2. Basic and applied research

3. Although some scientific research is applied research into specific problems, a great deal of our understanding comes from the curiosity-driven undertaking of basic research. This leads to options for technological advance that were not planned or sometimes even imaginable. This point was made by Michael Faraday when, allegedly in response to the question "what is the use of basic research?" he responded "Sir, what is the use of a new-born child?”. For example, research into the effects of red light on the human eye's rod cells did not seem to have any practical purpose; eventually, the discovery that our night vision is not troubled by red light would lead search and rescue teams (among others) to adopt red light in the cockpits of jets and helicopters. In a nutshell: Basic research is the search for knowledge. Applied research is the search for solutions to practical problems using this knowledge. Finally, even basic research can take unexpected turns, and there is some sense in which the scientific method is built to harness luck.

Experimentation and hypothesizing

DNA determines the genetic structure of all known life

Based on observations of a phenomenon, scientists may generate a model. This is an attempt to describe or depict the phenomenon in terms of a logical, physical or mathematical representation. As empirical evidence is gathered, scientists can suggest a hypothesis to explain the phenomenon.^[31] Hypotheses may be formulated using principles such as parsimony (also known as "Occam's Razor") and are generally expected to seek consilience—fitting well with other accepted facts related to the phenomena. This new explanation is used to make falsifiable predictions that are testable by experiment or observation. When a hypothesis proves unsatisfactory, it is either modified or discarded.^[32] Experimentation is especially important in science to help establish causational relationships (to avoid the correlation fallacy). Operationalization also plays an important role in coordinating research in/across different fields.

Once a hypothesis has survived testing, it may become adopted into the framework of a scientific theory. This is a logically reasoned, self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of certain natural phenomena. A theory typically describes the behavior of much broader sets of phenomena than a hypothesis; commonly, a large number of hypotheses can be logically bound together by a single theory. Thus a theory is a hypothesis explaining various other hypotheses. In that vein, theories are formulated according to most of the same scientific principles as hypotheses.

While performing experiments, scientists may have a preference for one outcome over another, and so it is important to ensure that science as a whole can eliminate this bias.^[33][34] This can be achieved by careful experimental design, transparency, and a thorough peer review process of the experimental results as well as any conclusions.^[35][36] After the results of an experiment are announced or published, it is normal practice for independent researchers to double-check how the research was performed, and to follow up by performing similar experiments to determine how dependable the results might be.^[37]

Certainty and science

A scientific theory is empirical, and is always open to falsification if new evidence is presented. That is, no theory is ever considered strictly certain as science accepts the concept of fallibilism. The philosopher of science Karl Popper sharply distinguishes truth from certainty. He writes that scientific knowledge "consists in the search for truth", but it "is not the search for certainty ... All human knowledge is fallible and therefore uncertain."^[38]

Although science values legitimate doubt, The Flat Earth Society is still widely regarded as an example of taking skepticism too far

Theories very rarely result in vast changes in our understanding. According to psychologist Keith Stanovich, it may be the media's overuse of words like "breakthrough" that leads the public to imagine that science is constantly proving everything it thought was true to be false.^[39] While there are such famous cases as the theory of relativity that required a complete reconceptualization, these are extreme exceptions. Knowledge in science is gained by a gradual synthesis of information from different experiments, by various researchers, across different domains of science; it is more like a climb than a leap.^[40] Theories vary in the extent to which they have been tested and verified, as well as their acceptance in the scientific community. For example, heliocentric theory, the theory of evolution, and germ theory still bear the name "theory" even though, in practice, they are considered factual.^[41]

Philosopher Barry Stroud adds that, although the best definition for "knowledge" is contested, being skeptical and entertaining the possibility that one is incorrect is compatible with being correct. Ironically then, the scientist adhering to proper scientific method will doubt themselves even once they possess the truth.^[42] The fallibilist C. S. Peirce argued that inquiry is the struggle to resolve actual doubt and that merely quarrelsome, verbal, or hyperbolic doubt is fruitless^[43]—but also that the inquirer should try to attain genuine doubt rather than resting uncritically on common sense.^[44] He held that the successful sciences trust, not to any single chain of inference (no stronger than its weakest link), but to the cable of multiple and various arguments intimately connected.^[45]

