In the second half of the twentieth century, we were developed rapidly in science and technology in all areas, but particularly in engineering, medicine, chemical and pharmaceutical industries and electronics. In recent times, the area of telecommunications has planned a new form of power: Information, but undoubtedly the most booming area is the Field Of Electronics and its contribution to other sciences has solved complex calculations quickly.
Inventions of the twentieth century
The last century started with a population of 1,625 million being very prolific in terms of technological advances, the estimated growth in information technology was exponential, ie, had a growth so high that its magnitude doubled every once in a minor lapse of time, similar to the growth of bacteria that cause us illness as the cause of pneumonia, or memory chips that are implemented on computers.
Washing machine: One of the first inventions of the last century, and that would revolutionize the housework was the washer into the United States. The first electric washing machine appeared in 1901, thanks to Alva Fisher, who with an engine turned a drum, but did not patent his invention until 1910. The washing machine use electricity became popular when it became a commonly used service. Currently, new models have time programmers and computer sensors that control the speed, weight, temperature, etc. ..
Vacuum cleaner: That same year, 1901, but this time in England, there was a vacuum that needed two people to work: a moving bellows that creates a vacuum to absorb the dust and another pushing the device through the room. William Hoover in 1908 designed the first electric vacuum cleaners, initially, were used only in industry. Years later, would be common in homes.
Cash Register: The electric cash register was invented by Charles Franklin Kettering in 1906, who also owe the appearance of electric ignition and automatic start and the first practical electric generator powered by an automobile engine, as used in the posts itinerant fairs.
Tractor: The introduction of the tractor to the field meant the entry into the modern era. Using this machine is able to allow in a few hours, a job that took several days to the farmer. In 1907 Henry Ford began manufacturing tractors in series with auto components, which he named Fordsons, which were very successful and were exported to Europe after the Second World War.
The armored car (1920): Although it was designed by Leonardo da Vinci centuries ago, the first was built in Minnesota in the city of St. Paul. Allowed to be transported large sums of money more security, leading to greater movement of money. Shortly after its appearance is dated in 1927, the first assault on an armored vehicle, with a take of just over 100,000 USD.
Radar: Marconi, who had patented the radio in 1987 in England, suggested in 1922 that vessels could be detected in situations of poor visibility. This idea was developed in 1931 by building a computer to send pulses of radio detectors boats. The first radar was installed in Normandy, French ship, to locate the presence of icebergs.
ATM: In 1939 was invented by Luther George Simjian, under the brand Bankmatic. to prove it. It was tested for the first time in a bank belonging to what is now Citicorp (Citibank), but six months after the bank reported that there was little demand for their use. It was not until 1968 for the modern version of the ATM by Don Wetzel, Tom Barnes and George Chastain which was installed at the Chemical Bank in New York.
Pen: The modern, practical, disposable, low cost pen was invented in 1940 by Hungarian journalist Ladislas Biro and chemist Josef Georg Biro, given the need to create a pen efficient, as there were fountain pens which appeared in the century, but their ink tended to thicken.
Microwave: The American Percy Le Baron Spencer was testing a new vacuum tube called a magnetron when he discovered that a candy that was in his pocket had melted. This accident caused patenting a device that would become the microwave. The Raytheon Company has developed an implementation program for microwave cooking, resulting in an apparatus for cooking, the Radarange, which was heavy (80 kg), large (1.60 m tall) and expensive ($ 5,000), and was used in hospitals and military canteens. In 1967 he began to make the first household stoves.
Credit Card: It was invented in 1950 by Frank McNamara, who issued their card to 200 customers so that they could use in 27 restaurants in New York, whence came the appointment of Diners' Club. In 1958 American Express introduced its version of a universal credit card. In 1958 the Bank of America issued the first credit card, (now VISA). Bar code was initially developed for the railroads in 1952 to identify which cars were to locomotives. Shortly thereafter, the system migrated UPC (Universal Product Code), we all know, meeting the demand of supermarkets to find a solution to automate the boxes.
Artificial satellite: In 1957 was launched by the former Soviet Union, the first artificial satellite into Earth orbit, called Sputnik 1 ("fellow traveler" in Russian). Sputnik 2 was launched a few months later, to carry the first living passenger, the little dog Laika (“barking"). This new gadget currently made to develop common long or you can instantly predict the weather with amazing accuracy.
