Science and technology have a symbiotic relationship with one another, one cradles the other, and so it is obvious that the trend of scientific and technological development increases exponentially with time and testament to the fact is that there have been more scientific discoveries in the past 400 years than in the past 4000. This enables us to embark on a journey together, to relive and rediscover the science and technology that was essential at the time of discovery, but are now deemed obsolete by the very society that used them to develop itself into the global civilization that it is today.
Our journey starts when the early man understood the need of light in protection from nocturnal animals, the need for warmth, and so fire was invented. The early human soon discovered, as helpful as fire is in keeping wild animals away, making food more delicious, it was also very dangerous and so had to be kept away from the self, this is where technology enters the scene. cavemen discovered that certain materials can light up faster than others and can be used to sustain the fire for longer, and so they realized that by holding on to a stick with fire at the other end serves the purpose of a probe that could be used to scare away animals and at the same time not hurt the person wielding the fire. Then, after centuries of tinkering with the idea of fire, by men and women far wiser than us, we have now an arsenal of tools that efficiently mimic every aspect of fire as well as display some qualities while others are not. The need for security, one has weapons, missiles, armors and so on. for the heat, one has pocket body warmers, air conditioning devices, for light, we now have floodlights, sound navigation ranging (SONAR) that eliminates the need for light completely, infrared imaging, that has the ability to let the user visualize and comprehend the objects that normal light could not reach, and so on. Our point is that if something as simple as fire could lead to so many inventions, most of which were not even intended for the same purpose as that of the fire, imagine extrapolating this to other concepts as well. This journey of ours is one that shifts and evolves with time itself, and hence has no end to it. Everyday, someone tinkering in some lab or workshop stumbles upon an idea that will change the course of human civilization only to realize that someone will find a better idea tomorrow that would either render their work meaningless or would build upon that idea. This in the long run would create a cascading effect which may not be apparent at the time but would definitely find its way into a stone tablet, parchment paper or a magazine like ours.