Stanovich also asserts that science avoids searching for a "magic bullet"; it avoids the single cause fallacy. This means a scientist would not ask merely "What is the cause of...", but rather "What are the most significant causes of...". This is especially the case in the more macroscopic fields of science (e.g. psychology, cosmology).^[46] Of course, research often analyzes few factors at once, but this always to add to the long list of factors that are most important to consider.^[46] For example: knowing the details of only a person's genetics, or their history and upbringing, or the current situation may not explain a behaviour, but a deep understanding of all these variables combined can be very predictive.

Science policy

Main articles: Science policy, History of science policy, and Funding of science

Science policy is an area of public policy concerned with the policies that affect the conduct of the science and research enterprise, including research funding, often in pursuance of other national policy goals such as technological innovation to promote commercial product development, weapons development, health care and environmental monitoring. Science policy also refers to the act of applying scientific knowledge and consensus to the development of public policies. Science policy thus deals with the entire domain of issues that involve the natural sciences. Is accordance with public policy being concerned about the well-being of its citizens, science policy's goal is to consider how science and technology can best serve the public.

State policy has influenced the funding of public works and science for thousands of years, dating at least from the time of the Mohists, who inspired the study of logic during the period of the Hundred Schools of Thought, and the study of defensive fortifications during the Warring States Period in China. In Great Britain, governmental approval of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century recognized a scientific community which exists to this day. The professionalization of science, begun in the nineteenth century, was partly enabled by the creation of scientific organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, and State funding of universities of their respective nations. Public policy can directly affect the funding of capital equipment, intellectual infrastructure for industrial research, by providing tax incentives to those organizations that fund research. Vannevar Bush, director of the office of scientific research and development for the United States government, the forerunner of the National Science Foundation, wrote in July 1945 that "Science is a proper concern of government" ^[64]

Science and technology research is often funded through a competitive process, in which potential research projects are evaluated and only the most promising receive funding. Such processes, which are run by government, corporations or foundations, allocate scarce funds. Total research funding in most developed countries is between 1.5% and 3% of GDP.^[65] In the OECD, around two-thirds of research and development in scientific and technical fields is carried out by industry, and 20% and 10% respectively by universities and government. The government funding proportion in certain industries is higher, and it dominates research in social science and humanities. Similarly, with some exceptions (e.g. biotechnology) government provides the bulk of the funds for basic scientific research. In commercial research and development, all but the most research-oriented corporations focus more heavily on near-term commercialisation possibilities rather than "blue-sky" ideas or technologies (such as nuclear fusion).

Pseudoscience, fringe science, and junk science

Main articles: Pseudoscience, Fringe science, Junk science, Cargo cult science, and Scientific misconduct

An area of study or speculation that masquerades as science in an attempt to claim a legitimacy that it would not otherwise be able to achieve is sometimes referred to as pseudoscience, fringe science, or "alternative science".^[66] Another term, junk science, is often used to describe scientific hypotheses or conclusions which, while perhaps legitimate in themselves, are believed to be used to support a position that is seen as not legitimately justified by the totality of evidence. Physicist Richard Feynman coined the term "cargo cult science" in reference to pursuits that have the formal trappings of science but lack "a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty" that allows their results to be rigorously evaluated.^[67] Various types of commercial advertising, ranging from hype to fraud, may fall into these categories.

There also can be an element of political or ideological bias on all sides of such debates. Sometimes, research may be characterized as "bad science", research that is well-intentioned but is seen as incorrect, obsolete, incomplete, or over-simplified expositions of scientific ideas. The term "scientific misconduct" refers to situations such as where researchers have intentionally misrepresented their published data or have purposely given credit for a discovery to the wrong person.^[68]

