Humanity at the turn of a new era. Technologies of the new era

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Chapter 7. ACCELERATION OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

The decades that have passed since the Second World War were marked by a further acceleration in the pace of scientific and technological development. Between the two world wars, the period of time required for the volume to double scientific knowledge, was about 24 years old, in 1945-1964. - 14 years, by the end of the century for different areas knowledge he made no more than 5-7 years.

The greatest discovery of the 20th century mastery of nuclear energy, largely used for military purposes. Opening in the early 1950s. thermonuclear reactions (fusion of light nuclei into heavier ones at ultrahigh temperatures) and in the USSR and the USA it was turned to create hydrogen bombs. Οʜᴎ were hundreds of times more destructive than uranium and plutonium. Only in 1956 ᴦ. built in the UK nuclear reactor, which has been found fit for commercial use. Nuclear power by the end of the century provides no more than 8% of world energy production. Most of it is produced by burning oil (40%), coal (25%), gas (18%). Hydroelectric power stations and other energy sources provide only 7% of its production. Geothermal (using internal warmth Earth), tidal (sea tide energy), solar, wind power plants are still rare.

Transport, cosmonautics and new structural materials. Continued development means of transport. In the 1990s. there were more than 500 million cars in the world (about a third of them - in the USA), their annual production reached 30 million units.

Throughout the 20th century, the carrying capacity of ships has constantly increased. In the 1970s. tankers appeared with a displacement of more than 500 thousand tons. The speed of ships has doubled in the last 50 years. With the mastery of nuclear energy, ships and submarines with nuclear power plants appeared, capable of plying the sea for years without calling at ports. Received development, while limited, vehicles on an air cushion, capable of moving not only on water, but also on land.

Significantly increased the importance transport aviation. In England in 1949 ᴦ. the first prototype of the passenger jet aircraft ʼʼKometaʼʼ was created. At the same time, Soviet jet aircraft ʼʼTU-104ʼʼ (produced from 1955 ᴦ.) and American ʼʼBoeing-707ʼʼ (from 1958 ᴦ.) found the main application on airlines. In 1970 ᴦ. in the USA, a giant Boeing 747 was created, capable of carrying up to 500 passengers. In the 1950s. military aviation mastered supersonic speeds, and in the 1970s. the first passenger aircraft flying at supersonic speeds: Soviet ʼʼTU-144ʼʼ (1975 ᴦ.) and Anglo-French ʼʼConcordʼʼ (1976 ᴦ.).

Postwar rocket technology development was mainly subordinated to the aspirations of the USSR and the USA to create more effective means delivery of nuclear weapons than bombers. He was the first to demonstrate his achievements in this area Soviet Union who launched in 1957 ᴦ. the first artificial satellite of the Earth (the United States carried out such a launch in 1958 ᴦ.), and in 1961 ᴦ. manned spacecraft into orbit around the earth. In 1961 ᴦ. in the United States, the Apollo ʼʼ program was adopted - a manned flight to the moon, successfully completed in 1969 ᴦ. Automatic space probes reached Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, went beyond solar system.

Rivalry in space made it possible to significantly increase the reliability of spacecraft, reduce their cost, which created the conditions for the transition to the systematic exploration of near-Earth space. The USSR and the USA developed spacecraft reusable, although the Soviet ʼʼBuranʼʼ did not find practical application. Orbital stations and artificial satellites of the Earth began to perform not only military, but also civilian functions, used for scientific experiments, astronomical observations, radio and television broadcasts, communications (the first communications satellite was launched in 1962 ᴦ.), meteorological observations, geological exploration and so on. There is a prospect of creating permanently operating orbital complexes, where new biologically active and crystalline substances for medicine, biochemistry, electronics.

Aviation and astronautics created an incentive to search new construction materials. In the late 1930s. with the development of chemistry, chemical physics, studying chemical processes using achievements quantum mechanics, crystallography, it became possible to obtain substances with predetermined properties that have great strength and durability. In 1938 ᴦ. almost simultaneously in Germany and the United States, artificial fibers were created - nylon, perlon, nylon, synthetic resins, which made it possible to develop qualitatively new structural materials. Their production took on a particularly large scale after the Second World War. Only for the period from 1951 to 1966 ᴦ. the range of products of the chemical industry has increased 10 times. Metallurgy did not stand still, having mastered the production of especially strong alloy steel (with the addition of tungsten, molybdenum), titanium alloys used in aviation and astronautics.

Biochemistry, genetics, medicine. Chemistry did not bypass agriculture, where, at the beginning of the 20th century, the use of mineral fertilizers began to increase soil fertility. In the second half of the century, the use of chemical methods pest control Agriculture(toxic chemicals), weeds. The creation of substances that selectively destroy some plant species and are harmless to others has become possible thanks to development of biology, biochemistry. The studies carried out at the beginning of the century by the German scientist A. Weismann and the American scientist T. Morgan, which, based on the work of the Czech naturalist G. Mendel on heredity, acquired a new significance. genetics- the science of the transmission of hereditary factors in the plant and animal world. Work experience of the 1920-1930s. on improving agricultural practices (in particular, L. Burbank on seed selection, improving varieties cultivated plants) in combination with fertilizers, pesticides, improvement of technical means of cultivating the land made it possible from the 1930s to the 1990s. increase the yield of many crops by 2-3 times.

Works in the field of genetics, studies of the mechanism of heredity led to the development of biotechnology. Genetic research in the USSR associated with the name of Academician N.I. Vavilov, were curtailed after genetics was declared a pseudoscience, and those who developed it died in Soviet death camps. The leadership in these studies has passed to the United States. In 1953 ᴦ. Cambridge University scientists D. Watson and F. Crick discovered a DNA molecule that carries a program for the development of an organism. In 1972 ᴦ. at the University of California, the possibility of changing the structure of DNA was explored, which opened the way to the creation of artificial organisms. The first patent in this area, for the creation by genetic engineering of a microorganism that accelerates the processing of crude oil, was issued in 1980 ᴦ. American scientist A. Chakrabarti. In 1988 ᴦ. Harvard University received a patent for genetically manipulating live mice. Breeding of new breeds of animals and plants began. Οʜᴎ are much better than the basic species, they are adapted to adverse climatic conditions, they are immune to many diseases, etc.

On the threshold of the 21st century, the possibilities of cloning were discovered - artificial cultivation from one cell of an exact biological similarity of the donor organism. Questions of ethics of such a deep intervention in natural processes, the potential danger of genetic experiments, the consequences of which are not always predictable, were discussed repeatedly, but this did not lead to their termination.

The development of biochemistry and genetics has affected the development medicine. At the end of the 19th century, microorganisms were discovered that were the cause of cholera, anthrax, tuberculosis, diphtheria, rabies, plague, malaria, syphilis, the ways of transmission of these diseases were studied, methods of treating many of them were invented. Methods of sanitation and hygiene, prevention and prevention of epidemics, including vaccination (inoculations) against certain diseases, began to be developed, new drugs appeared - aspirin and pyramidon. In the 1920s-1930s. vitamins were isolated and obtained artificially (in 1927, vitamins B and C, then D and A). Antibiotics have become an even greater help for medicine - substances that can stop the development of pathogenic microbes, the most famous of which is penicillin isolated from mold (named so by A. Fleming in 1929 ᴦ.). The chemical (synthetic) analogue of penicillin was streptocid, sulfidine, sulfazol. After the Second World War, with the discovery of the viral nature of many diseases, they began to develop antiviral drugs.

