Michael F. Wagner
Soul of the arts
The industrial myth and the technical-scientific breakthrough in Danish historiography.

The notion that science leads to technology is manifest in the writing of modern history. As an important metaphor of modernity in the engineering-discourse, the idea that the relation between science and technology and its impact on society as a one-sided affair is traced back to the beginning of the 19th century. In Denmark the metaphor was presented for the first time in public by the famous physicist H.C. Oersted in 1829. The notion that science creates technology seems to have appeared in every Danish science-technology-society debate since then. The analysis in this article is focused on the ideological debate between 1880-1930. The changes in discourse are considered an effect of the 2nd Industrial Revolution that took place in Danish society during this time.