The Grace Foundation

When James Watts invented the steam engine over 200 years ago, there was most likely no human being whose visionary horizon was broad enough to foresee the cultural revolution this machine would bring about. What Watts developed was more than simply a new machine. In his mind, his lab and the concrete manifestation of this idea, he set the foundations for a global cultural development which changed the face of the world forever. The steam engine was the start of the industrial age and so the first step toward globalization. Watts' invention marked a quantum leap in possibilities; step by step an entirely new horizon opened to humanity. Methods of hard, time- consuming manual labor gave way to limitless and speedy possibilities of production. An old perspective and its potential for interaction with the world was changed at the roots. Watts captured the zeitgeist, a moment that determined the evolution of humanity. The same is true for Rockefeller’s development and use of oil sources 100 years later (marking the start of the oil industry) or Norbert Wiener’s invention of the binary system at the conclusion of the Second World War (the basis for digital processing). All of these inventions shaped society in new ways through technological progress. All carried within them a seed of innovation, which offered a new worldview to the human mind. And all marked the start of a global cultural development toward the world in which we live today.