The deepening of knowledge about the nature of living matter has revealed the possibilities of transplantation (transplantation) of organs, the treatment of hereditary diseases caused by genetic factors. Achievements in nuclear physics and electronics opened up new opportunities for medicine. In diagnostics already in the 1930s. X-ray machines, electrocardiographs, electroencephalographs, etc. began to be used. In the last third of the century, artificial kidney devices and an implantable pacemaker were created.
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New technologies, in particular the use of a laser scalpel, have expanded the possibilities of surgery.

Electronics and robotics. Achievements in the field of electronics. Their base was laid in the last century. The world's first radio receiver was invented in 1895 ᴦ. Russian scientist A.S. Popov, a patent for the transmission of electrical impulses without wires in 1896 ᴦ. received the Italian engineer G. Marconi. The reliability and range of radio reception increased significantly with the invention in 1904 ᴦ. American J. Fleming of a diode - a two-electrode lamp - a frequency converter of electrical oscillations and in 1907 ᴦ. the creation by the American designer Lee de Forest of the triode, which amplifies weak electrical vibrations. In 1919-1924 he. in Russia, the USA, France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, powerful broadcasting stations were put into operation, capable of carrying out international broadcasting. Since the mid-1920s. experiments began in the field of image transmission using electronic signals, television. In England, the first television broadcasts began in 1929 ᴦ., in the USSR - in 1932 ᴦ. (sound television from 1934 ᴦ.), in Germany - from 1936 ᴦ. During the Second World War, design thought concentrated on improving radar, which made it possible to detect enemy ships and aircraft in advance.

Postwar years marked a real breakthrough in the field of electronics. She, using the achievements of chemistry, began to use fiberglass for signal transmission, crystallography, which made it possible to create lasers that have a very wide range of applications. The greatest applied value was the invention of computers - electronic computers (computers). The first computers appeared after the Second World War. They used the same diodes and triodes as tube radios. One of these machines, built in the USA in 1946 ᴦ., ENIAC, weighed 30 tons and occupied an area of 150 square meters. m, 18 thousand electron tubes were used in it. Despite its huge size, it could only carry out simple calculations that are now available to every owner of a pocket calculator.

The second generation of computers was created in the late 1940s, after the invention of transistors (semiconductors) that replaced vacuum tubes. Transistors are widely used in consumer electronics (radios, televisions, tape recorders), with their miniaturization, it was possible to increase the amount of memory and computer speed.

The third generation of computers developed in the 1960s, after the creation of the so-called integrated circuits, boards that housed several dozen components that convert and process information. In the 1970s. with the improvement of technology, tens of thousands of components were placed on a single board. Computers on integrated circuits included millions of semiconductors, their speed reached 100 million operations per second.

The fourth generation of computers was created with the invention in 1971 ᴦ. microprocessor on a silicon crystal - a chip, less than 1 sq. cm, replacing thousands of semiconductors. One such crystal could store up to 5 million bits of information, which made it possible to move on to the creation of portable computers intended for individual users.

The fifth, modern, generation of computers is able to perceive and reproduce not only numerical information, but also pictures, graphics, speech signals, conduct a dialogue with a person based on the software. The widespread distribution of computers, the creation in firms, industrial, commercial, scientific centers, state structures of data banks of computerized information provided new communication opportunities - the creation of local and then global computer communication networks (the most famous of them is the Internet). Οʜᴎ allow you to instantly receive and transmit any information, conduct bilateral and multilateral dialogues with other computer users.

The sixth generation of computers will no longer have crystals as a material memory carrier, but molecules of a polymer or biologically active substance (biochips), which puts the creation of artificial intelligence͵ capable of self-programming.

The development of computer technology contributed to the creation of industrial robots, the number of which by the beginning of the 1990s. in the world reached 300 thousand. The spread of robotics has opened up enormous opportunities for improving the manufacturing process.

The question of which of the inventions and discoveries of the 20th century, in which area of knowledge is the most important, is meaningless, since most of them are interconnected. According to American engineers, microchips are used not only in computers and robots, but in 24,000 US-made products, including all types of consumer electronics. Each item of household appliances, a refrigerator, a TV set, etc., that has come into everyday use in recent decades. is a materialized embodiment of many areas of scientific and technological progress, which not only changed the living conditions and recreation of people, but affected the whole appearance modern society, its development trends.

QUESTIONS AND TASKS

1. Describe the main directions of development of new technologies. Give examples of the impact of advances in one area of science and technology on their development in other areas.

2. What social needs caused a leap in the development of electronics, the creation of computers? Determine the importance of the introduction of computer technology for modern society.

3. Which of the directions of scientific and technological progress at the end of the 20th century, from your point of view, will be the most promising in the third millennium?

4. Try to make a prediction about the rate of acceleration of the development of scientific knowledge in the next century.

TECHNOLOGIES OF A NEW AGE - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "TECHNOLOGIES OF THE NEW AGE" 2017, 2018.

SECTION 1. HUMANITY AT THE TURN OF A NEW ERA

Plan

- technologies new era;

— transport, cosmonautics and new structural materials;

- biochemistry, genetics, medicine;

- electronics and robotics.

— innovative revolution;

- automation and robotization of production;

— knowledge industry;

Work with text
Related questions
Assignment for independent work
Bibliography

Acceleration of scientific and technological development and its consequences

Second half of the 20th century was marked by a further acceleration of the pace of scientific and technological progress. The achievements of scientific and technical progress led to new changes in the organization of production, the social structure of society, and international relations.

Technologies of the new era

Technology (from the Greek τέχνη - art, skill, skill; other Greek λόγος - thought, reason; technique, method of production) - a set of organizational measures, operations and techniques aimed at manufacturing, maintaining, repairing and / or operating a product with a nominal quality and optimal costs, and due to the current level of development of science, technology and society as a whole.

Over time, technology has undergone significant changes, and if once technology meant a simple skill, then at present technology - it is a complex body of knowledge know-how, sometimes obtained through costly research.

The newest and most advanced technologies of our time are referred to as high technology. Transition to use high technology and related technology is the most important link scientific and technological revolution(NTR) on present stage. High technologies usually include the most knowledge-intensive industries: microelectronics, computer technology, robotics, nuclear power, aircraft construction, space technology, and the microbiological industry.

The discovery of nuclear and thermonuclear reactions was the greatest scientific achievement of the 20th century. It was used for both peaceful and military purposes. The world's first nuclear power plant (NPP) was built in 1954 in the USSR in the city of Obninsk, the second - in 1956 in the UK.

Nuclear power plant at the beginning of the 20th century. provide no more than 17% of the world's electricity production. Hydroelectric power plants (HPP) provide only about 10% of production. Geothermal (using the internal heat of the Earth), tidal (energy from sea tides), solar and wind power plants are still rare. Most of the electricity generation is provided by burning oil, coal and gas. Both in the USSR and the USA, nuclear energy was also used to create atomic, and then even more destructive hydrogen (thermonuclear) weapons.

Technology classification:

Machine-building technologies.

Engineering technologies are the development of design and production processes various machines and appliances. These include technical calculations, the choice of materials and production technology, as well as the design of machine-building plants and the organization of production at them.

Information Technology.

Information technology is a process that uses a set of tools and methods for collecting, accumulating, processing and transmitting data (primary information) to obtain new quality information about the state of an object, process or phenomenon (information product). This process consists of a clearly regulated sequence of operations, actions, stages of varying degrees of complexity on data stored on computers. The main goal of information technology is to obtain the information necessary for the user as a result of targeted actions for the processing of primary information.

