Science and Modern Technologies. Topic for Conversation #6

Science and Modern Technologies

1. Tell me about the latest scientific achievements and discoveries.

We live in the fascinating and challenging world of science. It is a world that more and more over the ages, and especially in the 20th century has come to affect so much of our lives. It is involved with the way we travel, the homes we live in and the clothes we wear, how we become ill and how medicine can make us better, and has given us fantastic means of communicating and exploring. It’s difficult to overestimate the role of science and technology in our life. They accelerate the development of civilization and help us in our co-operation with nature.

The list of the inventions is rather long. We are on-lookers of great scientific achievements such as television and a computer. We can't imagine our life without a notebook or a radio. We are living in a world of technologies now and can’t remember our life being different. The humanity has made many discoveries and invented lots of mechanisms and devices which have simplified our life significantly. We got acquainted with light and sound and explored their characteristics which helped us to use them effectively. The radio, the TV, the telephone was invented and enabled us to get in touch with each other, learn about what is happening in our native city and all over the world. The humanity never stopped on the way to unexplored places and even planets! We devised a satellite and made a rocket to travel to the moon and round the Earth. Special equipment lets us make photos of the faraway planets and study their environment.

The most recent breakthrough in technology is supposed to be the Internet. It has broadened our abilities and opened new horizons. We connect with people from other countries without any problems, search for any information and get it in one click, and have many other opportunities accessing the net from our smartphones, tablets, and computers. However, other realms of science have also been developing. Medicine, biology, archeology and many other sciences have achieved great results. We do have everything to maintain a high quality of life now. Many processes have been automated and people have got rid of many unpleasant things and difficulties they used to face in the past.

Scientists investigate the laws of the universe, discover the secrets of nature, and apply their knowledge in practice improving the life of people. Let's compare our life nowadays with the life of people at the beginning of the 20th century. It has changed beyond recognition. Our ancestors hadn't the slightest idea of the trivial things created by the scientific progress that we use in our every day life. I mean refrigerators, TV sets, computers, microwave ovens, radio telephones, what not.

They would seem miracles to them that made our life easy, comfortable and pleasant. On the other hand, the great inventions of the beginning of the 20th century, I mean radio, airplanes, combustion and jet engines have become usual things and we can't imagine our life without them. A century is a long period for scientific and technological progress, as it's rather rapid. Millions of investigations the endless number of outstanding discoveries have been made. Our century has had several names that were connected with a certain era in science and technology. At first it was called the atomic age due to the discovery of the splitting of the atom. Then it became the age of the conquest of space when for the first time in the history of mankind a man overcame the gravity and entered the Universe. And now we live in the information era when the computer network embraces the globe and connects not only the countries and space stations but a lot of people all over the world. All these things prove the power and the greatest progressive role of science in our life.

But every medal has its reverse. And the rapid scientific progress has aroused a number of problems that are a matter of our great concern. These are ecological problems, the safety of nuclear power stations, the nuclear war threat, and the responsibility of a scientist. But still we are grateful to the outstanding men of the past and the present who have courage and patience to disclose the secrets of the Universe.

We are living in the modern world, full of computers, automatic devices, gadgets, cell phones and many other different interesting and useful things that technological progress has given us for usage. Although not even years have passed as we couldn’t even dream about time when it would be enough just to tap on a screen and get connected with the other person on the different end of the world.

Science has given us possibility to fly into space and step on the moon, to start studying different parts of our galaxy and even farther.  For example, what wonderful pictures of our galaxy and planets and stars surrounding Earth Hubble telescope has showed to us. Now we can develop further and maybe ever step on the other planets and even populate it.

Technology has considerably made our life easier due to different discoveries. For example, nowadays we can travel with extremely high speed in different directions: many countries have high-speed trains which help us to feel comfortable all the way.

Older people have different devices that have highly improved the level of their life, such as special cars for driving or hearing aid that helps them to no more feel useless in the society.

On the other hand al this computerized environment may damage us too. Our children spend more and more time playing computer games, texting their friends instead of meeting them in the streets, living more and more in their own virtual world. Girls try to compete whose cell phone or tablet is better and more modern, or who has more friends on Facebook.

Anyway technology has its advantages and disadvantages, but we cannot escape from progress, the development is inevitable. But our responsibility is to preserve ourselves as modern, just and peaceful civilization.

2. Do you want to be a scientist?

3. What questions will you ask a most outstanding scientist?

4. My niece is not very good at science. Give her a piece of advice on how to achieve better results.

5. People are becoming more dependent on high-tech devices. Is it good or bad?