Technology and Heterogeneous Engineering: The Case of Portuguese Expansion
By, John Law
Law's discusses Portuguese ship use and the struggle it had with being the first country to navigate around Cape Bojador and the surrounding areas. He discusses the evolution of galleys, the magnetic compass, and a navigation technique called the "volta" to illustrate this main discussion.
How Law Uses the Technological Systems Approach
Law discusses that technological system builders try to dissociate hostile systems and reassemble their components in a way that contributes to the thing being built.
The hostile systems of current and wind were impossible to change. So, Portuguese galleys were made square rigged, made use of the magnetic compass, and took advantage of the "volta" method, to handle these hostile systems.
Law uses the example improving the Portuguese ship, the galley, by combining two technological innovations to create the volta.
These two innovations were the magnetic compass and a better understanding of ocean current and surrounding winds. These were then used to create the very helpful sailing strategy called the volta.
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