Vision of science and war in 1930s

Vision of science and war in 1930s

There are many who speak as though science was responsible for war as though in the absence of scientific knowledge, war would not have been waged so disastrously. 

Nothing can be farther from the truth. Man fought fiercely with fists and cudgels and swords and axes when they had not mastered the technique of science.

Cybernetics

Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems.

Cybernetics is closely related to control theory and systems theory. 

Both in its origins and in its evolution in the second half of the 20th century, cybernetics is equally applicable to physical and social (that is, language-based) systems.

Cybernetics is an example of one such branch of science.

It was literally born out of war. It had many fundamentally revolutionary ideas at its root. 

The main concept behind it was that under extreme conditions like very high altitude, high mental tension and high speed aircraft manipulation, rather than fully processing the situation and then taking the decision, human mind behaves mechanically. 

This understanding paved the way to model human mind mathematically (at least in extreme situations). Then followed extensive research and result was high precision anti aircraft guns!

War is unavoidable because of the aggressive energy or pugnacious spirit of man. What science has done is to change the nature or front of warfare.By inventing the aircraft, science has introduced a new factor in modern war. 

Explosives are now rained down from above. 

A new dimension has been added to modern warfare with the introduction of missiles.The last Great War was brought to an end by two atom bombs that practically wiped out of existence of two Japanese cities—Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

conclusion

Many wrongly believe that scientific progress in peace must be less vigorous than in war time. According to them, this is bound to be so because in normal times, there is not the same sense of urgency as and when a country is at war and things go on a war footing. The tempo of scientific research is quickened because it multiplies profits in wartime. But war is never a permanent solution to any major problem of man. War or no war science will have a phenomenal march out of the inner urge of the scientist.

Gokul 
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