SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY,
AND INFORMATION

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY HAS BEEN DOMINATED BY SPECTACULAR insights acquired by scientists and by the application of many of those ideas as technology. When I was born, in 1936, there was no need to worry that children were watching too much television, because it had yet to become widespread in homes. Back then, smallpox killed millions and polio was a feared disease. When I was a child, there were no jets, videotapes, CDs, satellites, transoceanic phone links, computers, oral contraceptives, CAT scans, genetic engineering, or organ transplants, among many other things. Each innovation changed the way we lived and the way we thought of ourselves. A near-endless stream of new consumer products titillated the consumer.

Science has come to occupy a position of omnipotence, pushing back the curtains of ignorance and revealing answers to nature’s deepest secrets. We began to believe that with greater discoveries, we would gain the knowledge needed to understand and control the forces impinging on us and life for all would continue to improve.

As the time period between discovery and application shrank, the distinction between basic research and development of technology was often difficult to delineate. And as pure scientists saw the usefulness of their work, many became caught up in the rush to use every insight for profit, power, or benefit. There is much to learn from the history of science and technology of the twentieth century