It is not difficult to continue with other examples but the point is clear.
The first long-term orbital station Salyut launched in 1971 opened a new era in space research, providing the possibility of conducting investigations in the field of astrophysics, space technology, medicine, biology, etc under conditions inconceivable on the earth.Īnother period of 10 years and in 1981 we could witness the launching a typically new cosmic vehicle – the Shuttle. This piece of electronic equipment found wide use in space technology, computers, transistor radios, medical instruments, television sets.Ī mere 12 years separated the launching of the satellite Sputnik in 1957 and man’s first landing on the Moon in 1969. The transistor was not invented until 1948. The second part of the twentieth century has brought a number of technical innovations which are still very young but which are taken as if they have always existed. In 1930 man knew 4 times as much as he did in 1900 and nowadays is considered to be a hundred times what it had been a century ago. Over the past 150 years the range of human knowledge has been doubled every 12 or 15 years. All the developments mentioned are but the results, the outcomes of this intellectual activity. It is a story of expanding intellectual horizons – the impact of science on the mind of a man.įundamentally, science is an intellectual enterprise, an attempt to understand the world in a particular way. There is, however, another part of the story less obvious and less well known, but far more important. The means of communication that bind the continents into a single community depend on scientific know-how, without modern sanitation it would be impossible to have large centres of population without modern industry and agriculture, it would be impossible to feed, to clothe and to provide the “abundant life” to this large population. There is hardly an article used in the homes, in the places of work, or in the places of enjoyment that has not been modified by technology based on science. One merely needs to mention the telephone, the radio, the television, the automobile, and the airplane, or any of the countless devices invented by the application of science. The point is easy to illustrate on the material level. It is not much of exaggeration to say that we live in a world that materially and intellectually has been created by science. Science and Technological Progress in Modern Society
0 kommentar(er)