Critiques

Main article: Criticism of science

Philosophical critiques

Historian Jacques Barzun termed science "a faith as fanatical as any in history" and warned against the use of scientific thought to suppress considerations of meaning as integral to human existence.^[69] Many recent thinkers, such as Carolyn Merchant, Theodor Adorno and E. F. Schumacher considered that the 17th century scientific revolution shifted science from a focus on understanding nature, or wisdom, to a focus on manipulating nature, i.e. power, and that science's emphasis on manipulating nature leads it inevitably to manipulate people, as well.^[70] Science's focus on quantitative measures has led to critiques that it is unable to recognize important qualitative aspects of the world.^[70]

Philosopher of science Paul K Feyerabend advanced the idea of epistemological anarchism, which holds that there are no useful and exception-free methodological rules governing the progress of science or the growth of knowledge, and that the idea that science can or should operate according to universal and fixed rules is unrealistic, pernicious and detrimental to science itself.^[71] Feyerabend advocates treating science as an ideology alongside others such as religion, magic and mythology, and considers the dominance of science in society authoritarian and unjustified.^[71] He also contended (along with Imre Lakatos) that the demarcation problem of distinguishing science from pseudoscience on objective grounds is not possible and thus fatal to the notion of science running according to fixed, universal rules.^[71]

Feyerabend also criticized science for not having evidence for its own philosophical precepts. Particularly the notion of Uniformity of Law and the Uniformity of Process across time and space. "We have to realize that a unified theory of the physical world simply does not exist" says Feyerabend, "We have theories that work in restricted regions, we have purely formal attempts to condense them into a single formula, we have lots of unfounded claims (such as the claim that all of chemistry can be reduced to physics), phenomena that do not fit into the accepted framework are suppressed; in physics, which many scientists regard as the one really basic science, we have now at least three different points of view...without a promise of conceptual (and not only formal) unification".^[72]

Sociologist Stanley Aronowitz scrutinizes science for operating with the presumption that the only acceptable criticisms of science are those conducted within the methodological framework that science has set up for itself. That science insists that only those who have been inducted into its community, through means of training and credentials, are qualified to make these criticisms.^[73] Aronowitz also alleges that while scientists consider it absurd that Fundamentalist Christianity uses biblical references to bolster their claim that the Bible is true, scientists pull the same tactic by using the tools of science to settle disputes concerning its own validity.^[74]

Psychologist Carl Jung believed that though science attempted to understand all of nature, the experimental method imposed artificial and conditional questions that evoke equally artificial answers. Jung encouraged, instead of these 'artificial' methods, empirically testing the world in a holistic manner.^[75] David Parkin compared the epistemological stance of science to that of divination.^[76] He suggested that, to the degree that divination is an epistemologically specific means of gaining insight into a given question, science itself can be considered a form of divination that is framed from a Western view of the nature (and thus possible applications) of knowledge.

Several academics have offered critiques concerning ethics in science. In Science and Ethics, for example, the philosopher Bernard Rollin examines the relevance of ethics to science, and argues in favor of making education in ethics part and parcel of scientific training.

Неделя 6 - 6 часов

СРО: Write the essay on the topic “Computers ruin childhood” Texts for reading and comprehension

Text 1 A Computer

A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem. An important class of computer operations on some computing platforms is the accepting of input from human operators and the output of results formatted for human consumption. The interface between the computer and the human operator is known as the user interface.

Conventionally a computer consists of some form of memory for data storage, at least one element that carries out arithmetic and logic operations, and a sequencing and control element that can change the order of operations based on the information that is stored. Peripheral devices allow information to be entered from an external source, and allow the results of operations to be sent out.

A computer's processing unit executes series of instructions that make it read, manipulate and then store data. Conditional instructions change the sequence of instructions as a function of the current state of the machine or its environment.

The first electronic digital computers were developed in the mid-20th century (1940–1945). Originally, they were the size of a large room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal computers (PCs).^[1] In this era mechanical analog computers were used for military applications.

Modern computers based on integrated circuits are millions to billions of times more capable than the early machines, and occupy a fraction of the space.^[2] Simple computers are small enough to fit into mobile devices, and mobile computers can be powered by small batteries. Personal computers in their various forms are icons of the Information Age and are what most people think of as "computers". However, the embedded computers found in many devices from mp3 players to fighter aircraft and from toys to industrial robots are the most numerous.

