The future of cybernetics

The new science dealing with the problems of maximum control and governing of processes, known as cybernetics, occupies a leading place among the sciences of the future. The objective of this new science of controlling complicated natural processes and phenomena of society and industry is to increase the efficiency of human labour.

The field of research which has been attracting man's resources and effort for many centuries is our environment of living nature. However, progress in biology and medicine has been comparatively slow for developments in living organisms are extremely com­plicated.-

Advances in instruments construction, the theory of information, mathematical logic’s, electronics and cybernetics open up great pro­spects of accelerating the pace of research in biology and medicine.

The part played by cybernetics in increasing the efficiency of those engaged in planning, finance, supply and other spheres of economic activity will also grow. This field of human endeavour is becoming increasingly important in our rapidly expanding and well planned socialist economy, in particular. We are facing the task of continuous planning and ensuring a well balanced development of all the branches of the national economy.

At present there are thousands of electronic computers in opera­tion throughout the world.

The existence of hundreds of computing centres equipped with learning and rapid acting machines, and connected by automatic communication lines with industry, supply centres, transport and organs of finance will fundamentally change national economic ma­nagement. Controlled by cybernetics, industrial enterprises will operate at their most efficient peak. This, in its turn, will effect tremendous economy of time and resources.

The comparatively simple methods of automation used for some technologies will become more and more complicated. As production techniques become more efficient, they can be more effectively con­trolled, with the aim of raising the quality and the quantity of ma­nufactured goods and improving working conditions.

Despite the numerous results of research into cybernetics, open­ing up breath-taking prospects for science, industry and economics generally, it is still hard to predict the achievements this wonderful science may make in the near future, since the pace of technical progress is exceptionally great and continually increasing.

The advance in the technical progress is the outcome, primarily of the talent, inventiveness and the effort of man — this great re-maker and master of nature.

COMMENTARY

this field of human endeavor эта об­ласть человеческой деятельности

in its turn в свою очередь

breath-taking захватывающие дух

Our solar family

Our solar family consists of the sun, nine known planets and their satellites, asteroids, comets and meteors.

The most important body in this great family is the sun. There are few- kinds of energy on the earth that are not the gift of the sun.

The sun's mass is 750 times that of all the planets put together. Like all the other bodies in the universe, it is composed of the same sort of materials, we find on the earth. Of all the elements or build­ing blocks of nature which we have discovered, some 68 have been found on the sun, and none have been found in the sun which are not now known on earth.

Our sun has a surface temperature of about 6,000°C. A star as hot as the sun must radiate an enormous amount of heat. Every square metre of the sun's surface radiates energy equal to 84,000 horse power. Yet, the total amount the earth receives is only a very small fraction of it. Here is a possible source of energy for the fu­ture. The age of the earth is about two billions of years. The sun must have been in existence long before the earth was formed. Dur­ing all that time the sun has been radiating heat continuously, and still continues to do so. To produce this great amount of heat would require the hourly burning over its entire surface of a layer of high-grade anthracite coal sixteen feet thick. If the heat of the sun were produced by burning coal, it would require an inexhaustible supply to furnish such intense heat over this great period of time.

Mars aroused more metres than any of the other planets. When nearest the earth, as it was in September 1956, it is an object of great beauty.

There are many ways in which this planet is similar to the earth. It rotates on an axis in about the same time as does the earth. It has seasons similar to the seasons on the earth, except that they are nearly twice as long.

Small bodies located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter are called asteroids.

Of these bodies, called "planetoids" or miniature planets, the largest is Ceres — 780 kilometres in diameter. Their origin is, as. yet, not fully known. It is thought that they represent small masses of matter that were not able to combine into larger ones during the genesis, of the solar family.

COMMENTARY

the sun must have been in existence солнце, должно быть, существовало

are of greatest interest to man представляет наибольший интерес для человека

twice as long в два раза длиннее