitative methods accompanies the inception of 'the machine'

But the impetus to think 'machine' has -possibly- its origin in monastic life.

Plan of St. Gall (utopian, ideal Benedict Monastery), 816-36

“The clouds that could paralyze the sundial, the freezing that could stop the water clock on a winter night were no longer obstacles to time-keeping. The ... clank of the clock spread outside the monastery...and the regular striking of the bells brought a new regularity into the life of the workman and merchant...The bells of the clock tower almost defined urban existence...” (Mumford)

Book of hours

Flanders, c.1360 (MS. Lat. liturg. f. 3, fol. 51r), Oxford University

Eventually, the full Benedictine monastic cursus of hours in the West came to look like this:

Vespers (at the end of the day)Compline (upon retiring)Vigils (sometime during the night)Matins (at sunrise)Prime (during the first hour of daylight)Terce (at the third hour)Sext (at the sixth hour)None (at the ninth hour)Vespers (at the end of the day)

“Was it by reason of the collective Christian desire to provide for the welfare of the souls in eternity by regular prayers and devotions that time-keeping and the habits of temporal order took hold of men's minds ...?” (Mumford)

Watt steam engine (1789-1800) with centrifugal governor.

“The clock and not the steam engine...is the key machine of the modern industrial age..” (Mumford)

“The clock becomes a development ground for mechanics in general (gearing, etc)”

“The clock's product is seconds and minutes; it dissociated time from human events. With this it helped create an independent world of measurable sequences.”

“Time is measured by the clock in discrete entities not by the events that occupy it.”

“The popularization of time-keeping, which followed the production of cheap standardized watches .. was essential to a well-articulated system of transportation and production..”

“When one thinks of time not as a sequence of experiences, but as a collection of hours, minutes and seconds, thehabits of adding time and saving time come into existence”

The escapement is a feedback regulator that controls the speed of a mechanical clock. The first anchor escapement used in a mechanical clock was designed and applied by Robert Hooke (1635-1703) around 1657, in London.

M. Headrick, The Origin and Evolution of the Anchor Clock EscapementApril 2002 IEEE Control Systems Magazine

The mine: the first completely inorganic environment to work in(Mumford)

Artist's rendering of a moon colony – mining the surface of the moon

Other philosophies of time

Henri Bergson: Time and Free Will (1889), Creative Evolution (1907)

in order to define consciousness and therefore freedom, Bergson proposes to differentiate between time and space, “to un-mix” them, we might say. On the other hand, through the differentiation, he defines the immediate data of consciousness as being temporal, in other words, as the duration (la durée). In the duration, there is no juxtaposition of events; therefore there is no causality. It is in the duration that we can speak of the experience of freedom.

Alfred Einstein, Special Relativity Theory (1905)

Time dilation: Moving clocks tick slower than an observer's "stationary" clock.

Length contraction: Objects are observed to be shortened in the direction that they are moving with respect to the observer.

Mass-energy equivalence: E = mc²

M.E. McTaggart: The Unreality of Time, 1908

(the problem of tensed facts – A and B series Time)

The A series corresponds to our everyday notions of past, present, and future. This is contrasted with the B series, in which positions are ordered from earlier to later, i.e. the series running from earlier to later moments.McTaggart argued that the A series was a necessary component of any full theory of time, but that it was also self-contradictory and that our perception of time was therefore an ultimately incoherent illusion.

1 Anu is the base of human-perceptible time: the time it takes for a thorn to pierce a lotus leaf. It is further divided into Param Anu’s [a.k.a Paramaanu].

3 Paramaanu’s = 1 Anu3 Anu’s = 1 Vedha3 Vedhas = 1 Lava3 Lavas = 1 Nimesha3 Nimeshas = 1 Kshana [equivalent to the 'second', although not the same value]5 Kshanas = 1 Kaashthaa15 Kaashthaas = 1 Laghu15 Laghus = 1 Naadika2 Naadikas = 1 Muhurta30 Muhurtas = 1 Ahoraatra [equiv. 24 hours or solar day from sunrise to sunrise]15 Ahoraatras = 1 Paksha [lunar phase]2 Pakshas = 1 Maasa [month]2 Maasas = 1 Ritu [equivalent to a season]3 Ritus = 1 Ayana [a solstice i.e. movement of the sun relative to the equator]2 Ayanas = 1 Samvatsara or Varsha [a solar year]100 Varshas = 1 Shatabda [a century]10 Shatabdas = 1 Sahasrabda [a millenium]432 Sahasrabdas = 1 Yuga [an era]

Of the 4 Yugas the Kali Yuga is considered the smallest, comprising 432,000 solar years.

1 Yuga = Kali Yuga [432, 000 years]2 Yugas = Dwapar Yuga [864, 000 years]3 Yugas = Treta Yuga [1.296 million years]4 Yugas = Sata Yuga or Kruta Yuga [1.728 million years]

The Hindus believe that it takes all 4 Yugas to make 1 Maha Yuga (4,320, 000 years). In terms of cyclical time, each Maha Yuga is comprised of the other Yugas in this order: first comes Sata, then Treta, then Dwapar and last comes Kali Yuga. It is believed Maha Yugas follow other Maha Yugas infinitely.

71 Maha Yugas = 1 Manvantara [period of Manu i.e. man]14 Manvantaras = 1 Kalpa [a day in the life of Brahma] = 4.32 billion years

The Hindus believe that at every Kalpa, the universe is destroyed and recreated.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalpa

The Long Now Foundation

->slower and better thinking:

They write 02007 instead of 2007...

levels of pace in a civilization:

fashion (fastest)commerceinfrastructuregovernanceculturenature (slowest)

We are on overdrive now – slow down...

Stewart Brand: The Clock of the Long Now

project: make a clock, an instrument for thinking about time in a different way

design principles:longevitymaintainabilitytransparencyevolvabilityscalability

use an unreliable but accurate timer (solar alignment) to adjust an inaccurate but reliable timer (pendulum)-> phase locked loop

large, slow mechanical computer, easy to understand and accurate->mechanical digital logic

silicon and silicon carbide as mechanical materials: brittle, but either fails catastrophically immediately OR functions for 10'000 years

The Long Now Foundation: 10'000 year clock

phases of technics:

eotechnic phase: water and wood

paleotechnic phase: coal and iron neotechnic phase: electricity and alloys

and now?