The components of technologies for the production of products are hardware (hardware), software (tools), mathematical and Information Support this process.

Mainly under information technology refers to computer technology.

Telecommunication technologies.

These include Ethernét (ethernet, from English ether - ether) - a packet data transfer technology, mainly for local computer networks.

4. Innovative technologies.

Innovative technologies are sets of methods and tools that support the stages of innovation implementation. There are types of innovative technologies: implementation; training(training and incubation of small enterprises); consulting(activities for advising manufacturers, sellers, buyers on a wide range of issues); transfer(transfer, movement); engineering(otherwise, engineering is a set of applied works, including pre-project feasibility studies and justification of planned investments, the necessary laboratory and experimental refinement of technologies and prototypes, their industrial development, as well as subsequent services and consultations).

Transport, cosmonautics and new construction materials

The development of means of transport continues, a global system of transport communications has already taken shape. TO beginning of XXI century, there are already more than 600 million cars in the world, and their annual production has exceeded 30 million units. All this has led to a number of problems, such as pollution environment, increased mortality on the roads, traffic jams, emergencies. All this makes scientific world look for new forms and types of car. For example, an aircraft designer from Pyatigorsk (Russia) Alexander Begak designed the Stalker runabout : a car with retractable wings. "Stalker" develops speed up to 200 km/h in the air, weighs 140 kg and covers a distance of 1.5 thousand km without refueling. This aircraft does not require an airfield - he needs a minimum area for take-off.

The Moscow authorities are thinking about creating string transport in the capital, to connect the Khovrino district with the Rechnoy Vokzal metro station. The corresponding proposal was received by the prefecture of the district from the designer Anatoly Yunitskiy. The author of this project emphasizes that string transport is a transport of a new generation. “This is a “second level” transport, so the seizure of land for it is an order of magnitude less than that of automobile and railways. At the same time, string transport has an order of magnitude lower capital intensity compared to a monorail,” says the letter sent by A. Yunitskiy to the prefecture of the district. In addition, string transport is resistant to adverse weather conditions and does not require clearing the tracks from snow and ice in winter. The author of the project also claims that throughput this type of transport - up to 25 thousand passengers per hour.

The Americans once again tried to turn fantasy into reality. A certain company Terrafugia announced that in 2009 especially wealthy Americans will be able to become owners of a flying car. A hybrid car and aircraft called the Transition is valued at $148,000. The machine is equipped with folding wings and a bladed propeller. She will be able to take off directly from the highway, however, she will only need to land at the airfield. There will be no problems with fuel - ordinary gasoline is used as fuel.

Throughout the twentieth century. the carrying capacity of ships has been steadily increasing. In the 1970s tankers with a displacement of more than 500,000 tons have already been built. m. The speed of ships has doubled. The system of their loading and unloading has been significantly improved. Thanks to this, the volume of goods transported by sea has increased tenfold over the past 50 years. With the mastery of nuclear energy, atomic ships and submarines appeared, capable of plying the sea for years without calling at ports. Received development, while limited, vehicles on an air cushion, capable of moving not only on water, but also on land.

Significantly increased the importance of transport aviation. In England in 1949 the first prototype of the passenger jet aircraft "Kometa". However, the Soviet Tu-104 jet aircraft (produced since 1955) and the American Boeing-707 found mass use on airlines. In 1970, a giant Boeing 747 aircraft was created in the USA, capable of taking on board up to 500 passengers. Already in the 1950s. military aviation mastered supersonic speeds. In the 1970s the first passenger aircraft appeared, flying at supersonic speeds: the Soviet Tu-144 (1975) and the Anglo-French Concorde (1976). True, later their production was recognized as economically unprofitable and ceased.

Post-war development rocket technology was mainly subordinated to the aspirations of the USSR and the USA to create more effective means of delivering nuclear weapons than bombers. The Soviet Union became the leader in this area. In 1957, with the help of a powerful launch vehicle, the first artificial earth satellite. (the United States carried out such a launch in 1958), and in 1961 - Soviet spacecraft with a man on board. In 1961, the USA adopted a program "Apollo"- manned flight to the Moon, successfully completed in 1969. Automatic space probes reached Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, went beyond the solar system.

The American-Soviet rivalry in space led to a rapid increase in the reliability of spacecraft, which made it possible to move on to the systematic exploration of near-Earth space. Were developed reusable spacecraft: American "shuttles" and the Soviet "Buran".

Orbital stations and artificial satellites of the Earth began to perform not only military functions, but were used for scientific experiments, astronomical observations, broadcasting radio and television programs, maintaining communications ( The first communications satellite was launched in 1962.), meteorological observations, geological exploration, etc.

In the automotive industry, aviation and astronautics, new construction materials. With the development of chemistry and chemical physics, it became possible to obtain substances with predetermined properties that possessed great strength and durability. Their production took on a particularly large scale at the end of the 20th century. Only for the period from 1980 to 2000. specific gravity plastics among the structural materials used in developed countries increased by an average of 4-5 times, reaching 20%. Metallurgy has mastered the production of extra strong alloy steel (with the addition of tungsten, molybdenum), titanium alloys used in aviation and astronautics.

Biochemistry, genetics, medicine

For agriculture, research in such sciences as chemistry,

biology and biochemistry. In the first decades of the twentieth century the use of mineral fertilizers began to increase soil fertility, and in the second half of the century pesticides were used to control agricultural pests and weeds. Further improvement of technical means (tractors, combines, etc.) and methods of tillage, breeding of new varieties of cultivated plants in combination with fertilizers, pesticides made it possible from the 1930s to the 1990s. Increase the yield of many crops by 2-3 times.

Even in the first decades of the twentieth century. German scientist August Weisman American Thomas Morgan laid the foundations genetics- the science of the transmission of hereditary factors in the plant and animal world. Further research in this area led to the development biotechnology.Genetic research in the USSR associated with the name of N.I. Vavilov, were curtailed after genetics was declared a pseudoscience. As a result, the leadership in these studies has passed to the United States. In 1953, scientists from the Cambridge James Watson University and Francis Creek openedDNA molecule, which contains the development program of the organism. Further studies of the structure of DNA marked the beginning of the creation of artificial organisms. In 1980 an American scientist Ananda Chakrabarty first received a patent for the method he created genetic engineering a microorganism that accelerated the refining of crude oil. In 1988, Harvard University genetically manipulated a live mouse. Breeding of new breeds of animals and plants began. They are much better than the basic species, they are adapted to adverse climatic conditions, they are immune to many diseases, etc. Many scientists voice concerns about eating genetically modified products. They believe that the long-term consequences of this can be dangerous for humans.

On the threshold of the XXI century. was opened cloning – artificial cultivation from a cell of an organism donor its full biological similarity - clone. There are heated discussions in society whether such a deep intervention in the natural processes and mechanisms of heredity is permissible, because its results cannot always be foreseen. Nevertheless, genetic experiments continue, although in many countries human cloning is prohibited.

The deepening of knowledge about the nature of living matter has made it possible transplantation that is, organ transplantation, treatment of hereditary diseases. Achievements in nuclear physics and electronics opened up new opportunities for medicine. For the diagnosis of diseases already in the 1930s. X-ray machines, electrocardiographs, electroencephalographs, etc. began to be used. In the last third of the century, artificial kidney devices, an implantable pacemaker, etc. were created. New technologies, in particular the use of a laser scalpel, have expanded the possibilities of surgery.

