Emerging Technology

When it comes to technology, we live in what is probably the most exciting time in all of human history. Less than two hundred years ago, most people were living the same kind of life as their ancestors had been for hundreds of years, and few things had changed for a long time. However, with the advent of the industrial revolution, society and the way it has always worked rapidly began to change. One of the major changes was urbanization ? people who traditionally worked on farms began moving into the cities to work in the newly built factories. People could suddenly travel much further in much less time thanks to technological developments such as the steam engine, and it was also possible for the first time to produce a lot more of a specific kind of product in a much shorter amount of time. Since then, technology has developed more rapidly than anyone could have imagined. By the 1950s we had TV and by the 1970s we had put a man on the moon. Today our smartphones have more computing power than the computers that helped put us on the moon, and the world is more connected than ever before. It may seem normal to us, but it truly is amazing to think of how quickly and how dramatically the world has changed in such a short amount of time.

The emerging technology I’m probably most interested in also pertains to space exploration. It is likely that if it had not been for the cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States which followed the Second World War, man might have never reached the moon. The rivalry and mistrust between these two superpowers led to an effort to outdo each other in the field of space exploration, and arguably the United States achieved the goal of outdoing the Soviet Union when it became the first nation to successfully land a man on the moon. Since then we have, although with less fervor, continued to explore space and send out various probes to explore distant parts of our galaxy that we are unable to reach ourselves. Just last year, we saw the first photo of a black hole. It may have been somewhat blurry and unclear, but it was an incredible achievement, capturing something that human kind had until recently not even known existed.

I am very excited for the upcoming space missions that are set to launch in the 2020s, and I think they will give us a lot of new and interesting insight into our galaxy. One of the most notable space missions set to launch in the coming decade is the James Webb space telescope, or JWST for short. Following on the fantastic success of the Hubble space telescope, the JWST features improved technology which will enable it to see through obstructions such as gas or dust, meaning it will be able to record and photograph further than the Hubble had been able to. I can just imagine what incredible things the JWST will be able to send back to Earth.

Ilze

Vocabulary

advent (n) ? arrival, appearance
pertain (v) ? related to, in connection with
fervor (n) ? an intense and passionate feeling
probe (n) ? an unmanned spacecraft device that goes into space to get information
insight (n) ? information, knowledge
obstruction (n) ? something that blocks the way and keeps one from moving, seeing or hearing