Science in Everyday Life
Science is a great blessing to mankind. Nothing better has happened in the history of man than the advent of science. The world into which science came was a world of ignorance, suffering and hardship. Science has come to relieve us of sufferings, to remove our ignorance and to lighten our toil.
Science is a faithful servant of man. It serves us in all walks of life. It is our servant in the home, in the field, in the factory. It serves us at every step in life. Never was there a more helping servant available to man. It is only when we spoil the servant and do not keep him in
proper control that he may cause some 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 rich men could afford luxuries. Science has made them cheap and has brought them within the reach of everybody. Science produces goods on a large scale. These are sold at cheap rates in every market. Books, music and all other forms of entertainment have been brought to our doorstep. Radio, television and cinema help us in passing our time in entertainment. Surely, the daily life of the common man today is very different from what, used to be.
Science is our most faithful medical attendant. It shows every care for our health. Science has cured us of many diseases. It has given us the power to keep epidemics in check. No longer are smallpox, cholera and plague the scourge of mankind. Science gives us 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 to visit holy places. Science has annihilated time and space. Trains roar through desert and jungle, with safety and man travels with safety and speed. But already the train and motor car have become obsolete means of transport. The aeroplanes fly across thousands of kilometers an hour. You can take your breakfast in Kashmir and lunch at London and take your dinner in New York. The work of months and years is completed in hours.
Science is the greatest blessing to the poor housewife. Now she need not always remain busy in the kitchen. A thousand de- vices have been placed at her disposal to lighten her toil. There are electricity-run kitchens in which cooking is a pleasure. There is no dirt, no smoke. Cooking is done in the twinkling of an eye. Electricity serves the housewife to wash and press her clothes and to sweep her floors. No one could be more grateful than the house- wife to the science for its blessings. It has given her leisure to rest, to study and to attend better to her children.
No less happy could be the labourer with science. Science has taken upon 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 of 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 great printing presses which produce large number of books at very cheap rates. It has placed at our disposal scores of means to expel ignorance from mankind. News is brought to us from every corner of the world through the newspaper, the radio and the television. The result is that superstition and ignorance find it difficult now to thrive. No longer can clever people deserve the simple and ordinary people of the world.
However, there is the other side of the picture. Science has done greatest disservice to mankind in the field of armaments. The invention of gunpowder was hailed as a great achievement, but humanity should rue the day on which this invention took place. Steadily and relentlessly, gunpowder has been used and perfected into a hundred new more destructive weapons of war. 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 we will destroy the world with atom bomb or re-build it with atomic energy.
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