Electronics and Robotics

Achievements in the field of electronics. The greatest applied value was the invention electronic computers, that is computers.

The first computers appeared after World War II. They used the same diodes and triodes as tube radios. One of these machines, ENIAC, built in the USA in 1946, weighed 30 tons and occupied an area of 150 square meters. m. It was used 18 thousand electron tubes. But, despite its huge size, it could only carry out simple calculations that are now available to every owner of a pocket calculator.

The second generation of computers was created after the invention of transistors (semiconductors), which in the late 1940s. replaced electronic lamps. Transistors are widely used in consumer electronics (radios, televisions, tape recorders).

The development of the third generation of computers began in the 1960s. with the advent of the so-called integrated circuits, boards that housed several dozen components that processed information. With the improvement of technology in the 1970s. tens of thousands of components could be placed on a single board. Computers on integrated circuits included millions of semiconductors, their speed reached 100 million operations per second.

The fourth-generation computer was based on a microprocessor on a silicon crystal - a chip less than 1 sq. cm, replacing thousands of semiconductors. It was invented in 1971. One such crystal could store up to 5 million bits of information, which made it possible to move on to the creation of computers for individual users.

Modern computers are able to perceive and reproduce not only numerical information, but also pictures, graphics, speech, conduct a dialogue with a person based on installed software. They can model natural and socio-political phenomena.

Computers have been widely used in industrial, commercial and scientific centers, government agencies. The advent of computer databanks provided new opportunities for communication - the creation local, and then global computer networks. The most famous of them is Internet . Networks allow you to instantly receive and transmit any information, conduct bilateral and multilateral dialogues with other computer users in real time.

It is assumed that the next generation of computers will be created on the basis of a molecule of a polymer or biologically active substance (biochip), which will make it possible to create artificial intelligence , capable of self-programming.

The development of computer technology made it possible to start in the 1960s. creation industrial robots. Their number by the beginning of the XXI century. in the world has reached 720 thousand. Most of the robots are used in factories in Japan, the USA and Germany. The spread of robotics is a huge step forward in improving the manufacturing process.

The question is which of the inventions and discoveries of the twentieth century. the most important is meaningless, since most of them are interconnected. Thus, according to estimates by American engineers, microchips are used not only in computers and robots, but in 24 thousand types of products manufactured in the United States, including household appliances (refrigerator, TV, microwave oven, washing machine other). Having become objects of everyday use, they are the embodiment of many areas of scientific and technological progress.

So,scientific and technological progress has not only changed the conditions of life and recreation of people. It has influenced the face of modern society and created new problems.

Key Features of the Information Society

Term "Information society" owned by Canadian philologist Marshall McLuhan . According to his views, in the 1950s, a revolution began in the forms of information transmission: the printed word (book, newspaper, letter, etc.) began to be replaced by electronic means of its distribution (primarily television).

The term "information society" was not widely accepted during McLuhan's lifetime. However, in the 1970s profound shifts in the development of technology, the organization of production, and the social structure of the most developed countries of the world have become quite evident. Leading American economists, political scientists and sociologists considered that the United States, Canada, countries Western Europe and Japan have already outgrown the industrial stage of development. For example, John Galbraith wrote about "new industrial" society, Zbigniew Brzezinski called him "technotronic», Daniel Bell - "post-industrial". At the same time, everyone agreed that the ongoing changes mark the entry of mankind into a new era. They are comparable to the transition from gathering and hunting to farming and pastoralism, or to the industrial revolution. At the beginning of the XXI century. in the documents of the UN and the European Union, the term "information society" began to be used, characterizing a qualitatively new stage in the development of the leading countries of the world.

Information revolution

Under information revolution involves fundamental changes in public life caused by the formation knowledge production industries and the growing role of intellectual labor.

Second half of the 20th century was marked by the rapid development of telecommunications - radio, television and telephone communications became publicly available. For example, from 1950 to 1999, the number of telephones in the world increased from 50 million to 1 billion. The creation of local computer networks, and then, since 1989, the Internet, the global World Wide Web, became truly revolutionary. Its distribution proceeded at a fantastic pace. In 1991, the number of computers with Internet access in the world was about 5 million, in 1996 - 60 million, in 2007 - more than 500 million. The amount of information transmitted via the Internet doubles every hundred days. The World Wide Web can be accessed from anywhere in the world using a satellite-enabled laptop computer or mobile phone.

Many users view the Internet as a primary means of leisure, providing access to new computer games, movies, music, allowing you to chat with friends, etc. A term such as "internet addiction" has emerged, meaning that some people attach more importance to virtual than life reality. For other users, the World Wide Web is only a source for obtaining information, studying job opportunities, ordering goods. Internet commerce, which allows the buyer to receive any product without leaving home, has become very popular in Western countries. profitable business. All these functions the Internet really performs. But his role is not limited to this.

The Internet is unique, first of all, because it is a global network that is not controlled by anyone. by one government of the world and belonging to no one. It provides interactivity - the ability of users to dialogue with each other and with various organizations. This has both political and economic implications.

The Internet provides opportunities for obtaining information on any issue. It allows any citizen or group of people to become a source of information, judgments and assessments, to establish contacts with like-minded people in any part of the World, to coordinate their actions with them. In principle, this significantly expands the degree of human freedom, allows ideas coming from below to acquire national or even global influence - and all this with minimum cost funds.

Veliko economic importance global network. It allows corporations and banks to carry out commercial operations in any part of the world literally in minutes, coordinate pricing and investment policies, and manage foreign branches. The Internet has become one of the means of formation globalizing economy, for which state borders and national differences lose their meaning.

Automation and robotization of production

Advances in electronics have made it possible automation , and then robotization industrial production. Already in the 1970s. Machine tools with numerical control (CNC) began to be introduced everywhere. In the 1980s they were replaced by machine tools controlled by computers. With the creation of local (covering an enterprise, industrial complex) computer networks, automatic design, technological preparation and production control systems(SAD/SAM). By the beginning of the XXI century. they were used at 65% of the plants of the US machine-building complex (in other Western countries they were less common).

The use of industrial robots has made it possible to create fully automated “unmanned” production complexes. The advantages of robotization are not only that robots do not impose requirements on entrepreneurs, but also that they can be used 24 hours a day, do not make mistakes, work faster, perform operations more accurately than a person, and can be used in unhealthy areas. people conditions. It becomes possible to create industries that do not depend on the places of concentration work force, easily reprogrammed for the release of new products. In general, a person can be excluded from the production process, only control functions remain behind him. Their implementation thanks to computer networks sometimes does not even require the direct presence of people at the enterprise.

Robotization in modern conditions has not yet become ubiquitous, but in combination with the introduction of computers, it marks a fundamental change in man's attitude to the surrounding reality. All previous technical improvements have only increased the physical strength of a person.

Conveyor production made workers an appendage of the machine, performing the simplest functions. Computers, on the other hand, are a tool that multiplies non-muscular, but the intellectual potential of people. This creates the prerequisites for an even greater acceleration of the pace of technological progress.

Knowledge Industry

A society where the main value is information and knowledge has a huge potential for development. There can be no crises of overproduction in the sphere of the knowledge industry, it opens up opportunities for continuous technological improvement.

In the last third of the twentieth century. along with the international markets for capital, goods, raw materials, energy, labor, services, knowledge market– patented scientific and technical information ( know-how). In the mid 1970s. the value of sales in this market was equal to the cost of sales of raw materials and energy. Knowledge production has become not only a means of increasing the competitiveness of a company or firm, but also a fairly profitable area for investing capital.