Chip: The first integrated circuit was developed in 1958 by engineer Jack Kilby under the firm Texas Instruments. It was a device that integrates six transistors on a single semiconductor base. The bipolar transistor was invented at Bell Labs in the U.S. in December 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter Houser Brattain and William Bradford Shockley, who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956. Among the most advanced integrated circuits are the microprocessors, which control everything from computers to mobile phones and microwave ovens.
Laser (1961): This device, which uses a quantum mechanical effect, to generate a beam of light with unique properties that make commands a broad range of applications, from medicine to the automotive, telecommunications and aeronautics, was invented in 1960 by the physicist Theodore Maiman. The laser comes from the English word laser stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation ")
Arrival of electricity to the cities, creation and development of electronics such as radio, television, telephone, fax, transistor, integrated circuits, lasers, computers and the Internet, creation of nuclear weapons, the conquest of space, spaceflight and landing, development of household appliances like washing machine, fridge, oven, electric stoves, ovens, microwave, air conditioning, running water in a high percentage of houses (first world), extension of urban sewage, enunciation of the theory of relativity and the Big Bang cosmological model, development of quantum mechanics and particle physics, discovery of antibiotics, contraception, organ transplantation and cloning, among many other great advances in medicine, description of the chemical structure of DNA and development of molecular biology, and development of television.
Contemporary civilization has become dependent on science and its applications to a greater degree than in previous periods. No era has required both the science as it does this, nor has used much of the work of scientists. Researchers have updated numerous scientific theories accepted for centuries. Research has reached large dimensions, while many say they live in an age of "science and technologic revolution".
Features of technology
Science has become the twentieth century, an important social factor. It was attended by the new nations seeking rapid economic progress. She also brings the old nations when they need a new momentum to overcome its crisis, political or financial. However, it is knowledge itself that allows the solution of these problems, but the activity may be due to the discovery of new knowledge resources that that suggests. In the twentieth century is therefore much more difficult than in the nineteenth century to separate the scientific knowledge of the action that follows it. This close relationship implies two important consequences: First, the time between laboratory discovery applications in the social domain is greatly reduced. The impact of this temporary reduction is felt particularly in the economies of the companies, but may have a social and political importance, such as arms control. Moreover, the scientist, the man who embodies the essence of its scientific research activity is forced dramatically and continues to worry about the possible results of their work, originally intended to increase the pure knowledge. The psychology of the laboratory researcher visibly changed, and this transformation necessarily affect the progress of science itself. Finally, the media that the scientist may have for their jobs, even seemingly far removed from any cost-effective implementation, have increased in a way that seemed really outrageous at the time of Pasteur, in proportion to the hope that governments and companies generally get the results of scientific research. These resources made accessible to researchers materials and equipment formerly inaccessible and the importance of which leads them to form groups and work teams to ensure their operation. Of course, these groups and require large teams of staff, whether proper or scientific researchers and engineers indispensable assistants in modern laboratories. The training of such personnel is also a problem in all countries. What characteristics does this science of the twentieth century that such large changes made to their own practice and teaching, and that has been placed so high in the hierarchy of social factors? Let's examine some of these features as: fast growth of knowledge, extension of the fields in which knowledge is exercised and qualitative transformation that has placed the study of structure in the forefront of the concerns of researchers.
Impact of science on society
In the entire history of mankind, the man sought to guarantee and improve their living standards through better knowledge of the surrounding world and a more effective control of it, that is, through a steady development of science. Today, we are convinced that one of the characteristics of the present moment is inseparable connection, the very close interaction and mutual conditioning of society with science. Science is one of the essential factors of social development and is becoming an increasingly more massive. In studying the effects of science on society, it does not only involve the effects on modern society, but also the effects on future society. In traditional societies were well defined functions of the individual, there was a harmony between nature, society and man. Now science took away from this traditional setting, disturbance of the balance between man and society and a profound change in the environment while we should not directly blame science.
The progress of science has been very quick in developed countries, whereas in underdeveloped countries purchase is so slow that every day the difference between two types of countries is larger. This delay helps to maintain or even aggravate the situation of underdeveloped countries' dependence on developed countries. As science has become part of the productive forces to a much greater degree than ever, it is considered as today is a strategic agent of change in plans for economic and social development. Science has reached the point of influencing the minds of mankind. Society captive in today is not the conditions in the past or present, but is oriented toward the future. Science is not simply one of several elements that make up the productive forces but has become a key factor for social development, which increasingly creek bottom in the various sectors of life. Science seeks to establish universal truths common knowledge that there is consensus and based on ideas and information whose validity is independent of individuals. There is something that I think is very important to emphasize is that the role of science in society is inseparable from the role of technology.
Scientific breakthroughs
Mathematics: The mathematics began to be applied to physics, is the theory of determinants and matrices. In the twentieth century will be the calculation of matrices a fundamental tool in quantum mechanics. Today mathematics is a science extremely branched. Mathematical logic, algebra general, the balance of probabilities, the structure, topology and set theory fields are ubiquitous in contemporary mathematics.
Physics: The theory of relativity is the latest theory of classical, but revolutionizes the concepts of space and time. It is really a theory of gravity. In 1905 Albert Einstein used the formula of special theory of relativity and in 1916 the general theory of relativity.
Quantum mechanics is the theory that has revolutionized all sciences and is at the heart of all modern technologies. In 1900, Max Planck is the one who made the bulk of quantum theory. Planck said that energy is not transmitted continuously but in packs, who called quanta. Niels Bohr in 1913 made a new atomic model, which distributes the electrons in energy levels, how much of a distance. Arnold Sommerfeld imagined the atom with a nucleus and electrons in an elliptical orbit around the nucleus. Werner Heisenberg used formula in 1927 the uncertainty principle. In 1941 the atomic bomb project was made.
Chemistry, Biology and Medicine: Chemistry to understand the nature of chemical bonds. This has allowed the emergence of new materials such as plastics, solvents, antifreeze, petroleum products, medicine, photography, etc. In Biology are combined, the progress of physics and chemistry. Santiago Ramon Cajal discovered neurons, Pavlov conditioned reflex, Fleming penicillin. Appears biochemistry, DNA. Severo Ochoa synthesized RNA. The investigations of the structure of living things are to allow genetic manipulation. These same studies enable advances in medicine. We have found new drugs, anesthesia, directed blood transfusion, the antihistamine, X-rays, the antibiotic chemical, and pacemakers, transplantation. The technology aims to improve or optimize our real world control, to respond quickly and predictably to the will or whim of society, although not always to their advantage. Technology is also the province of industry and commercial enterprise, for no good if their products meet the needs of consumers. Traditionally, technology has progressed by the empirical method of trial and error. Technology has been at the forefront in many fields who subsequently acquired a sound scientific basis. It says the effects of technology are an "impact". Technology on society pours effects on the social practices of humankind as well as on new qualities of human knowledge. From the earliest days of agriculture or from the late Iron Age human culture has had a technology, ie the ability to modify nature to one degree or another. He believes that technology provides estimates of short-term benefits but long term it has engendered serious social problems. Some authors consider the problems that generated the technology are indirectly caused by science, because if we did not have advanced scientific knowledge, we would not have as advanced technology. The benefits brought about by modern technology are numerous and widely known. Higher productivity provides society with a surplus that can have more leisure time, dispensing education and, indeed, pursue his own scientific work. We all need food, shelter, clothing, etc.. When these basic needs are met and the technology begins to provide benefits more and more trivial, is when problems arise essentially.
Considering the current situation in developed countries, we see that people and seems happier than in the past, and often do not have better health. Environmental waste produced by the technology have created new forms of diseases and encouraged others. The work itself is more monotonous and disappointing. Human beings need to do something that stimulates your brain, manual ability and need variety. The technology-based industry has dislocated family. For example, having to devote much time to transport often separates a father from his children. Technological society also tends to separate the mother of young children. The ease of communication encourages children to go far, and extended families to disperse more. Besides all this, as a result of all this, it weakens the cultural transmission techniques (cooking, education of children, etc.). And educators must try to fill this gap. Typically, companies are composed of coherent groups in which personal identity is recognized and exercised pressure to curtail antisocial acts. If they are too isolated, these groups become oppressive. At first, the effects of the ease of communications seem beneficial, because people are freed from local pressures, but this trend persist, often remain isolated.
There is no doubt that technology has enabled more wars are still dire, as they affect everyone, not just civilians but also the neutral and primitive peoples. Violence and crime are also due simply to the technology, and we may consider technology as one of the biggest problems of modern society because the crime is one of the most daunting problems that affect society more current. We define technology as the set of instrumental rules which prescribe a rational course of action to achieve a predetermined goal and should be assessed in terms of their utility and practical effectiveness.