Technology & Progression

[Vormaerin]

It's unlikely every field will change with each TL, but communications technology is a huge factor. The main difference between the 1980s and now is internet/digital. We are still using rockets, cars, airplanes, rifles, refrigerators, fossil fuels, etc.

Radio changed things. Internet changed things. Telegraph & Telephones probably felt like a pretty radical change at the time.

 

[swordtart]

So the question then becomes which technologies represent TL paradigm changes. Materials technology? Energy generation?

Fire->lime, cement, a few metals, pottery
Furnace->glass, more metals, ceramics
Blast furnace->industrial revolution

Glass->lenses->microscope/telescope

Muscle power, animal power, wind, water
steam engine->industrial revolution

Static electricity, chemical reaction generated electricity
industrial revolution->mechanical generation of electricity

electricity, chemical reaction ratios, radioactivity, brownian motion->atomic theory

James Burke has a programme back in the day called Connections. Each episode he told the story of how a modern technological marvel (well modern int he 70's) came to be and all the hinges of history flip-flopped to enable it to happen. My biggest take away was that it was all tangled up. An advancement in just one technology generally didn't take until some often completely tangential technology came along and enabled it.

A change in power source is often the thing that makes things easier and therefore cheaper and this usually creates a step change from the normal gradual increment of better or cheaper or faster.