Knowledge maps itself to the environments we build, the context we live in creates the potential field for its symbols. As technology evolves this range of what can be shifts, the apparatuses we construct to help decipher the world make up the laboratory of what we scientifically and conjecturally explore. But how do different technologies vary in their influence? Is a mariner's astrolabe as paradigm-altering as their star chart? What of buildings, weapons, codices, slide rules?
Let's focus on a couple of components. First let's think of the interpretive range of a given thing. While every object has some cultural meaning, we can see how say a weapon has a particular use and reading in mind, where a codex would have a whole range. However glorious we make the inscriptions on Achilles' shield, its purpose is clearly to physically defend Achilles. But the purpose of some writing on this event in Achilles' life, which may describe the building of the shield, will not itself have any needed relation to the shield and its function, and will also contain all the events surrounding it. A recorded story has a much varying set of uses than the shields it mentions and more variance will create higher probabilities of subsequent social change.
The nature of the object will be compounded with how easily it is produced. More Homeric poems can be produced by a papyral scribe than a stonemason. Still more by a craftsman equipped with movable type. Still more by a technician running a printing press. Greater energy investment means greater social value which means greater rarification. An inscribed tablet takes uncommon skill and access to resources, an automated folio common skill and generally available resources. But uniqueness leads to minimal impact, it is the common object that creates uncommon influence.
Interpretive range and popularity. The symbolic depth of an object, and how widespread it is. This is one framework we can use to contextualize the history and future of invention and its mathematical and scientific geneses. Importance in retrospect looks for a kind of organizational effect, how did it change society, we can tally the differences over time and call it a day. But a more general view that could operate at any point asks something a bit more abstract - not just what our science and technology have been, but what they could be.