Text 2 History of computing

The first use of the word "computer" was recorded in 1613, referring to a person who carried out calculations, or computations, and the word continued with the same meaning until the middle of the 20th century. From the end of the 19th century onwards, the word began to take on its more familiar meaning, describing a machine that carries out computations.^[3]

The Jacquard loom, on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, England, was one of the first programmable devices.

The history of the modern computer begins with two separate technologies—automated calculation and programmability—but no single device can be identified as the earliest computer, partly because of the inconsistent application of that term. A few devices are worth mentioning though, like some mechanical aids to computing, which were very successful and survived for centuries until the advent of the electronic calculator, like the Sumerian abacus, designed around 2500 BC^[4] which descendant won a speed competition against a modern desk calculating machine in Japan in 1946,^[5] the slide rules, invented in the 1620s, which were carried on five Apollo space missions, including to the moon^[6] and arguably the astrolabe and the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient astronomical computer built by the Greeks around 80 BC.^[7] The Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria (c. 10–70 AD) built a mechanical theater which performed a play lasting 10 minutes and was operated by a complex system of ropes and drums that might be considered to be a means of deciding which parts of the mechanism performed which actions and when.^[8] This is the essence of programmability.

Around the end of the tenth century, the French monk Gerbert d'Aurillac brought back from Spain the drawings of a machine invented by the Moors that answered Yes or No to the questions it was asked (binary arithmetic).^[9] Again in the thirteenth century, the monks Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon built talking androids without any further development (Albertus Magnus complained that he had wasted forty years of his life when Thomas Aquinas, terrified by his machine, destroyed it).^[10]

In 1642, the Renaissance saw the invention of the mechanical calculator,^[11] a device that could perform all four arithmetic operations without relying on human intelligence.^[12] The mechanical calculator was at the root of the development of computers in two separate ways; initially, it is in trying to develop more powerful and more flexible calculators^[13] that the computer was first theorized by Charles Babbage^[14][15] and then developed,^[16] leading to the development of mainframe computers in the 1960s, but also the microprocessor, which started the personal computer revolution, and which is now at the heart of all computer systems regardless of size or purpose,^[17] was invented serendipitously by Intel^[18] during the development of an electronic calculator, a direct descendant to the mechanical calculator.^[19]

Text 3 First general-purpose computers

In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard made an improvement to the textile loom by introducing a series of punched paper cards as a template which allowed his loom to weave intricate patterns automatically. The resulting Jacquard loom was an important step in the development of computers because the use of punched cards to define woven patterns can be viewed as an early, albeit limited, form of programmability.

The Most Famous Image in the Early History of Computing^[20]

This portrait of Jacquard was woven in silk on a Jacquard loom and required 24,000 punched cards to create (1839). It was only produced to order. Charles Babbage owned one of these portraits ; it inspired him in using perforated cards in his analytical engine^[21]

It was the fusion of automatic calculation with programmability that produced the first recognizable computers. In 1837, Charles Babbage was the first to conceptualize and design a fully programmable mechanical computer, his analytical engine.^[22] Limited finances and Babbage's inability to resist tinkering with the design meant that the device was never completed ; nevertheless his son, Henry Babbage, completed a simplified version of the analytical engine's computing unit (the mill) in 1888. He gave a successful demonstration of its use in computing tables in 1906. This machine was given to the Science museum in South Kensington in 1910.

In the late 1880s, Herman Hollerith invented the recording of data on a machine readable medium. Prior uses of machine readable media, above, had been for control, not data. "After some initial trials with paper tape, he settled on punched cards ..."^[23] To process these punched cards he invented the tabulator, and the keypunch machines. These three inventions were the foundation of the modern information processing industry. Large-scale automated data processing of punched cards was performed for the 1890 United States Census by Hollerith's company, which later became the core of IBM. By the end of the 19th century a number of ideas and technologies, that would later prove useful in the realization of practical computers, had begun to appear: Boolean algebra, the vacuum tube (thermionic valve), punched cards and tape, and the teleprinter.

