Introduction
Man’s attitude toward nature is absolutely curious and varied. Everyone contributes to it; everything seems to cause a common understanding. In the whole sphere of thought, there is no mutual consent upon any other great subject, in all the diversity of human expression. Over human history, people have acquired many interconnected and confirmed ideas about the physical, psychological, biological, and social worlds. Most of those ideas have empowered successive generations to accomplish a comprehensive and reliable comprehension of mankind and its surroundings. The means used to provoke and solve these ideas are particular ways of observations, thinking, having experiments and tests held. All these methods create a significant approach to the fundamental direction of the essence of science and show how science simplifies the dissimilarity between available modes of awareness. It is the cooperation of science and technology that gives a scheme of the scientific attempt and that makes it so prosperous. Although each of these human firms has a temperament and history of its own, each is dependent on and intensifies the others.
Technical innovations and nature
People always tended to travel comfortably, to fly like birds, to know what is happening all over the world. The 19th century was extremely fruitful for technical innovations, thus enriched mankind with a glider, a telephone, a bicycle, a plane (Williamson 1). “In 1800, Galvani and Volta had sewed the seed, and since have sprung up the whole science and art of electrical physics”. Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Walter Hunt are only some of the great inventors of the 19th century (Rutherford). Fundamental scientists were studying natural phenomena, the nature of things, chemical elements for knowledge, for being aware. Scientists have some basic points of view and stand about the manner of their actions and the vision of their work. These issues have to coexist with the essence of the world around us and the problems that can be found out about it. The study of nature has caused scientific and technological advancement, as natural phenomena were studied, natural sciences were developed, and the whole progress needed a further step to be made. So mankind made it to live better, to live in a safe world, to enjoy results of the global progress. The discoveries of great inventors, scientists, naturalists helped to unite all the new information – on physics, biology, theoretical and applied mechanics, and sociology – about nature for the benefit of all mankind. Bell produced his most important work: “the experiments in converting speech into electrical impulses and from these impulses back into a sound that would lead to the telephone” (Cavendish 77). Bell was promoting the model of the telephone (Bell’s Nemesis) toward the end of the 19th century. “His high-profile demonstrations throughout the world rapidly convinced people that the telephone was a serious piece of technology” (Cavendish 83).
Innovations during the World War I
Now I would like to attract your attention to the innovations in aviation taking into consideration the period of World War I (1914-1918). Before the war, the airplanes were not armed and were believed to have devices frightening horses. Then in August 1914, an English expeditionary force flight across the Channel to France. The airplanes were massively loaded with extra fuel, rations, and spare parts. Every pilot and observer, sitting in the cabin, had a revolver, a pair of goggles, a small stove, field glasses, some food, and orders not to take to the plane anything else. “As the quality of the reconnaissance began to improve and affect the outcome of the battles below, it became important to deny the enemy the advantage of aerial reconnaissance. Each side had begun to use aircraft as airborne artillery spotters to a most effective degree. Crews had been armed for some time and had taken potshots at one another, but this proved ineffective”. Then Lt. Louis Strange made the first attempt to employ the machine gun on a plane, but the extra weight of the machine gun was not accounted for (Brady 99). As the effectiveness of the conventional armament was under question, the scientists of every nation were trying to develop brand-new armaments to excel the enemy in fighting strength. During the war a great number of inventions was produced to reinforce troops, to improve the equipment and machinery, thus the military improvements were made not only during the war actions, but they also appear an armaments drive, which led to the free competition that was aimed at revealing the truth and finding out the improvements of the hostile troops, advancements of technology and science, and the perspectives for the future: what improvements need to be made to get ahead of the hostile technologies.
Conclusion
The progress of thinking influenced technological progress. Thus, the conclusion on the issue of the impact of the study of nature on scientific and technological advancement is as follows, great inventions would not be possible without investigations of natural phenomena. And not always great investigations were made for getting profit or organizing demonstration. Some of the inventions were brought in return in several centuries. They were made for the benefit of mankind, such as studying the lightning by Abraham Lincoln, studying the atomic particles by Maria Curie. Nowadays their inventions and knowledge produced by investigations are used at laboratories for successive research and in everyday life to make it easier and more comfortable.
Works Cited
Brady, Tim. The American aviation experience: a history. SIU Press, 2000.
Magner, N. Lois. A history of the life sciences. CRC Press, 2002.
Marshall Cavendish Corporation. Inventors and Inventions: Accidents and mistakes, communications-Colt, Samuel. Malaysia: Marshall Cavendish, 2007.
Rutherford, F. James and Andrew Ahlgren. Science For All Americans. American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1991.
Williamson, M. John. Signor Marconi’s Magic Box: The Most Remarkable Invention of the 19th Century and the Amateur Inventor Whose Genius Sparked a Revolution. Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles, School of Law, 2005.