TRIBUTE

The written word has enabled knowledge to travel, be passed on and accumulate. Modern means (scientific publications, the patent system, benchmarking, etc.) have accelerated this phenomenon beyond the memory of one man or one team.

Technical R&D is therefore usually incremental, and relies heavily on what has already been achieved, in particular to limit risk and thus enable investment.

This page is a tribute to those who have written pages in the history of technology; as an introduction, let us quote the man who best expressed this deference, Bernard of Chartres in 1120: "We are dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants. We thus see more and farther than they do, not because our sight is sharper or our height higher, but because they carry us aloft and lift us with all their gigantic height."

• Historical Times
• The Renaissance
• Fundamental inventions
• Les Deux Roues
• Understanding and Modeling
• Modern Times
• Some remarkable twentieth-century inventions
• The future?