During the first half of the 20th century, many scientific computing needs were met by increasingly sophisticated analog computers, which used a direct mechanical or electrical model of the problem as a basis for computation. However, these were not programmable and generally lacked the versatility and accuracy of modern digital computers.

Alan Turing is widely regarded to be the father of modern computer science. In 1936 Turing provided an influential formalisation of the concept of the algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, providing a blueprint for the electronic digital computer.^[24] Of his role in the creation of the modern computer, Time magazine in naming Turing one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, states: "The fact remains that everyone who taps at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine".^[24]

The Zuse Z3, 1941, considered the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computing machine.

The ENIAC, which became operational in 1946, is considered to be the first general-purpose electronic computer.

EDSAC was one of the first computers to implement the stored program (von Neumann) architecture.

Die of an Intel 80486DX2 microprocessor (actual size: 12×6.75 mm) in its packaging.

The Atanasoff–Berry Computer (ABC) is the world's first electronic digital computer ^[25]; Atanasoff is considered the father of the computer ^[26]. Conceived in 1937 by Iowa State College physics professor John Atanasoff, and built with the assistance of graduate student Clifford Berry,^[27] the machine was not programmable, being designed only to solve systems of linear equations. The computer did employ parallel computation. A 1973 court ruling in a patent dispute found that the patent for the 1946 ENIAC computer derived from the Atanasoff–Berry Computer.

The first program-controlled computer was invented by Konrad Zuse, who built the Z3, an electromechanical computing machine, in 1941.^[28] The first programmable electronic computer was the Colossus, built in 1943 by Tommy Flowers.

George Stibitz is internationally recognized as a father of the modern digital computer. While working at Bell Labs in November 1937, Stibitz invented and built a relay-based calculator he dubbed the "Model K" (for "kitchen table", on which he had assembled it), which was the first to use binary circuits to perform an arithmetic operation. Later models added greater sophistication including complex arithmetic and programmability.^[29]

A succession of steadily more powerful and flexible computing devices were constructed in the 1930s and 1940s, gradually adding the key features that are seen in modern computers. The use of digital electronics (largely invented by Claude Shannon in 1937) and more flexible programmability were vitally important steps, but defining one point along this road as "the first digital electronic computer" is difficult.^{Shannon 1940} Notable achievements include.

• Konrad Zuse's electromechanical "Z machines". The Z3 (1941) was the first working machine featuring binary arithmetic, including floating point arithmetic and a measure of programmability. In 1998 the Z3 was proved to be Turing complete, therefore being the world's first operational computer.^[30]

• The non-programmable Atanasoff–Berry Computer (commenced in 1937, completed in 1941) which used vacuum tube based computation, binary numbers, and regenerative capacitor memory. The use of regenerative memory allowed it to be much more compact than its peers (being approximately the size of a large desk or workbench), since intermediate results could be stored and then fed back into the same set of computation elements.

• The secret British Colossus computers (1943),^[31] which had limited programmability but demonstrated that a device using thousands of tubes could be reasonably reliable and electronically reprogrammable. It was used for breaking German wartime codes.

• The Harvard Mark I (1944), a large-scale electromechanical computer with limited programmability.^[32]

• The U.S. Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory ENIAC (1946), which used decimal arithmetic and is sometimes called the first general purpose electronic computer (since Konrad Zuse's Z3 of 1941 used electromagnets instead of electronics). Initially, however, ENIAC had an inflexible architecture which essentially required rewiring to change its programming.

Text 4 Bugs

The actual first computer bug, a moth found trapped on a relay of the Harvard Mark II computer

Errors in computer programs are called "bugs". Bugs may be benign and not affect the usefulness of the program, or have only subtle effects. But in some cases they may cause the program - or the entire system - to "hang"—become unresponsive to input such as mouse clicks or keystrokes, or to completely fail or "crash". Otherwise benign bugs may sometimes be harnessed for malicious intent by an unscrupulous user writing an "exploit"—code designed to take advantage of a bug and disrupt a computer's proper execution. Bugs are usually not the fault of the computer. Since computers merely execute the instructions they are given, bugs are nearly always the result of programmer error or an oversight made in the program's design.^[35]