So, The incentive for the creation of new technologies has always been not only competition in national and international markets, but also rivalry between the leading powers of the world.

Military-technical programs provided science with additional funding from the state budget. So, in the years cold war»More than 10% of their military budget was directed to research and development of the USA, Great Britain, France. At the expense of these funds, only in the USA, 55% of the costs of developing aerospace technology, 28.2% of electrical engineering, were covered.

Military-technical developments were a source of new technologies for civilian industries engaged in the production of communications, household appliances, ships, instruments and apparatus for space exploration. They are called technologies. "dual purpose".

The end of the Cold War did not mean a reduction in military spending in developed countries. The states that have entered the information age have great advantages over other countries. They increase their military power through the qualitative improvement of weapons and military equipment rather than through a quantitative build-up of the armed forces.

In the 1990s concept was developed in the United States "information war" . It involves the possession of exhaustive knowledge about the enemy and his misinformation about their intentions and forces. With the use of high technologies, self-guided cruise missiles and "smart" bombs were created, dropped from Stele aircraft, invisible to radars. Active satellite system guidance and orientation on the battlefield. US corporations have created thousands of combat robots that are used for reconnaissance, demining and pinpoint strikes against the enemy.

The most important resource of the information society is human intelligence - its creative potential, in the development of which both the state and corporations are interested. From here Special attention education, health care, social protection and human rights. From the 1960s to the 1990s the number of students in colleges and universities in the US and Japan increased by 3.5 times, in Germany by 6 times, in the UK - by 7 times. Average term stay in educational institutions reached the age of 14. However, in most developed countries it is considered insufficient. The issue of improving the education system is being discussed.

3. Working with text

From Peter Drucker's New Realities in Government and Politics, Economics and Business, Society and Worldview (1990):

The social center of gravity has shifted to the intellectual worker. All developed countries are turning into post-business, intellectual societies. Opportunity to get Good work and making a career in developed countries today is increasingly dependent on having a university degree<…>

The transition to knowledge and education as a ticket to a good job and career means, first of all, a transition from a society in which the main road to success was business, to a society in which business is only one of the possibilities, and not the best. In essence, this means a transition to a post-business society. This shift has gone furthest in the United States of America and Japan, but the same trend is being observed in Western Europe.

Issues for discussion:

What are the requirements of scientific and technological progress for the development of education?

What new opportunities does the information society open up for the individual?

4. Questions on the topic

1) Describe the main directions of development of scientific and technological progress in the second half of the twentieth century.

2) Why do you think the discovery of nuclear energy was used by people in the first place for military purposes? With what events of the mid-twentieth century. was it related?

3) What was the importance of the creation of computers for modern society?

4) What areas of scientific research are sometimes assessed as dangerous for humans? Why? Do you think it is necessary and possible to ban them?

5) What is the information society? Why is it also called post-industrial?

6) How can computerization, robotization change the place of a person in the system: a person - society - nature?

7) What is the market of knowledge (information)? Why has knowledge production become a profitable area for capital investment?

8) Why is the pace of scientific and technological progress constantly accelerating in a society that has reached the information stage of development?

9) How did the emergence of the Internet affect the development of world civilization, man?

5. Task for independent work

Using the materials of the Internet and the current press, try to make a forecast about the pace and direction of development of scientific knowledge in the 21st century. Highlight areas of development in your specialty. What additional knowledge (in your opinion) may be useful to you in the future, based on the work you have done.

Present your answer in the form of a table as shown below:

6. References

Main

Zagladin N.V. General history. The end of the 19th - the beginning of the 21st century / N.V. Zagladin. - M .: LLC "TID" Russian word"- RS", 2010. - S. 189-202.

Additional

Wikipedia.

Dudyshev V.D. Revolutionary discoveries, inventions and technologies to solve the global energy problem.

Internet resource:

http://www.ntpo.com/techno/techno2_2/9.shtml

Kostina A. Trends in the development of information society culture: analysis of modern information and post-industrial concepts // Electronic journal "Knowledge. Understanding. Skill". - 2009. - № 4 - Culturology

Internet resource:

http://zpujournal.ru/ezpu/2009/4/Kostina_Information_Society/

Shendrik A. I. Information society and its culture: contradictions of formation and development // Humanitarian information portal “Knowledge. Understanding. Skill". - 2010. - № 4 - Culturology.
Internet resource:

