By the time the century ended, elected officials governed most countries, the UN and other international organizations were prominent, and the world population had quad rupled to 6 billion people. All this happened in just one century, a time period that repre- semts only about 3% of the approximately 3,500 years of recorded human history. Many of these and other such changes are at least partly the result of what seems to be an ever-increasing pace of technological and scientific innovation. The 20th century saw the creation of television, computers, the Internet, nuclear energy, air and space travel missiles, effective birth control, antibiotics and a host of other innovations that benefit or bedevil us. Technology is both creating and solving problems.