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper is credited for having first used the term 'bugs' in computing after a dead moth was found shorting a relay of the Harvard Mark II computer in September 1947.^[36]

Text 5 Machine code

In most computers, individual instructions are stored as machine code with each instruction being given a unique number (its operation code or opcode for short). The command to add two numbers together would have one opcode, the command to multiply them would have a different opcode and so on. The simplest computers are able to perform any of a handful of different instructions; the more complex computers have several hundred to choose from—each with a unique numerical code. Since the computer's memory is able to store numbers, it can also store the instruction codes. This leads to the important fact that entire programs (which are just lists of these instructions) can be represented as lists of numbers and can themselves be manipulated inside the computer in the same way as numeric data. The fundamental concept of storing programs in the computer's memory alongside the data they operate on is the crux of the von Neumann, or stored program, architecture. In some cases, a computer might store some or all of its program in memory that is kept separate from the data it operates on. This is called the Harvard architecture after the Harvard Mark I computer. Modern von Neumann computers display some traits of the Harvard architecture in their designs, such as in CPU caches.

While it is possible to write computer programs as long lists of numbers (machine language) and while this technique was used with many early computers,^[37] it is extremely tedious and potentially error-prone to do so in practice, especially for complicated programs. Instead, each basic instruction can be given a short name that is indicative of its function and easy to remember—a mnemonic such as ADD, SUB, MULT or JUMP. These mnemonics are collectively known as a computer's assembly language. Converting programs written in assembly language into something the computer can actually understand (machine language) is usually done by a computer program called an assembler. Machine languages and the assembly languages that represent them (collectively termed low-level programming languages) tend to be unique to a particular type of computer. For instance, an ARM architecture computer (such as may be found in a PDA or a hand-held videogame) cannot understand the machine language of an Intel Pentium or the AMD Athlon 64 computer that might be in a PC.^[38]

Text 6 Higher-level languages and program design

Though considerably easier than in machine language, writing long programs in assembly language is often difficult and is also error prone. Therefore, most practical programs are written in more abstract high-level programming languages that are able to express the needs of the programmer more conveniently (and thereby help reduce programmer error). High level languages are usually "compiled" into machine language (or sometimes into assembly language and then into machine language) using another computer program called a compiler.^[39] High level languages are less related to the workings of the target computer than assembly language, and more related to the language and structure of the problem(s) to be solved by the final program. It is therefore often possible to use different compilers to translate the same high level language program into the machine language of many different types of computer. This is part of the means by which software like video games may be made available for different computer architectures such as personal computers and various video game consoles.

The task of developing large software systems presents a significant intellectual challenge. Producing software with an acceptably high reliability within a predictable schedule and budget has historically been difficult; the academic and professional discipline of software engineering concentrates specifically on this challenge.

The additional activity

Objectives

Students will understand the following: 1. Inventions can change the way we live. 2. Many inventions start out with design flaws and are refined later by subsequent inventors and designers. 3. The computer, invented in 1834 by Charles Babbage and still being refined, is an example of such an invention.

Materials

For this lesson, you will need: • If possible, an encyclopedia dated 1980 or earlier, with an entry for computer • A computer with Internet access

Procedures

1. Ask students if they know who invented the computer. If they don't know, inform them that, in 1884, Charles Babbage, an English mathematician, tried to build a complicated machine called the "analytical engine." It was mechanical, rather than electronic, and Babbage never completed it, but computers today are based on many of the principles he used in his design. Your students may be interested to know that, as recently as forty years ago, computers were so large that they filled whole rooms. They were so complicated that only specially trained people were able to use them. 2. If you can find an encyclopedia dated 1980 or earlier, have students read the entry for computer and hold a brief discussion of computers then and now. 3. Ask students if they can think of any other inventions that changed the way we work and live. Can they trace changes and refinements in those inventions? An example might be the sewing machine, which, originally, was mechanical, rather than electric, and had to be operated by a foot pedal. Another might be the phonograph, which evolved into the CD player. 4. Tell the class that the activity in which they will participate will illustrate how inventions have evolved and are still evolving. Start by having students find partners. 5. Give each pair of partners the following assignment: Select a common, non-electric household item that you believe is important. Together, write down answers to the following questions about your item: What need does this item fill? What do you think the first one looked like? How did it change? How could it still be improved? What might this item look like in the future? (Draw a sketch.) 6. After students have selected their items and answered their questions, have each pair of partners give an oral presentation on their findings. 7. Lead a class discussion about how the activity applies to computers and how they evolved and continue to evolve.