The greatest discovery of the 20th century, the mastery of nuclear energy, was used to a large extent for military purposes. Opening in the early 1950s thermonuclear reactions (the fusion of light nuclei into heavier ones at ultrahigh temperatures) and in the USSR and the USA it was turned to the creation of hydrogen bombs. They were hundreds of times more destructive than uranium and plutonium. It was not until 1956 that a nuclear reactor was built in the UK and was deemed fit for commercial operation. Nuclear power by the end of the century provides no more than 8% of world energy production. Most of it is produced by burning oil (40%), coal (25%), gas (18%). Hydroelectric power stations and other energy sources provide only 7% of its production. Geothermal (using the internal heat of the Earth), tidal (sea tide energy), solar, wind power plants are still rare.
Transport, cosmonautics and new structural materials. The development of means of transport continued. In the 1990s there were more than 500 million cars in the world (about a third of them - in the USA), their annual production reached 30 million units.
Throughout the 20th century, the carrying capacity of ships has constantly increased. In the 1970s tankers appeared with a displacement of more than 500 thousand tons. The speed of ships has doubled in the last 50 years. With the mastery of nuclear energy, ships and submarines with nuclear power plants appeared, capable of plying the sea for years without calling at ports. Received development, while limited, vehicles on an air cushion, capable of moving not only on water, but also on land.
Significantly increased the importance of transport aviation. In England, in 1949, the first prototype of the Comet passenger jet aircraft was created. However, the Soviet TU-104 jet aircraft (produced since 1955) and the American Boeing-707 (since 1958) found the main application on airlines. In 1970, the giant Boeing 747 aircraft was created in the USA, capable of carrying up to 500 passengers. In the 1950s military aviation mastered supersonic speeds, and in the 1970s. the first passenger aircraft flying at supersonic speeds appeared: the Soviet TU-144 (1975) and the Anglo-French Concorde (1976).
The post-war development of rocket technology was mainly subordinated to the aspirations of the USSR and the USA to create more effective means of delivering nuclear weapons than bombers. The Soviet Union was the first to demonstrate its achievements in this area, launching the first artificial Earth satellite in 1957 (the United States carried out such a launch in 1958), and in 1961 launching a spacecraft with a man on board into orbit around the Earth. In 1961, the United States adopted the Apollo program - a manned flight to the Moon, successfully completed in 1969. Automatic space probes reached Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and went beyond the solar system.
Rivalry in space has made it possible to significantly increase the reliability of spacecraft, reduce their cost, which created the conditions for the transition to the systematic exploration of near-Earth space. Reusable space vehicles were developed in the USSR and the USA, although the Soviet Buran did not find practical application. Orbital stations and artificial satellites of the Earth began to perform not only military, but also civilian functions, used for scientific experiments, astronomical observations, broadcasting radio and television programs, maintaining communications (the first communications satellite was launched in 1962), meteorological observations, geological exploration and Further. There is a prospect of creating permanently operating orbital complexes, where new biologically active and crystalline substances for medicine, biochemistry, and electronics will be created under weightlessness.
Aviation and astronautics created an incentive to search for new structural materials. In the late 1930s With the development of chemistry, chemical physics, which studies chemical processes using the achievements of quantum mechanics, crystallography, it became possible to obtain substances with predetermined properties that have great strength and durability. In 1938, almost simultaneously in Germany and the United States, artificial fibers were created - capron, perlon, nylon, synthetic resins, which made it possible to develop qualitatively new structural materials. Their production took on a particularly large scale after the Second World War. In the period from 1951 to 1966 alone, the range of products of the chemical industry increased 10 times. Metallurgy did not stand still, having mastered the production of especially strong alloy steel (with the addition of tungsten, molybdenum), titanium alloys used in aviation and astronautics.
Biochemistry, genetics, medicine. Chemistry has not bypassed its attention and agriculture, where, with the beginning of the 20th century, the use of mineral fertilizers that increase soil fertility. In the second half of the century, chemical methods of combating agricultural pests (toxic chemicals) and weeds began to be widely used. The creation of substances that selectively destroy some plant species and are harmless to others has become possible thanks to the development of biology and biochemistry. The studies carried out at the beginning of the century by the German scientist A. Weismann and the American scientist T. Morgan, which, based on the work of the Czech naturalist G. Mendel on heredity, acquired a new significance, laid the foundations of genetics - the science of the transmission of hereditary factors in the plant and animal world. Experience in the 1920-1930s. to improve agricultural practices (in particular, L. Burbank on seed selection, improvement of cultivated plant varieties) in combination with fertilizers, pesticides, improvement of technical means of tillage made it possible from the 1930s to the 1990s. increase the yield of many crops by 2-3 times.
Works in the field of genetics, studies of the mechanism of heredity led to the development of biotechnology. Genetic research in the USSR associated with the name of Academician N.I. Vavilov, were curtailed after genetics was declared a pseudoscience, and those who developed it died in Soviet death camps. The leadership in these studies has passed to the United States. In 1953, scientists at the University of Cambridge D. Watson and F. Crick discovered a DNA molecule that carries a program for the development of an organism. In 1972, the University of California explored the possibility of changing the structure of DNA, which opened the way to the creation of artificial organisms. The first patent in this area, for the creation by genetic engineering of a microorganism that accelerates the processing of crude oil, was issued in 1980 to the American scientist A. Chakrabarti. In 1988, Harvard University received a patent for genetically manipulating a live mouse. Breeding of new breeds of animals and plants began. They are much better than the basic species, they are adapted to adverse climatic conditions, they are immune to many diseases, etc.
On the threshold of the 21st century, the possibilities of cloning were discovered - artificial cultivation from one cell of an exact biological similarity of the donor organism. The ethical issues of such a deep intervention in natural processes, the potential danger of genetic experiments, the consequences of which are not always predictable, were discussed repeatedly, but this did not lead to their termination.
The development of biochemistry and genetics affected the development of medicine. At the end of the 19th century, microorganisms were discovered that were the cause of cholera, anthrax, tuberculosis, diphtheria, rabies, plague, malaria, syphilis, the ways of transmission of these diseases were studied, methods of treating many of them were invented. Methods of sanitation and hygiene, prevention and prevention of epidemics, including vaccination (inoculations) against certain diseases, began to be developed, new drugs appeared - aspirin and pyramidon. In the 1920-1930s. vitamins were isolated and obtained artificially (in 1927 vitamins B and C, then D and A). An even greater help for medicine was antibiotics - substances that can stop the development of pathogenic microbes, the most famous of which is penicillin, isolated from mold (named so by A. Fleming in 1929). The chemical (synthetic) analogue of penicillin was streptocid, sulfidine, sulfazol. After the Second World War, with the discovery of the viral nature of many diseases, antiviral drugs began to be developed.
The deepening of knowledge about the nature of living matter has revealed the possibilities of transplantation (transplantation) of organs, the treatment of hereditary diseases caused by genetic factors. Achievements in nuclear physics and electronics opened up new opportunities for medicine. in diagnostics already in the 1930s. X-ray machines, electrocardiographs, electroencephalographs, etc. began to be used. In the last third of the century, artificial kidney devices and an implantable pacemaker were created. New technologies, in particular the use of a laser scalpel, have expanded the possibilities of surgery.
Electronics and robotics. Achievements in the field of electronics had a huge impact on the appearance of world civilization. Their base was laid in the last century. The world's first radio receiver was invented in 1895 by the Russian scientist A.S. Popov, the Italian engineer G. Marconi received a patent for the transmission of electrical impulses without wires in 1896. The reliability and range of receiving radio transmissions increased significantly with the invention in 1904 by the American J. Fleming of a diode - a two-electrode lamp - a frequency converter of electrical oscillations, and in 1907 by the creation of a triode by the American designer Lee de Forest, which amplifies weak electrical oscillations. In 1919-1924. in Russia, the USA, France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, powerful broadcasting stations were put into operation, capable of carrying out international broadcasting. From the mid 1920s. experiments began in the field of image transmission using electronic signals, television. In England, the first television broadcasts began in 1929, in the USSR - in 1932 (sound television since 1934), in Germany - since 1936. During the Second World War, design thought concentrated on improving radar, which made it possible to detect ships in advance and enemy aircraft.
The post-war years were marked by a real breakthrough in the field of electronics. She, using the achievements of chemistry, began to use fiberglass for signal transmission, crystallography, which made it possible to create lasers that have a very wide range of applications. The greatest applied value was the invention of computers - electronic computers (computers). The first computers appeared after the Second World War. They used the same diodes and triodes as tube radios. One of these machines, built in the USA in 1946, ENIAC, weighed 30 tons and occupied an area of 150 square meters. m, 18 thousand electron tubes were used in it. Despite its huge size, it could only carry out simple calculations that are now available to every owner of a pocket calculator.
The second generation of computers was created in the late 1940s, after the invention of transistors (semiconductors) that replaced vacuum tubes. Transistors are widely used in consumer electronics (radios, televisions, tape recorders), with their miniaturization, it was possible to increase the amount of memory and the speed of computers.
The third generation of computers developed in the 1960s, after the creation of the so-called integrated circuits, boards that housed several dozen components that convert and process information. In the 1970s with the improvement of technology, tens of thousands of components were placed on a single board. Computers on integrated circuits included millions of semiconductors, their speed reached 100 million operations per second.
The fourth generation of computers was created with the invention in 1971 of a microprocessor on a silicon crystal - a chip, less than 1 square in size. cm, replacing thousands of semiconductors. One such crystal could store up to 5 million bits of information, which made it possible to move on to the creation of portable computers intended for individual users.
The fifth, modern, generation of computers is able to perceive and reproduce not only numerical information, but also pictures, graphics, speech signals, and conduct a dialogue with a person based on the embedded software. The ubiquity of computers, the creation of computerized information data banks in firms, industrial, commercial, scientific centers, state structures provided new communication opportunities - the creation of local and then global computer communication networks (the most famous of them is the Internet). They allow you to instantly receive and transmit any information, conduct bilateral and multilateral dialogues with other computer users.
The sixth generation of computers will no longer have crystals as a material memory carrier, but molecules of a polymer or biologically active substance (biochips), which puts the creation of artificial intelligence capable of self-programming on a practical plane.
The development of computer technology contributed to the creation of industrial robots, the number of which by the beginning of the 1990s. in the world reached 300 thousand. The spread of robotics has opened up enormous opportunities for improving the manufacturing process.
The question of which of the inventions and discoveries of the 20th century, in which area of knowledge is the most important, is meaningless, since most of them are interconnected. According to American engineers, microchips are used not only in computers and robots, but in 24,000 US-made products, including all types of consumer electronics. Every item of household appliances, a refrigerator, a TV set, etc., that has come into everyday use in recent decades. is a materialized embodiment of many areas of scientific and technological progress, which not only changed the conditions of life and recreation of people, but affected the whole face of modern society, its development trends.

