What is technology? We spend a lot of time talking about it, but the answer is both easy and surprisingly difficult to locate. The word technology comes from the Greek words “techne” and “logos”. A modern definition proves hard to pin down.

Technology is the application of knowledge to the practical aims of human life or to changing and manipulating the human environment. Technology includes the use of materials, tools, techniques, and sources of power to make life easier or more pleasant and work more productive. Whereas science is concerned with how and why things happen, technology focuses on making things happen.

Here are some of the most famous quotes that may get us a little bit closer to understanding what technology is.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.”
― Sydney J. Harris

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it”
―Alan Kay