Adaptations

Adaptations for Older Students: Have students research computer history. Have each student choose an earlier stage of the computer and compare and contrast it with computers we use today.

Discussion Questions

1. Babbage designed his mechanical computer in 1834. Why did it take electronics to make a practical computing machine? 2. The computer came from research by the U.S. Army to better fight wars. Should the U.S. spend money researching how to fight and kill better? 3. The Internet is blurring the lines between computing and communications. Is this a good thing? What are the positive and negative aspects of this technology?

Evaluation

You can evaluate your students on their assignments using the following three-point rubric: Three points: all questions answered, sketch imaginative and carefully executed, oral presentation well-organized and presented in a clear and lively manner Two points: most questions answered, sketch adequately executed, oral presentation clear and organized One point: few questions answered, sketch missing or poorly executed, oral presentation lacking clarity and organization You can ask your students to contribute to the assessment rubric by determining criteria for a well-organized and lively presentation.

Extensions

Dive into a Think Tank The U.S. Government pays millions of dollars a year to "think tanks." These are organizations that research the state of things now and where they think things are going. In your class, establish think-tank teams of people with varied interests. Their assignment is to develop an image of a possible American culture fifty years from now. They should consider these questions: What can the Internet do? How do people communicate? What new uses have been found for integrated circuits? What advances in health care occurred because of the computer and/or integrated circuit? What are the problems in society as a result of growth and development? What new job possibilities are there that don't exist today? The culmination of the activity is an oral presentation by each team, painting the picture of the world they envision and giving reasons for their predictions. "They can put a human being on the Moon, but..." Ask your students if they can think of any things we use in everyday life that are not very well designed. Do they think there are needs that no one has yet filled with the appropriate invention? Have students choose one of the following assignments: A. Find an item used at home, school, or another place you frequent, that is not designed well, and redesign it to make it easier for people to use. (Designs may be presented as drawings or physical mock-ups. Mock-ups may be made from any materials available. They do not necessarily have to work, just so they represent what the real item would look like, either full size or to scale.) B. Think of a problem that hasn't been solved or a need that hasn't been met, and design an invention to provide a solution or fill that need. Respond in writing to the following: 1. Define the problem. 2. Give causes for the problem. 3. Describe your solution. 4. Tell why your solution will improve the situation. Have students give five-minute oral presentations when they have completed either assignment A or B.

Suggested Readings

The History of Computers Les Freed, Ziff-Davis Press, 1995 With fascinating photographs which cover the earliest mechanical calculators, this Ziff-Davis publication offers the clearest and most entertaining history of computer technology. The "must-read" title for this topic! Computers for Beginners Margaret Stephens and Rebecca Treays, Usborne Publishing, Ltd., 1995 Despite cartoon-style illustrations, this resource offers sophisticated, detailed explanations regarding computer programs, essential hardware and software, and such accessories as mouse, scanners, and compact discs.

Недели 7-8 – 9 часов

СРО: Неделя – 7: Write the essay on the topic “The invention impressed me”

Неделя – 8: Prepare the project “The modern world: science and education”

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№ 1.The achievement of science and technical revolution and our day-to-day life

