• more use of science
• mass production
• larger businesses had an advantage because of economies of scale
• technological networks become more complicated and therefor harder to change (technological momentum)

What makes economies of scale possible?

• the more identical items you produce, the cheaper the price per item
• larger scale allows more efficiency because you have to be organized to manage a large scale
• cheaper to run larger machines per unit produced, or more identical machines
  
• greater division of labor--each person gets good at one small thing
• large businesses have more power to negotiate good prices from their suppliers
• building a ship that carries twice as much doesn't require twice as much material (volume grows faster than area)
• cheap transportation to reach larger markets to sell large numbers of product
• you need customers

Science and/or invention

• simultaneous invention
• scientific knowledge came available, so now the invention was obvious
• the need was so strong that may people worked on it an by chance would come up with what worked
• many inventions continued to be made using craft knowledge and trial and error
• systematic engineering (eg. Diesel)
• scientific discoveries that lead directly to new technology
• in some cases the science comes first but it takes a while to be practical
  

Large-scale production of steel:

• the Bessemer process was invented by two independent inventors in almost identical form
• Mokyr is not convinced by the argument that once the need is there someone will invent it, so inventors don't matter individually

Chemical industry

• a few chemical products were in production by 1850, such as bleach
• an Englishman, William Perkin, accidentally invented the first synthetic dye in 1856, a Frenchman the second
  
• German chemists began a systematic search for other colors and developed the field of organic chemistry
  
• systematic research and development became a mission of German universities
  
• related invention of nitroglycerine (the explosive in dynamite)
• this is the first new industry based on science, and it required more theoretical work, not just trial and error
  

The electrical industry is the other area where science was creating a whole new industry

• the electric motor was invented in 1821 but it was not clear it would be practical because of the high cost of batteries
• the telegraph, brought into use in the 1840s, was the first electrical devise that clearly had the potential to make money on a large scale
• in the 1870s dynamos were improved to the point where they generated electricity at a reasonable cost, making possible electric light

• the bicycle  (1885) led to the automobile (1876)
• transportation technology was improved by patterns more like Watt's improvement of the steam engine--less based on science
• Diesel was a trained engineer working systematically, and he did use theory to guide his work

Mass production of complex machines like guns or bicycles: new approaches to the steps of factory production

• "American System of Manufacturing" mass production of interchangeable parts for metal machines
• the key is special purpose machine tools that can automatically cut out identical parts
• this made possible sewing machines, typewriters, adding machines, inexpensive clocks
  
• once you can produce parts efficiently the key becomes assembling those parts
• conveyor belts to move material through a production process were used occasionally in the first half of the 19th century
  
• the assembly line was invented by Henry Ford's engineers about 1913

How did food production keep up?

• mineral fertilizers and fertilizers made in chemical factories
• horse-drawn reaping machine for harvesting 1832 Cyrus McCormick
• tractors came into use in the 1910s and also provided a power source for other machines
• canning was invented about 1800--before the germ theory of disease

Telephone and radio were science based

Dilemmas of technological progress:

• sometimes a device can be made to work before the science behind it is understood
• sometimes a device can be imagined, but the technology to make it or support its operation does not exist

Technological change accounted for sustained growth
why didn't economic growth grind to a halt?