In the 1930s, the relationship between science and war was quite different from what it is today. Since then Science and Technology has made substantial impact in the field of wars. In the period around 1930’s, major advancement in technology of warfare has been seen.
Every nation has been involved in war at some time or other.As time passed all these nations have become more powerful and advanced.These days all nations have sophisticated weapons,advance defence mechanisms.
During 1930, publishing of newspapers was banned. The three closely related sciences which engaged in calculating the enemy were: Operational research, game theory, and cybernetics. Weiner divided the enemies into two categories, and regarded them as devils. One was the "Manichean devil" "who is determined on victory and will use any trick of craftiness or dissimulation to obtain this victory." The other, the "Augustinian devil" was characterized by the "evil" of chance and disorder but could not change the rules unlike the “Manichean devil”.
In the First World War science had certainly played a huge part in chemical synthesis for explosives, poison gas, aeronautics and much more. In World War Two the scientific community was thoroughly mobilized to serve the state for military ends, and this led to the continuing close connection between science and the state in the following decades. As time passes with the advancement of technology new graduates were allocated to all the important areas of defense research. By twentieth century science has become the language of war. Mutual interest in winning the war, reinforced by financial support, permanently linked the military and science in a web of cross-fertilization that continues today.
Norbert Wiener, regarded by many as the father of cybernetics, introduced the idea of Cybernetics, or, the “science of control and regulation,” during the time he worked for the US defence in developing the radar-guided AA (anti-aircraft) gun. He studied the predictable behaviour of the human mind in stressed situations to help predict the path of the enemy aircraft, so that it could be gunned down efficiently. The most important aspect of this was the feedback loop running between the enemy pilot, the aircraft, the AA predictor and the AA operator. The actions of each member of the loop regulated the actions of the subsequent member of the loop. This allowed the replacement of man by machine and machine by man. The actions of the pilot, for example, could be predicted by a machine; hence the pilot was being viewed not as a human being with emotions and senses, but as a machine whose actions were predictable and somewhat pre-determined.
Thus, the use of cybernetics in warfare had one important result that would determine the vision for war in decades to come: scientific research would extensively be used in warfare and technology would become the single most crucial factor in determining victory in war. This was realised early on by Vannevar Bush, a visionary who united six thousand leading American scientists and coordinated their research in warfare. As the head of the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb, he knew the importance of technology in warfare and this was what made him seek government funding in scientific research for warfare, which, when also adopted by nations worldwide, changed the war scenario. A battle between skilled human soldiers (1930’s) changed to a battle between intelligent machines.
Therefore, the change in warfare that we see from the 1930’s to now, most importantly, is the advent of technology in the warfare realm and the criterion for victory changing from skill, strength and size to technological advancement.
BY: D.Chaitanya kumar( EE09B084)
BY: D.Chaitanya kumar( EE09B084)
No comments:
Post a Comment