What
is Progress for science and technology.
© H.M.
Thomas.
Progress in science
and technology.is the topic we want to look at now. How is progress for science
and technology in general to be judged? Looking at nano- technology one
noticed atoms and molecules can be arranged to build materials with special
properties we like to use. Technical
feasibilities as self-assembling consumers products, faster computers,
pharmaceuticals, materials to clean pollution were stretched out. Faster cars,
faster computers. Smaller, faster, more
efficiemt and easy handling seems keywords for designing and constructing
consumers products . And there is more. Technical possibilities seems endlessly
Our journeys reach to the space- station and planets with machinery, robots and
humans. .
What do we see here at the left? A robot holding a cell phone standing on a plate of wood for an old camera. Further some camera lens figure like technical object. Progress is made. The cell phone has a camera, is digitalized. Everything has become easier handling. Mass production makes it often cheaper than long time ago. We call it progress. Products somehow more and more are farther away from the people that produced.them. Globalization took place.
Because all
of this we tend to think science and technology to develop along a straight
line towards the top of a mountain of knowledge. But is it? There are levels of
skills, knowledge, technical feasibilities and perhaps most of all of money to
make wishes come true. Some levels in history stretches out from the invention
of the wheel, developing tools for the artisan, the first industrial revolution
with its steam engine and the second industrial revolution with assembly lines,
cars and vast factories. A third revolution followed with integrated circuits, fast
computers and the internet. Perhaps a biological revolution is waiting with applications
like sensors to be built in everywhere, also into the human body. Maybe all
this is waiting for us in this century.
No doubt human society will be transformed to a society for everywhere communicating
information to manipulate and use. But all those revolutionary times are
leveled in a sort of plateaus. A level for mechanization, scale enlargements,
electronics and communication, energy source developing and so on. Other levels
for information handling, technology for the human body and the brain, and so on are areas of interest.All
work according to their own paradigm. And as Thomas Kuhn explained in his work:
“The Structure of Scientific Revolution “all paradigms one day has to come to an end. All technicians scientists and
artisans have done all they could, given the tools they could use. The paradigm
has become worn out. As squeezing fruit have to stop if all the juice is gone. Another
paradigm has to be invented and will follow. Will science and technology develop
in a straight line with the sky as the limit? The answer seems definitely not.
For reactions: ahjohann84@gmail.com
Only if possible an answer may follow.
The author takes no responsibilities
for using the text above or any actions based on the text above.
Some other general questions we like to look at in the
future are:
- What about the mathematizing of our theories? Are there any boundaries
of physics? -Does
a theory of everything exists for physics as an ultimate goal we have to accomplish
at all costs? Short general commentaries will be
given to get a glance at contemporary developments in science and technology,
especially physics. Where do we come from, where can we go? We combine some present
developments with a historical context to elucidate fundamentals
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten