Since the seventeenth century, when you drop the birth of modern science, scientific progress has been continuous. But throughout the twentieth century when the research and technical application of scientific knowledge have been developed so rapidly that has radically transformed the lives of human beings. In recent 20 years have made more discoveries than in the rest of human history and the incorporation of scientific principles to technologies applicable to everyday life is occurring at a rate unmatched in the past.
The first half of the twentieth century was characterized by the use of these energy sources in the previous century, with further development of the electricity industry and the quest for mastery of atomic energy.
During this period, major technological innovations were: manufacturing, the invention increasing household appliances, the development of new building materials like reinforced concrete and glass, synthetic fibers for textile production, and plastic accessories, in medicine, the discovery of substances against infections, as penicillin and other antibiotics, the improvement of knowledge in agriculture, food and food preservation techniques; transport in series production car, which became the dominant means of locomotion, the invention of the airplane, in the media the development of film and television created from the invention of the kinescope in years twenty.
In the second half, has broken with the division between science and application abstract technique, which derives from scientific research into practical applications quickly, first in small fields and then in industrial production of consumer goods. Thus, scientific advances are increasingly the source of technical progress, which is one of the main engines of economic growth. Moreover, science has expanded its fields of research. The development, for example, statistics and computer science, has transformed the methods of calculation and analysis, which are becoming less linear, with greater attention to the multiplicity of variables, involving the random and complex analysis. This also allows you to apply scientific methods in social sciences (demography, linguistics, statistics applied sociological analysis, etc.).
Since the end of World War II studies of atomic energy from uranium and plutonium, an accelerated arms race triggered mainly featuring the United States and the Soviet Union, with the consequent threat to life on the planet who inaugurated an era of fears of possible mass destruction, but also expanded the possibilities of developing science, with large-scale technological projects. The Cold War prompted the space race and with it the placement of artificial satellites, besides its military function, revolutionized telecommunications and technology paved the way for exploration of space where there has been a spectacular technological achievement, allowing for the first time men could leave the terrestrial biosphere and return to it.
Microelectronics. In the early years of the decade of 1950 began to develop microelectronics as a result of the advent of the transistor in 1948. However, the only microelectronics was used by the general public until the seventies, when advances in semiconductor technology, attributable in part to the intensity of research associated with space exploration led to the development of the integrated circuit. The greatest potential of this technology are found in communications, particularly on satellite television cameras and telephones, but later developed microelectronics faster in other standalone products such as pocket calculators and digital watches.
Computer technology. In connection with microelectronics was of great importance to the emergence of the computer industry, with falling prices and the improvement of the silicon chip produced in series, there were personal computers, by standing on a desktop without being connected to a further processing unit, able to perform many tasks of the central computers that were much more expensive.
Unlike the negative social impact that some feared labor employment, personal computers required a whole new production capacity and new jobs created in retail sales, training and technical support, systems programming both for the consumer market for specialized tasks to individual customer service.
During the fourth generation of computers (1982-1989), medicine and communication achieved significant progress. The substantially improved hardware systems called distributed circuital, bubble memories and optical discs, obtaining images for medical purposes and creating powerful tool for auscultation of the patient. In the fifth generation (1990 -) or generation of intelligent machines using the concept of artificial intelligence (Al), with enormous speeds per second.
NETWORKS AND INTERNET: The media now known as the Internet has revolutionized the telecommunications nutrient due to its ability to transmit and obtain information instantly via personal computers, began to develop late sixties, in the context of the Cold War, as a computer network that in turn connected computer networks at several universities and research laboratories in the United States under the auspices of the Agency Advanced Research Program (ARPA, according to its acronym in English) of the Department of Defense U.S.. In 1989 World Wide Web was developed by the British Computer Timothv Berners-Lee for the European Council for Nuclear Research.
In the nineties, thanks to advances in the "information superhighway" has been a rapid growth in the number of Internet users has dramatically changed the communication distance and has worked to meet the needs created by the globalized world, allowing people and institutions to share information and work collaboratively. The content available on the Internet has grown rapidly and variability, which can easily find any information in addition to enabling the realization of secure financial transactions, which has tried rains You great opportunities for trade.
However, the explosive growth of internet has raised important questions regarding the risks involved. The increase in Web pages containing text and graphics that are denigrating to ethnic minorities, was encouraged racism or pornographic material was exposed, has drawn strong criticism and led to calls for censorship aimed at Internet providers to voluntarily comply with certain criteria. Another negative element of the Internet has manifested itself in the threat, made possible in several occasions, that irresponsible people insert "virus" in the network causing serious damage to computer equipment in the global arena.
electronic messaging, displays and word processors replace written letters on paper. Dictionaries, encyclopedias and the Oxford and British newspapers and magazines around the world, library catalogs and libraries, books, even novels, museums, education at all levels, remember those correspondence courses, but now have immediate response. The only thing you need to know what you want, press a key and go.
The computer is a good example of knowledge and experience that has young people in the use of technology: the father has to use his son to teach him. Patterns are changing education. Internet is an important instrument for the mobilization of capital, as they can be placed in the stock markets, banks from all over the world, moving the money quickly and safely. Fibers
Optical: In the "information age" can not be neglected the role since the eighties has had in many applications the use of glass optical fibers. Because of its ability to transmit images, the optical fibers are widely used in medical instruments to look inside the human body and to perform laser surgery.
in telephony, fiber optics have gradually replaced the coaxial cables used previously, the messages are digitally encoded in light pulses and transmitted over long distances, so that the greatest potential to carry a much larger volume of information faster transmission.
The most typical application of fiber optic cables for the transmission of light is in the field of medicine, specifically in the light of instruments such as endoscopes for visual examination of internal body cavities or body. The optical fiber bundles are, in this case, flexible systems. Its main advantage is the possibility of bringing light to the desired, without incurring a transfer of heat.
Biotechnology. In the development of biotechnology is the most important technique of genetic engineering. It originated from research on the structure of DNA by Francis Crick y James Dewey Watson en 1953. En la década de 1970 se llevó a cabo la transferencia de genes, es decir, la posibilidad de insertar genes de un organismo en otro, técnica de gran potencial que ha traído importantes beneficios en la lucha contra enfermedades como la hemofilia, la diabetes, la hepatitis o el SIDA. En 1973, 20 años después de que james Watson y Francis Chick publicaron el estudio de las bases moleculares del código genético, se insertó ADN extraño en la célula de un huésped, lo cual se conoce como donación de genes. El nacimiento de la oveja Dolly en 1997 fue posible gracias a la combinación del núcleo de una célula adulta de glándula mamaria con un óvulo sin núcleo, a process called "cloning"
Advances in genetic engineering which are undoubtedly of great importance for medical science have led to negative reactions by individuals and groups who warn of the dangers of an ethical nature involving the donation applied to humans, as has also been questioned other biotechnology innovation, in vitro fertilization, because it can mean to the religious manipulation of human embryos, whereas in some countries has led to the establishment of legal restrictions.
Biotechnology is divided into four main areas: food, health, environment environment and industry. In the field of health, one of the most important results is the production of human insulin from bacteria (1978). Insulin is a protein hormone that is generated in the pancreas, and its absence is concentrated sugar in the blood, this deficiency is called diabetes, which afflict millions of people worldwide. Currently seeking new treatments for curing some diseases, especially cancer.
Medicine: Medicine is a good example of scientific and technological developments of our time. The beneficiaries of such developments do not depend on the country they belong, but their socio-geographical or even racial. Studies and implementation of bodies due to the clarification of the complex phenomena of immunology, allowing the medical use of organ transplants since 1954, when it held its first kidney transplant. At present it is possible to transplant any organ.
In 1895, X-rays were used to examine the patient internally. They are the forerunners of the current imaging, used in nuclear magnetic resonance, computed tomography, diagnostic ultrasound and nuclear medicine in all its forms. Important techniques are also digital subtraction angiography and other therapeutic-type as angioplasty, the artificial pacemaker was installed for the first time in Sweden in 1958, circulation and extra-corporeal dialysis.
DE: The Modern and Contemporary World Gloria Delgado, Buenos Aires
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