I think that computers are the greatest scientific invention during the last one hundred years that have helped mankind most. It has launched the human race into the twenty-first century much in advance of its chronological date.
The artificial satellites that conquered space bringing unthought-of of data from the outer world into the ken of human knowledge could not have been possible without the help of the computer. Their control form Houston is now a well-known story, not a miracle. These satellites fitted with curious devices give us the ground conditions of the topography. They are able to predict roughly the soil conditions through a study of the radiations of the sun rays on the earth’s crust.
The world today is fractured by nationalistic mean politics. But it is a happy sign that such diversions do not affect the sphere of knowledge. The geophysical researches are today global property.
The accuracy of the computer has far-reaching consequences. Tele-communications, railway reservations, art, painting and many other aspects of our daily and cultural life have come within the pale of computers. It effectively eliminates human corruption, as in railway reservations. The rush for tickets, fatiguing long lines, train timings and many such factors that drained human energy have almost disappeared with the advent of computers. The present and succeeding generation shall remain grateful to Messrs Eckert and Mauchly that launched this device for the first time.
The invention, no doubt, takes off from the basic sciences of its past ages. But the mechanical advantage that it gives to mankind is so overwhelming that the traditional systems seem to be thrown out of gears. Garment designing and fashions, effects of multi-media used in film photography, bewildering colour combinations are all today done by computers. The latest that it seems heading to achieve is cyberspace education of say, Tele-education. America’s Stanford University had already embarked on it.
Thus education shall become less costly and less cumbersome. It will not require school buildings; teachers will not have to go to remote villages. The computer sets and the re-oriented programmes of education will be able to cater to boys in the remotest part of the towns and villages. For countries like India it is still a far cry for economic reasons. One can foresee how this invention has already forced the coming generations to look up. We know of poets and writers like T.S.Eliot or Bernard Shaw who used to think with their typewriters. Now, does it seem very strange that in near future they have to do this with their computer sets?
The video-games for children are a very recent taste. It is delightful to watch them handling these as experts in the game. In fact all these are oriented towards a new feature.
The merits of the invention are too great for anybody to belittle it. But the question arises: what in distinct future shall be role and contributions of human limbs to the growth of its total personality. Will they become crippled through slow degeneration and disuse?