SCIENCE IN EVERYDAY LIFE
Science is a great blessing to mankind. Nothing better has happened in the history of man than advent of science in human life. The world into which science came was a world of ignorance, suffering and hardship. Science has come to relieve us of our sufferings, to remove our ignorance and to lighten our toil.
Science is a faithful servant to man. It serves us in all walks of life. It is our servant in the home, in the field and in the factory. It serves us at every step in life. Never was there a more helping servant. It is only when we spoil the servant and not keeps him in proper control that he may cause harm to us. But this is our own fault. A servant has to be kept under control.
Science has transformed our daily life. Gone are the days when only the rich could afford luxuries. Science has made them cheap and has brought them within the reach of everybody. Science produced goods on a large scale. They are sold at cheap rates in every market. Books, musical instruments and all other forms of entertainments have been brought to our door. Radio, television and cinema provide us with good entertainment surely; the daily life of the common man is very different from what it used to be.
Science is our most faithful medical attendant. It shows every care for health. Science has cured us of many diseases. It has given us the power to keep epidemics under check. No longer is smallpox, cholera and plague the scourge of mankind. Science gives us the power to kill germs which spread these diseases. There is hardly any disease today which can be called incurable.
Science has made travelling a pleasure. No longer do we need to part sadly from our relatives and friends when we go on pilgrimage. Science has annihilated time and space. Trains roar through desert and jungle and man travels with safety and speed. But the train and motor car have already become obsolete means of transport.
The aero planes fly across thousands of kilometers in an hour. You can take your breakfast in Kashmir, lunch in Delhi and dinner in Mumbai. The work of months and years is completed in hours.
Science is the greatest blessing to the poor house-wife. Now she need not always remain busy in the kitchen. A thousand devices have been placed at her disposal to lighten her toil. The electrified kitchens make cooking a pleasure. There is no dirt, no smoke and cooking is done in the twinkling of an eye. Electricity serves the house-wife to wash and press clothes and to sweep floor. No one could be more grateful than the house-wife to science for these blessings. It has given her leisure to rest, to study and to attend to her children in a better way.
No less happy could be the labourer with science. Science has taken up on itself the dirtiest of jobs. Man no longer needs to do the back- breaking job of digging into the coal and iron mines with his bare hands. Every factory is a standing tribute to the care and comfort that science has brought into our life.
But this is, by no means the end of the blessings of science. Another job that this servant does for us is to educate us. Science has built large printing presses which produce a large number of books at cheap rate. It has placed at our disposal scores of means to expel ignorance from mankind. News is brought to us from every comer of the world through news paper, radio and television. The invention of computers is one of the major events in the field of science. We are fast approaching to a world in which we can hardly live without computers.
However, there is the other side of the picture. Science has done the greatest service to mankind in the field of armaments. The invention of gunpowder was hailed as a great achievement. Steadily and relentlessly, gunpowder has been used and perfected into a hundred new more destructive weapons. In this connection it is stated that if science, meant for man’s happiness, is employed by man for his own destruction, who can help him? It is certainly not the fault of science if we go on multiplying engines of destruction.
Before us, now lies a new era in which the power of atomic energy has been released. That age will either be of complete devastation or one in which new sources of power will lighten the labour of mankind and increase the standard of living all over the world. It is for us to decide whether to destroy the world with atomic bomb or re-build it with atomic energy.