A large technical system (LTS) is a system or network of enormous proportions or complexity. The study of LTSs is a subdiscipline of history of science and technology.
The book Rescuing Prometheus by Thomas P. Hughes documents the development of four such systems, including the Boston central artery tunnel and the Internet.
Famous quotes containing the words large, technical and/or system:
“... when you make it a moral necessity for the young to dabble in all the subjects that the books on the top shelf are written about, you kill two very large birds with one stone: you satisfy precious curiosities, and you make them believe that they know as much about life as people who really know something. If college boys are solemnly advised to listen to lectures on prostitution, they will listen; and who is to blame if some time, in a less moral moment, they profit by their information?”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“UG [universal grammar] may be regarded as a characterization of the genetically determined language faculty. One may think of this faculty as a ‘language acquisition device,’ an innate component of the human mind that yields a particular language through interaction with present experience, a device that converts experience into a system of knowledge attained: knowledge of one or another language.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)