Science and Technology
We think that in the start of this topic it is important to define what exactly science and
technology mean. So, we can define it as our concentrated knowledge of the world based on
scientific methods such as observations and experiments gathered throughout the years of
development of human race. Technology then means science that is applied for some purpose,
or we can further define it as different ways how scientific knowledge can be used for
practical purposes. Examples of science can be physics and instance of technology that is
based on this civil engineering, where engineers deign building, bridges, etc.
Science and technology have changed our world view in many ways throughout the years. We can find many instances of this in our history such as that people believe that Earth was the flat or even centre of the Universe. But our scientific observation we have proven that Earth is round and revolves around Sun. Furthermore, we expanded our knowledge and understanding of the whole universe. People in the past would just dream about going to the Moon, but the progress in science and technology allowed us to just this in 1969. Moreover, this progress didn’t happen just in our theoretical knowledge or knowledge that is connected to the universe, but we can see it every aspect of our everyday life. We tried to point out some of the progress that was made in different field of science that we can see in our life.
First example can be medical science, in the past we had many diseases and plaques that decimated our population, but the progress in medical science has allowed us to found cures vaccines to these exact diseases or plaques, that would be uncurable in the past. As the result of our life expectancy of longer and even the mortality rate in children are lower, because we found vaccines for example for cerebrospinal meningitis or chickenpox that has caused many deaths in our history.
Progress in communication has allowed to communicate with anyone with connection to the internet,
nearest radio station or even with satellite connection in just microseconds. The technology has
allowed us to lay optic telecommunication cables on the ocean floor or construct radio towers that
can send signals 100 kilometres away. We also created social medias that has also allowed us to have
access to easy communication, but this technology has its own drawbacks, because we also created place
for internet bullying, scammers that demands money from people, etc.
Many modern inventions have also been for good use in modern households. From the basic lights, we use
instead of candles, to the modern computers, which allowed us to easily complete tasks or play games. In
the past washing the laundry was hard and tyring work, but today we just put everything inside the washing
machine, and it washes it for us. In our households we can find many more inventions that helps us every day,
so you can mention these your own ideas too.
Also, the huge progress in transportation has allowed us to use for our everyday commute to work and school
or to travel to around to world, cars, buses, trains, boats or even in some cases planes. We can travel long
distances in just hours. In the past we would travel these same distances in days or weeks. You can also use
knowledge from Maturita topic Travel.
As you can see the progress in science and technology is everywhere and we can’t stop it, so we should use reasonably. The progress isn’t thing of our modern time just have been always with us. Some instances of these could be the invention of wheel, paper, gunpowder, printing press, steam engine, discovery of electricity, atoms, magnetic fields, DNA, nuclear energy, and this list could go on. However, many of these inventions and discoveries were made in time that we call the Industrial Revolution. It was time of rapid scientific and technological progress.
The begging of the Industrial Revollution was in Great Britian. The invention that is most connected with this time period is steam engine, that was invented by James Watt. Also, the first telephone was invented in this time period by Alexander Graham Bell. Furthermore, the first light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison. Lastly, we think it is also important to mention the invention of power loom by Edmund Cartwright.
In this topic it is important to mention the most important invention of the 20-th century. We picked the invention of computer and with it the invention of internet. The first computers helped us to calculate some important calculations. But big disadvantage of these computers is that they were really big, usually the size of regular room and they used a lot of energy and generated a lot of heat, so they needed a lot of colling, which was usually done by big turbines. Today we use computers that are spilt size of the original ones and have much more computational power than the original ones. Also microchips that creates computers are today practically in everything, from cars, planes, mobile phones, which practically small computers, to even simple things like conventional heaters or ovens. Furthermore, computers and internet have allowed us to have access to practically any information, and they allowed us to communicate to long distances.
They helped us to save time with paperwork, banking, etc. But everything has its dark side, and this especially applies to computers and even more
to internet. Because hackers can gather information that we had stored in our computers, they can manipulate and misuse this
information to gather money or threaten with them. Moreover, invention of social media has caused that users of them are slowly
losing their social skills. This doesn’t just apply to teenagers but also to older generation. When we mention older generation,
we must talk about scams that we can found on the internet. They are often directed towards them to steal money or sensitive
information. Also, there is so much information on the internet that you sometimes don’t know what to believe. For this reason,
you need always to verify every information, and don’t just blindly believe it.
As we already mentioned In our previous article science and technology has some disadvantages and could be also misused in
some ways. Many branches of science have been especially misused by military, during war times, especially for creation of
weapons of mass destructions, such as chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Moreover, nowadays we can see some misusing
in medical science as well, because of the discoveries of illegal drugs and other substances, that are distributed illegally
and can have very drastic effect on physical health of individuals who use these substances. Furthermore, some pharmaceutical
companies prioritize commercial interest, such as their own earnings instead of the curing illnesses easier and cheaper.
Nowadays has Mass Media become a mean of propagation and manipulation used by politician and other people to influence
the individuals think and behave.
With the progress in science and technology has also come environmental problems, that are caused by the pollution from cars,
factories, power plants, garbage disposal, etc. They then cause environmental problems such as acid rains, many kinds of
pollution, ozone layers, acidification of oceans, etc. More information on this topic can be found in Maturita topic Man and Nature.
In conclusion Science and Technology has a huge impact on our everyday lives. We can see it literally everywhere, from
transportation, healthcare to even our households. It can have very positive effect on way of living, but it also has its
huge drawbacks, which we can’t forget. Moreover, the effect on our nature wasn’t ever really positive, so it is another
thing to remember another thing what it is expected that our generation is going to fix. We can’t really predict what
other inventions or discoveries are going to be made, we can only theorize about this. But what we know, more and more
profession is being replaced by robots. But this massive replacing is creating another work opportunities. Another big
theme in science and technology is development of AI and the fear that will eventually replace all of us. If it is true
we don’t know, we can only provide our own opinion, that is we don’t really think that AI is that good to replace real
life humans, but in some time, it may become more developed to replace some of some, certainly not all of us. But only
time will reveal what will happen and what new discoveries will be made.
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