Industrial Revolution - Essay Example

as the Industrial period that changed the face of society from an agrarian one to a society greatly dominated by industry and the manufacture of machines. As Burke puts it, "together with the Industrial Revolution came the modern expectation of progress and a better standard of living made possible by mens skills and the machines they invented.", and goes on to credit the Industrial Revolution with promoting both capitalism and giving birth to socialism among other things and that it changed society, making "modern urban society dependent on mass-production techniques without which we cannot now survive" (1998/1995, page 193).

In his book “The Day the Universe Changed” James Burke gives us a philosophical view of the universe by telling us that our idea of the universe is how each one perceives it, so therefore if we change our perception of how we look at the universe, we have changed the universe itself. Burke goes on to tell us of all the advances in Science and technology and how they affected the lives of the people. Before the 1700s, metals such as copper, tin and brass were used but machines could not be made from them because they were very malleable or brittle.

The only durable material was wood, but wooden gears got worn out very soon. Hence, an alternative such as iron came into vogue but to separate the iron from the rock a rudimentary process of smelting had to be used. After a lot of trial and error, the water wheel was devised in order to crank the bellows to produce power. That is why the ancient iron works were constructed near the rivers. Hence very soon things such as ploughs, screws, nails, gates, and swords were made from iron. Very soon there was a great demand for iron and mining turned out to be a huge business.

Since the mines were below the water-line, they became flooded during the rains. Due to this there arose the necessity for something to pump the water out. This led to the invention of a steam engine. The very first Steam