Thursday, March 10, 2011

"What was the vision for science and War in the 1930's. Have things changed since then?"

The increasing role of technology in warfare in the modern era has brought science and war into an increasingly intimate relationship. The relationship between Science and War dates ages, but it had got enhanced during 1930’s Science and war involved in “development symbiosis”, helping each other. Research in Science was encouraged for the development in war and science played a critical role in war. I am going to discuss about the “vision”  of science and war in 1930’s and how did it change now.
The military funding of science has had a powerful transformative effect on the practice and products of scientific research since the early 20th century. Particularly since World War I, advanced science-based technologies have been viewed as essential elements of a successful military.
World War I is often called "the chemists’ war", both for the extensive use of poison gas and the importance of nitrates and advanced high explosives. Poison gas, beginning in 1915 with chlorine from the powerful German dye industry, was used extensively by the Germans and the British ; over the course of the war, scientists on both sides raced to develop more and more potent chemicals and devise countermeasures against the newest enemy gases.

human bomber
 
The vision of science for war not really cybernetic during the World War 1 except few developments in wireless communication, sound-based methods of detecting U-boats.
But the development after the WW 1 cybernetic as the military started investing on the research of science for the enhancement of military. Enemies were viewed as cybernetic entities and a man-machine.
On the Allied side, the three closely related sciences which engaged in calculating the enemy were: Operational research, game theory, and cybernetics. Operational research focused on maximizing the efficiency in locating and destroying German U boats in the North Atlantic and along and along the coast of America. Game theory is the way of analyzing what two opposing forces ought to do when each expected the other to act in a maximally rational way but were ignorant both of the opponent's specific intentions and of the enemy's choice of where to bluff. The need of national security led to development of scientific and technological institutions. With the use of machines in war, the military saw humans and machines to be equivalent.
After the atomic bomb drop, Wiener felt guilty for working for the war and stated that his work has been used in a way that he had no control over it?
Now science plays a crucial role in war and military.
It is the no. of human bombers decides the power of the country rather than the people.


In the 1930's the main motive for war was to gain power and resources. This is what defined the enemy in those years and hence the enemy was narrowed down to a military entity. Nowadays to stay secure almost every country has their own set of arms, nuclear weapons to make sure no one attacks them. Interest in winning the war, helped by economic support, permanently linked the military and science in a symbiosis which still exists.
The view of war has changed from a mode on issue settlement to race of destruction. There was disappearance of understanding of a human life among the scientist developing technologies.
After the Second World War, the advent of the Cold War concretes the links between military and academic science. From 1930 the bondage between the sciences and the military had been increasing and yet increasing now, with new ideas of “destruction”, and in future this cybernetic nature can be automatic machines without the involvement of human.

B.Vamshi
EE09B104


References
OnBush As we may think

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