How important are material tools in the production or acquisition of knowledge?

The HP-35 was the first pocket held scientific calculator which was capable of

performing trigonometric and exponential functions. It was introduced in 1972 by HP and was

revolutionary on the grounds of the acquisition of knowledge. This pocket calculator was then

succeeded by the HP-45 and so on. Before this calculator, all pocket calculators could only

perform basic calculations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. However,

this calculator significance lies in its importance on the acquisition of knowledge. With the

creation of this item, it allowed students, citizens, ordinary people to be able to solve harder

mathematical problems. This is relevant as this allowed people to learn more about mathematics

and therefore acquire more knowledge. The simplicity of the item encouraged more people to

learn mathematics. Furthermore, it aided mathematicians, physicians, and teachers as it allowed

them to perform these equations without big clunky calculators. This widened the group of

people that were allowed to acquire this knowledge. Without the pocket calculator, the

acquisition of knowledge on the grounds of mathematics and physics would surely be

tremendously halted as basic functions would have to be performed by hand or would have to be
inputted into a supercomputer. This allowed scholars to focus on more important aspects of math

as they wouldn’t have to be bothered with calculating. Furthermore, it helped students in the

same manner, as they could spare more time for more work and other topics. A calculus course

would take longer to teach because, for instance, a teacher could spend 20 minutes trying to find

the roots of a cubic equation whereas the calculator could do so in mere seconds. This calculator

however did not aid in producing any knowledge. It’s main purpose was to make previous

knowledge more accessible and make it easier to acquire this old knowledge.

In the 17th century, the first microscope was invented by the Dutch in order to be able to

view small objects closely. However, this was not as significant as the discovery of Anton van

Leeuwenhoek. Anton created a better lens for the microscope and this allowed him to be able to

see bacteria. This microscope was used by putting the lens up to your eye and towards the sun.

However, it provided extremely significant results in the production of knowledge. Firstly, it

allowed Anton to be able to view bacteria and cells. This gave way to the cell theory which was

fundamental to biology. Furthermore, his microscope encouraged other scientists throughout the

world as they learned about this phenomenon. Nowadays, this completely changed our lives. In

the ongoing pandemic that is occurring, scientists use microscopes in order to examine the

disease and then determine how to deal with it. Microscopes gave people the ability to go beyond

the human eye and discover efficient medicine. It allowed us to solve the mysteries of our
existence and our Earth by examining the composition of the components that build us. It gave

way to experiments that determined how cells react and different types of cells. Without

microscopes, scientists would have a harder time producing knowledge on the biology of

humans, as well as the makeup of a disease. This would surely cause ruin as diseases would run

more rampant as scientists would have a much harder time trying to discern what the cure of the

disease would be. However, with microscopes, any biologist can simply look at a disease and

within a couple years or so, have a vaccine ready to send across the world. This microscope

produces knowledge rather than acquiring it. This is because it led to the discovery of cells

which were previously unknown and therefore, produced this knowledge. Overall, the

microscope allows humans to produce more scientific knowledge on the grounds of biology and

produce factual knowledge about cells.

The printing press is a tool used in order to produce many papers with writing by pressing on

them with ink. These were commonly used for newspapers and allowed for their mass

production. This changed the way we acquire knowledge as it made it easier to obtain

information. News was able to spread faster. Furthermore, it allowed more news to be passed

around. In these newspapers, which anyone could acquire, there was information about politics,

economics, and more. All this benefitted people as it allowed anyone to acquire basic knowledge

about their surroundings for free. However, it also made it easier to manipulate information as

fake information could be mass produced. This meant that it could be possible for a newspaper to

have false information spread across a country and people wouldn’t know. As time progressed,

due to the possibility of mass fake news, people became more wary about their information, and

changed their ways of acquiring it, where they would only look at certain newspapers that they

trusted. Overall, the printing press revolutionized how people searched for and acquired

knowledge and information.

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Works Cited

Molecular Expressions Microscopy Primer: Museum of Microscopy - The Leeuwenhoek

Microscope, micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/museum/leeuwenhoek.html.

“HP-45.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Feb. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-45.

“Printing Press.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 12 May 2021,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press.