QUESTIONS AND TASKS
1. Describe the main directions of development of new technologies. Give examples of the impact of advances in one area of science and technology on their development in other areas.
2. What social needs caused a leap in the development of electronics, the creation of computers? Determine the importance of the introduction of computer technology for modern society.
3. Which of the directions of scientific and technological progress at the end of the 20th century, from your point of view, will be the most promising in the third millennium?
4. Try to make a prediction about the rate of acceleration of the development of scientific knowledge in the next century.

And new construction materials

The development of means of transport continues, a global system of transport communications has already taken shape. By the beginning of the 21st century, there were already more than 600 million cars in the world, and their annual production exceeded 30 million units. All this has led to a number of problems, such as environmental pollution, increased mortality on the roads, traffic jams, and accidents. All this makes the scientific world look for new forms and types of cars. For example, an aircraft designer from Pyatigorsk (Russia) Alexander Begak designed the Stalker runabout: a car with wings that retract inward. "Stalker" develops speed up to 200 km/h in the air, weighs 140 kg and covers a distance of 1.5 thousand km without refueling. This aircraft does not need an airfield - it needs a minimum area for takeoff.

The Moscow authorities are thinking about creating string transport in the capital to connect the Khovrino district with the Rechnoy Vokzal metro station. The corresponding proposal was received by the prefecture of the district from the designer Anatoly Yunitskiy. Author of this of the project emphasizes that string transport is a transport of a new generation. “This is a transport of the “second level”, so the seizure of land for it is an order of magnitude less than that of roads and railways. At the same time, string transport has an order of magnitude lower capital intensity compared to a monorail,” says the letter sent by A. Yunitskiy to the prefecture of the district. In addition, string transport is resistant to adverse weather conditions and does not require clearing the tracks from snow and ice in winter. The author of the project also claims that the capacity of this type of transport is up to 25,000 passengers per hour.

The Americans once again tried to turn fantasy into reality. A certain company Terrafugia announced that in 2009 especially wealthy Americans will be able to become owners of a flying car. A hybrid car and aircraft called the Transition is valued at $148,000. The machine is equipped with folding wings and a bladed propeller. She will be able to take off directly from the highway, however, she will only need to land at the airfield. There will be no problems with fuel - ordinary gasoline is used as fuel.

Significantly increased the importance of transport aviation. In England, in 1949, the first prototype of the Comet passenger jet aircraft was created. However, the Soviet Tu-104 jet aircraft (produced since 1955) and the American Boeing-707 found mass use on airlines. In 1970, a giant Boeing 747 aircraft was created in the USA, capable of taking on board up to 500 passengers. Already in the 1950s. military aviation mastered supersonic speeds. In the 1970s the first passenger aircraft appeared, flying at supersonic speeds: the Soviet Tu-144 (1975) and the Anglo-French Concorde (1976). True, later their production was recognized as economically unprofitable and ceased.

Post-war development rocket technology was mainly subordinated to the aspirations of the USSR and the USA to create more effective means of delivering nuclear weapons than bombers. The Soviet Union became the leader in this area. In 1957, with the help of a powerful launch vehicle, the first artificial earth satellite.(The United States carried out such a launch in 1958), and in 1961, a Soviet spacecraft with a man on board. In 1961, the USA adopted a program "Apollo"- manned flight to the Moon, successfully completed in 1969. Automatic space probes reached Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, went beyond the solar system.

Orbital stations and artificial satellites of the Earth began to perform not only military functions, but were used for scientific experiments, astronomical observations, broadcasting radio and television programs, maintaining communications (the first communications satellite was launched in 1962), meteorological observations, geological exploration, etc. .

Chapter 7. ACCELERATION OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

The decades that have passed since the Second World War were marked by a further acceleration in the pace of scientific and technological development. Between the two world wars, the period of time required to double the amount of scientific knowledge was about 24 years, in 1945-1964. - 14 years, by the end of the century for different areas of knowledge it was no more than 5-7 years.

The greatest discovery of the 20th century mastery of nuclear energy, largely used for military purposes. Opening in the early 1950s thermonuclear reactions (the fusion of light nuclei into heavier ones at ultrahigh temperatures) and in the USSR and the USA it was turned to the creation of hydrogen bombs. They were hundreds of times more destructive than uranium and plutonium. It was not until 1956 that a nuclear reactor was built in the UK and was deemed fit for commercial operation. Nuclear power by the end of the century provides no more than 8% of world energy production. Most of it is produced by burning oil (40%), coal (25%), gas (18%). Hydroelectric power stations and other energy sources provide only 7% of its production. Geothermal (using the internal heat of the Earth), tidal (sea tide energy), solar, wind power plants are still rare.

Transport, cosmonautics and new structural materials. Continued development means of transport. In the 1990s there were more than 500 million cars in the world (about a third of them - in the USA), their annual production reached 30 million units.

Throughout the 20th century, the carrying capacity of ships has constantly increased. In the 1970s tankers appeared with a displacement of more than 500 thousand tons. The speed of ships has doubled in the last 50 years. With the mastery of nuclear energy, ships and submarines with nuclear power plants appeared, capable of plying the sea for years without calling at ports. Received development, while limited, vehicles on an air cushion, capable of moving not only on water, but also on land.

Significantly increased the importance transport aviation. In England, in 1949, the first prototype of the Comet passenger jet aircraft was created. However, the Soviet TU-104 jet aircraft (produced since 1955) and the American Boeing-707 (since 1958) found the main application on airlines. In 1970, the giant Boeing 747 aircraft was created in the USA, capable of carrying up to 500 passengers. In the 1950s military aviation mastered supersonic speeds, and in the 1970s. the first passenger aircraft flying at supersonic speeds appeared: the Soviet TU-144 (1975) and the Anglo-French Concorde (1976).

Postwar rocket technology development was mainly subordinated to the aspirations of the USSR and the USA to create more effective means of delivering nuclear weapons than bombers. The Soviet Union was the first to demonstrate its achievements in this area, launching the first artificial Earth satellite in 1957 (the United States carried out such a launch in 1958), and in 1961 launching a spacecraft with a man on board into orbit around the Earth. In 1961, the United States adopted the Apollo program - a manned flight to the Moon, successfully completed in 1969. Automatic space probes reached Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and went beyond the solar system.

Rivalry in space has made it possible to significantly increase the reliability of spacecraft, reduce their cost, which created the conditions for the transition to the systematic exploration of near-Earth space. Reusable space vehicles were developed in the USSR and the USA, although the Soviet Buran did not find practical application. Orbital stations and artificial satellites of the Earth began to perform not only military, but also civilian functions, used for scientific experiments, astronomical observations, broadcasting radio and television programs, maintaining communications (the first communications satellite was launched in 1962), meteorological observations, geological exploration and Further. There is a prospect of creating permanently operating orbital complexes, where new biologically active and crystalline substances for medicine, biochemistry, and electronics will be created under weightlessness.

