Warum hat der Mensch in Tausenden von Jahren keine Technologie entwickelt, aber nach dem 18. Jahrhundert veränderte sich die Welt plötzlich?

What do you need to make inventions?

The necessity, an idea and above all time!

The latter was not given before because everyone was busy to survive. The first groundbreaking invention was agriculture, which made it unnecessary to move. It was about 15,000 years ago.

First of all, it was focused on improving the cultivation of food and fighting against enemies.

Before 4,000 first high cultures were created and there were many inventions/discoveries in this area. Only at this time did people specialize and not everyone built food themselves. Priests took care of gods, kings, etc. And some had time to think about problems, the birth of philosophy.

Many discoveries came from this reflection, because one wanted to prove that, for example, the Earth is round, the course of the planets, etc.

It would have gone a lot faster or better, but wars, decaying kingdoms, diseases and epidemics repeatedly threw humanity back. The plague in the Middle Ages or the 30-year war depopulated Central Europe. Some of them were forgotten.

Example steam engine: first reflections were already in the 1st century after Christ. But as the Roman Empire went down, ideas also went under. Only 1543 someone came back to the idea of building something like that. Nevertheless, it took another 220 years until James Watt developed a usable machine in 1769.

Sometimes time is simply not ripe or people do not yet understand relationships, there are not the right materials or you need inventions to make your own invention possible at all.

When different, coincidence also helps, as with penicillin.