As the years go forward our life becomes faster, a lot of new things appear, our mind develops and it cannot stop. It's like a strong river which never ends to run and it is rapidly spreading all over the earth. Many centuries ago people even couldn't imagine that we will be able to exchange information using telephone, fax, Internet as long as they couldn't think that there are a lot of planets except our earth and that people can fly their. If we think how had everything developed, how many new things had appeared and how had the minds of people become so wide we even won't be able to understand it because nowadays we cannot imagine our life without such inventions like lamps, ovens, central heating and others. During the centuries people have been invented the things to make our life easier. A great invention such as transport plays one of the most important roles in our life. We live in flats, can appear in different point of earth within a day, can say hello to people who live in another point of the world. All those things are a product of technical progress and it doesn't stop to grow and develop. Nowadays we live surrounded by machines and other inventions. And with new inventions we become happier because nearly everything is making by machine not by ourselves. And from day to day appear more and more new things. And we don't think about how the first inventions were created. The only thing we know that we never will return to the life which people lived a lot of centuries ago because there is no way back. Everything is handy. We use at home vacuum cleaners to clean the flat, ovens to cook, lifts to walk down in our houses, lamps to make our flats light…. There are a lot of such things like this, and we even don't think about when and where and who invented it. And it's so simple to us. And it's so dear to us that we cannot even live without it. Our century is a century of developing informational connection. Faxes, TV, Internet, and Telephone became the most popular way of getting and sending information. One of the greatest inventions of the century, in my opinion is computer. It's the coup in the technology. When Charles Babbage (1792-1871), a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University invented the first calculating machine in 1812 he could hardly have imagined the situation we find ourselves today. Computer becomes like a brain of human but the only thing it cannot do is to feel. The other things are easy to it. As everything computers also develop. The possibilities of it are so wide. It can do more than 500000 sums in a fraction of a second. Programming became one of the most useful and popular profession. Nowadays computers can pay wages, reserve seats on planes, control sputniks, compose music. Also everybody knows the words Cd Rom, a means of storing information on a disk to be read by a computer, e-mail, which becomes one of the ways to exchange information, the Internet - a network that is a way to get information, to communicate with people, to find everything you need. More and more people become Internet users because we can do so many things their and also cannot say all of them. You can chat there, find job, pay bills, get music, buy something, find referats, and know the latest news exchange information with other people in each point of earth by e-mail and a lot of other functions. As for me it became a usual thing to be connected to Internet. It attracts me by a wide variety of different kinds of information which is necessary to people. Of coarse I use a lot of other things of technology at home. And I think that the main point of such inventions as vacuum cleaners, which we use at home, radio, TV set, mixers, refrigerators, one of the most important thing in every flat all these were invented only after the invention of electricity. So I find the question about technical progress very wide and it's impossible to say about all inventions. And in conclusion I want to say that the technical progress won't stop and the machines will substitute everything except one the human.

№2.Globalisation First of all, I'd like to mention some global companies: Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Marlboro, IBM, McDonald's and Intel, the full list of which we can find in the Forbes magazine. Such big companies, as Nestle or Pepsi have lots of subsidiaries all over the world, and such company as Microsoft - only local support centers, but the "brain center" is in Redmond, but all of them try to enter new markets using local partners and resellers. As for good and bad points of global companies, I can mention that all companies that I know try to increase the quality of their products, as they want to be the leaders in competition. Moreover, every company is always willing to hear the customer's opinion about its products, to receive some suggestions, how to improve the product. Some people can say that they've opened new world thanks to globalisation and, particularly, watching "soap operas". What's more, global companies try to adopt their products to the traditional way if using them. On the other hand, globalisation hurts the local government's ability to deal with wages and taxes. Another bad point is that local factories, which are disappearing every day, use more clean methods of production, as it's not necessary to transfer production on long distances, for example. And now I want to quote Valentine Matvienko, vice-premier of Russia, who took part in the work of Third World Commission of Social Aspects of Globalisation on October, 15th in Geneva. She said that the positive side of globalisation is that qualified workers can migrate to other countries and get a well-paid job. At the same time, she said Russia doesn't want to be out of the border of the world processes. She also told that some problems of globalisation, for example, Russian producers are not ready to rival fight. The will of many foreign companies to weaken our economy in order to put local producers away from the rival market was also mentioned. Vice-minister told that we should save our local culture when entering the global economy, and I fully agree with this.

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In the past twenty years, there has been a dramatic increase in the processing speed of computers, network capacity and the speed of the internet. These advances have paved the way for the revolution of fields such as quantum physics, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. These advances will have a profound effect on the way we live and work, the virtual reality we see in movies like the Matrix, may actually come true in the next decade or so.