Aviation and astronautics created an incentive to search new construction materials. In the late 1930s With the development of chemistry, chemical physics, which studies chemical processes using the achievements of quantum mechanics, crystallography, it became possible to obtain substances with predetermined properties that have great strength and durability. In 1938, almost simultaneously in Germany and the United States, artificial fibers were created - capron, perlon, nylon, synthetic resins, which made it possible to develop qualitatively new structural materials. Their production took on a particularly large scale after the Second World War. In the period from 1951 to 1966 alone, the range of products of the chemical industry increased 10 times. Metallurgy did not stand still, having mastered the production of especially strong alloy steel (with the addition of tungsten, molybdenum), titanium alloys used in aviation and astronautics.

Biochemistry, genetics, medicine. Chemistry did not bypass agriculture, where, at the beginning of the 20th century, the use of mineral fertilizers began to increase soil fertility. In the second half of the century, chemical methods of combating agricultural pests (toxic chemicals) and weeds began to be widely used. The creation of substances that selectively destroy some plant species and are harmless to others has become possible thanks to development of biology, biochemistry. The studies carried out at the beginning of the century by the German scientist A. Weismann and the American scientist T. Morgan, which, based on the work of the Czech naturalist G. Mendel on heredity, acquired a new significance. genetics- the science of the transmission of hereditary factors in the plant and animal world. Experience in the 1920-1930s. to improve agricultural practices (in particular, L. Burbank on seed selection, improvement of cultivated plant varieties) in combination with fertilizers, pesticides, improvement of technical means of tillage made it possible from the 1930s to the 1990s. increase the yield of many crops by 2-3 times.

Works in the field of genetics, studies of the mechanism of heredity led to the development of biotechnology. Genetic research in the USSR associated with the name of Academician N.I. Vavilov, were curtailed after genetics was declared a pseudoscience, and those who developed it died in Soviet death camps. The leadership in these studies has passed to the United States. In 1953, scientists at the University of Cambridge D. Watson and F. Crick discovered a DNA molecule that carries a program for the development of an organism. In 1972, the University of California explored the possibility of changing the structure of DNA, which opened the way to the creation of artificial organisms. The first patent in this area, for the creation by genetic engineering of a microorganism that accelerates the processing of crude oil, was issued in 1980 to the American scientist A. Chakrabarti. In 1988, Harvard University received a patent for genetically manipulating a live mouse. Breeding of new breeds of animals and plants began. They are much better than the basic species, they are adapted to adverse climatic conditions, they are immune to many diseases, etc.

On the threshold of the 21st century, the possibilities of cloning were discovered - artificial cultivation from one cell of an exact biological similarity of the donor organism. The ethical issues of such a deep intervention in natural processes, the potential danger of genetic experiments, the consequences of which are not always predictable, were discussed repeatedly, but this did not lead to their termination.

The development of biochemistry and genetics has affected the development medicine. At the end of the 19th century, microorganisms were discovered that were the cause of cholera, anthrax, tuberculosis, diphtheria, rabies, plague, malaria, syphilis, the ways of transmission of these diseases were studied, methods of treating many of them were invented. Methods of sanitation and hygiene, prevention and prevention of epidemics, including vaccination (inoculations) against certain diseases, began to be developed, new drugs appeared - aspirin and pyramidon. In the 1920-1930s. vitamins were isolated and obtained artificially (in 1927 vitamins B and C, then D and A). An even greater help for medicine was antibiotics - substances that can stop the development of pathogenic microbes, the most famous of which is penicillin, isolated from mold (named so by A. Fleming in 1929). The chemical (synthetic) analogue of penicillin was streptocid, sulfidine, sulfazol. After the Second World War, with the discovery of the viral nature of many diseases, antiviral drugs began to be developed.

The deepening of knowledge about the nature of living matter has revealed the possibilities of transplantation (transplantation) of organs, the treatment of hereditary diseases caused by genetic factors. Achievements in nuclear physics and electronics opened up new opportunities for medicine. in diagnostics already in the 1930s. X-ray machines, electrocardiographs, electroencephalographs, etc. began to be used. In the last third of the century, artificial kidney devices and an implantable pacemaker were created. New technologies, in particular the use of a laser scalpel, have expanded the possibilities of surgery.

Electronics and robotics. Achievements in the field of electronics. Their base was laid in the last century. The world's first radio receiver was invented in 1895 by the Russian scientist A.S. Popov, the Italian engineer G. Marconi received a patent for the transmission of electrical impulses without wires in 1896. The reliability and range of receiving radio transmissions increased significantly with the invention in 1904 by the American J. Fleming of a diode - a two-electrode lamp - a frequency converter of electrical oscillations, and in 1907 by the creation of a triode by the American designer Lee de Forest, which amplifies weak electrical oscillations. In 1919-1924. in Russia, the USA, France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, powerful broadcasting stations were put into operation, capable of carrying out international broadcasting. From the mid 1920s. experiments began in the field of image transmission using electronic signals, television. In England, the first television broadcasts began in 1929, in the USSR - in 1932 (sound television since 1934), in Germany - since 1936. During the Second World War, design thought concentrated on improving radar, which made it possible to detect ships in advance and enemy aircraft.

The post-war years were marked by a real breakthrough in the field of electronics. She, using the achievements of chemistry, began to use fiberglass for signal transmission, crystallography, which made it possible to create lasers that have a very wide range of applications. The greatest applied value was the invention of computers - electronic computers (computers). The first computers appeared after the Second World War. They used the same diodes and triodes as tube radios. One of these machines, built in the USA in 1946, ENIAC, weighed 30 tons and occupied an area of 150 square meters. m, 18 thousand electron tubes were used in it. Despite its huge size, it could only carry out simple calculations that are now available to every owner of a pocket calculator.

The third generation of computers developed in the 1960s, after the creation of the so-called integrated circuits, boards that housed several dozen components that convert and process information. In the 1970s with the improvement of technology, tens of thousands of components were placed on a single board. Computers on integrated circuits included millions of semiconductors, their speed reached 100 million operations per second.

The fourth generation of computers was created with the invention in 1971 of a microprocessor on a silicon crystal - a chip, less than 1 square in size. cm, replacing thousands of semiconductors. One such crystal could store up to 5 million bits of information, which made it possible to move on to the creation of portable computers intended for individual users.

The fifth, modern, generation of computers is able to perceive and reproduce not only numerical information, but also pictures, graphics, speech signals, and conduct a dialogue with a person based on the embedded software. The ubiquity of computers, the creation of computerized information data banks in firms, industrial, commercial, scientific centers, state structures provided new communication opportunities - the creation of local and then global computer communication networks (the most famous of them is the Internet). They allow you to instantly receive and transmit any information, conduct bilateral and multilateral dialogues with other computer users.

The question of which of the inventions and discoveries of the 20th century, in which area of knowledge is the most important, is meaningless, since most of them are interconnected. According to American engineers, microchips are used not only in computers and robots, but in 24,000 US-made products, including all types of consumer electronics. Every item of household appliances, a refrigerator, a TV set, etc., that has come into everyday use in recent decades. is a materialized embodiment of many areas of scientific and technological progress, which not only changed the conditions of life and recreation of people, but affected the whole face of modern society, its development trends.

QUESTIONS AND TASKS

1. Describe the main directions of development of new technologies. Give examples of the impact of advances in one area of science and technology on their development in other areas.

2. What social needs caused a leap in the development of electronics, the creation of computers? Determine the importance of the introduction of computer technology for modern society.

3. Which of the directions of scientific and technological progress at the end of the 20th century, from your point of view, will be the most promising in the third millennium?

4. Try to make a prediction about the rate of acceleration of the development of scientific knowledge in the next century.