The Internet

The Internet, a global computer network which embraces millions of users all over the world, began in the United States in 1969. It was a military experiment designed to survive a nuclear war. Information sent over the Internet takes the shortest path available from one Computer to another. Any two computers on the Internet stay in touch with each other as long as there is a single route between them.

This technology is called packet switching. If some computers on the network are knocked out (by a nuclear explosion, for example), information will route around them. One such packet-switching network already survived at war. It was the Iraqi computer network, which was used during the Gulf War,

Most of the Internet host computers (more than 50 %) are in the United States, while the rest are located in many other countries. Although the number of host computers can be counted, nobody knows exactly how many people use the Internet, there are millions, and their number is constantly growing worldwide.

The most popular Internet service is e-mail for sending and receiving messages. Other popular services are reading Usenet News, using the World-Wide Web, Telnet, FTP and Gopher.

In many developing countries the Internet may provide businessmen with a reliable and cheap alternative to the expensive and unreliable telecommunication systems of these countries.

People can make money from the Internet. Some western architecture companies and garment centers already transmit their basic designs and concepts over the Internet into China, where they are reworked and refined by skilled - but inexpensive - Chinese computer-aided-design specialists.

The most important problem of the internet is security. When you send an e-mail message it travels through many different networks and computers. The data are constantly being directed towards its destination by special computers called routers. It is possible to get into any computer along the route, intercept and even change the data.

There are many strong encoding programs available, but nearly all the information sent over the Internet is transmitted without any form of encoding, i.e. "in the clear". When you send important information over the network, these encoding programs may be useful.

Some American banks and companies even conduct transactions over the Internet. However there are still both commercial and technical problems, which will take time to be resolved.

Scientific and Technological Progress

The achievements of science and technology can be easily seen in the material level of modern life. It's difficult to overesti­mate their role in contemporary world. They accelerate the development of civilization and help us in our co-operation with na­ture. Scientists investigate the laws of the universe, discover the secrets of nature and apply their knowledge in practice im­proving the life of people.

Nowadays modern, industry is fulfilled with the help of robots which have replaced man in some hard or dangerous labour. Robots provide people with all necessities - they have vision systems and work at very high speeds. And today they are used for skilled work like welding, spray painting and assembling components. Although robots have some disadvantages their main benefit is the quality of work. They never get bored with their tasks.

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. These are of course the modern conveniences and appliances. We can't imagine our life today without telephone, television, fax, cars, planes, computers, space rockets etc. They wouId seem miracle to them. They make our life easy, comfort­able and pleasant.

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 if became the age of the conquest of space when for the first time in the history of man- kind a man overcame the gravity and. entered the Universe. The achievements of space exploration have surpassed the wildest expectations of men. Scientists could hardly foresee satellites and long-term stations and international crews working in space for months and astronauts walking in cuter space. It is a real wonder, isn't it?

And now we live in the information era when the computer network embraces the globe. Computers have be­come the basis of modern communication systems. They are essential tools in almost every field of research and applied technol­ogy.

The advance of medicine enables people to perform the most complicated operations with the help of modern equipment and to keep people alive with the help of implanted parts. In the 20th century many infectious diseases have been conquered through vaccines, antibiotics, and improved living conditions.

All these things prove the power and the greatest progressive role of science in our life.

But every medal has its reverse. Rapid scientific progress has aroused a number of problems. Scientists have in­vented many things but not all of them are peaceful. There are such inventions as nuclear weapons, atom bombs, nuclear power stations etc. Scientists should be responsible for their discoveries otherwise our planet may disappear one day.

The ecology is also harmed by the development of civilization. Many species are dying out. Forests are destroyed by acid rains and cut out for farming. Natural resources are being-exhausted.

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.