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Sсience and Technological Progress in Modern Society

From its early beginning in the sixteenth century the developments of science have influenced the course of western civilization more and more. And today it plays a most dominant role. We live in a world that materially and intellectually has been created by 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. 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. 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, however, another part of the story .. It is a story of expanding intellectual horizon – the impact of science on the mind of a man. Fundamentally, science is an intellectual enterprise, an attempt to understand the world in a particular way.

Over the past 150 years the range of human knowledge has been doubled every 12 or 15 years. In 1930 man knew 4 times as much as he did in 1900; by 1960 his knowledge had grown sixteenfold, and by the year 2005 it can be expected to be a hundred times what it had been a century previously.

The second part of the twentieth century has brought a number of technical innovations which are still very young but which are taken so much for granted that it is as if they have always existed.

In the 50-ies of the last century hardly anyone would probably have believed that we should be able to sit at home and watch astronauts walking in space or that people could be kept alive by the heart of a dead man.

The transistor was not invented until 1948. This piece of electronic equipment found wide use in space technology, computers, transistor radios, medical instruments, television sets – in fact, wherever precise control and modulation of electrical signals was required, however, the invention of ICs (integrated circuits) in 1958 brought in a new era of change in the field so fundamental, that it already has the characteristics of a second industrial revolution.

A mere 12 years separated the launching of the satellite Sputnik I in 1957 and man’s first landing on the Moon in 1969. 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. Another period of 10 years and in 1981 we could witness the launching of a typically new cosmic vehicle - the Shuttle. 2004 went into history as the year when the USA’s Mars vehicles “Spirit” and “Opportunity” landed this mysterious planet.

It is not difficult to continue with other examples but the point is clear. Events such as these are characteristic of the rate of technological development in the second half of the 20^th century and the beginning of the 21^st century. Science occupies a central position in modern society. It dominates man’s whole existence. Research and innovations in technology should improve society’s living and working conditions and remedy the negative effects of technical and social changes.

Recent developments of nuclear weapons, satellites, space platforms and intercontinental ballistic missiles have attracted public attention throughout the world. They make wars of annihilation possible and demand the necessity of coming an understanding with the other nations. It is not merely a matter of peace, but, poses the question of the very survival of the human race.

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