Major Technological Achievements of the Twentieth Century - Coursework Example

Name: Instructor’s name Institution Subject Date Major technological achievements of the twentieth century and how standard of living has been improved for many people The past century is one that saw unprecedented rises in the living standards as well as life expectancy. It is also in that century there were major witnesses in structural changes, there was the rise in government and above all there were two globalizations. Besides the achievements in development the economic history in this century was marred by policy as well as market failures which resulted in a massive depression worldwide (Bellis). In the last 100 hundred years. Life was characterized by constant struggle against pollution, diseases; there was deforestation, treacherous working conditions, as well as enormous cultural divided. But by the end of the 20thcentury, the global changes characterized by technological change have made the world a healthier and safer, more productive place all this because of the advances in technology that were seen in the 20th century (Bellis). The 20th century can be said to be one of the most innovative and exiting era; it was an era of accomplishments in every aspect of the history of society. The 20th century begun with the airplanes infancy, automobiles and then radio; all these inventions dazzled the human kind with their uniqueness as well as wonder. Nonetheless, there were two views of the 20th century; on one hand we see hard economic times marked by the recessions of the 1930s, 1980s, and the 1990s not forgetting that there were the two world wars. Electrification, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Nevertheless, there were vast improvements mostly that were technologically instigated which as a result improved the standard of living for people around the world. We see an achievement on electrification in the 20th century. This achievement powers almost every pursuit as well as enterprise in the modern society. Electrification has literally lighted the entire world. Its impacts to the improvement of the standards of living of the people are countless and they range through all the areas of everyday life (Bellis). Electrification touches on the major sectors that primary measures the improvement of the human standards of living that include the increase in the food production. Food is a basic need to every person and until there is enough food to feed the population, then the other measures of the standard of living cannot be said to grow. With technology, there has been massive production of food to be able to feed the ever growing population. Food processing has also increased and improved not forgetting that electrification has resulted to the improvement of preservation methods. It also touches on other areas such as transport, communication and healthcare (Bellis). With the major change that was achieved within the food production in the twentieth century, there was dramatic change for it brought a better nutrition to many people not forgetting an increased food supply. If importance in this area is the mechanization of agriculture which has ensured that no food is lost in the harvesting since there are self propelled machines ensuring that no food is lost during harvesting. At the end work is made easier and cheaply. The technological achievement brought about by electrification is vivid on the vast networks of electricity that happen to be behind powering the developed world. As touched on above, electrification underscores how seemingly commonplace technologies have great impacts on the economy of cities not forgetting the worker productivity which in turn would mean the improvement of living standards for this working group from the employment opportunity brought about by this technological achievement (Rajendra). Improvements in Health The 20th century saw the greatest achievements in the health field with the improvements seen in the methods and practice which as a result improved the life expectancy as well as standards of living since the people’s life was improved. There were great advances in science, where creative inventions came at an accelerating pace that all the society complains about is gadget overload and information (Cutcliffe). One of the areas that greatly improved in health was imaging; this marked significant achievements from the atom to the vast galaxies found in the far reaches of space. The new classes of imaging technologies that were achieved in the 20th century have enable human beings to have expansions literally. The visions of the humans have expanded to unprecedented levels of analysis and scrutiny (Rajendra). It is these achievements in the health sector that many diseases were discovered and the way to completely dealing with them were discovered. There were and are drugs for many of the complications that affected human development and what this resulted are that people were able to lead a normal life without health challenges. This meant that the level population growth rate continued going up since the life expectancy for many people around the world went up with the elimination of diseases. For example, probing inside the human body were the technological achievements in health such as the CT scans, X-rays, and MRIs monitoring the body life forces. With these achievements, the identification of diseases as well as body anomalies not forgetting treating them. These are some of the imaging activities that the technological achievement came with (Rajendra). This improved the standard of living through maintaining a good health for them. Agricultural Mechanization At the start of the century, a team of farmers consisting of large group as well as large hands took a lot of time to plant and also harvest crops. Research also has it that it took four farmers to be able to feed 10 people. In today’s ;life and time, it is possible to plant the entire Midwestern corn crop in 10days and the same proportion be harvested in 20 days with the earlier low proportion of production has be increased with only one farmer being able to feed 97 people through their increased production (Cutcliffe). All this has been as a result of the twentieth century technological achievements which have made it possible and easy for the farmers due to the mechanization of agriculture. This spread of advanced technology offers much promise to the reaching of the millennium goals not forgetting the battle against hunger and famine in this new millennium (Rajendra). As a result, the standard of living for the people has greatly improved by the technological achievement in the mechanization of agriculture. People have been able to save money on the labor since what was being done a team of people is done in a shorter time and effectively thereby increasing production meaning that the farmers have something to smile about from the produce. The feeding population on the other hand are not left out either since with the increased production a lot of food is made available to them at a cost is favorable to them thereby making the standards of living much better for both the producer and the consumer (Rajendra). With all these technological achievements that by many ways improved the standards of living, another problem emanating from the blessing is the population growth. With the advances made in the health sector, agriculture, and automobiles, this meant that the people’s quality of life was improved and as a result the high life expectancy (Cutcliffe). This has again brought in the whole issue of an increased population since there is high fertility, migration, and low mortality rates since the issues/factors that that affected the quality of life negatively were wiped out with the technologically driven drugs as well as ways of body examination. View on population growth With many societies and groups historically having discouraged contraception so as to assure its members survival, the population growth rate needs to be checked. According to Malthus, if the human population increases were left unchecked, there would eventually be chaos. It is evident today that there is already chaos between human and the environment. There is great interference with the ecosystem causing great degradation of and great environmental changes. For this reason, the growth rate of the world population needs to be checked for if things continue to be as they presumably are we will be staring at exponentially increase to an extent that the situation will be out of control (Bellis). Though there are several merits emanating from technological advances such as increase farm production as well as increased agriculture, there is an increases development as well, as acceptance of the available birth control methods. The habitable and fertile land, fresh water, clean air, are just but some of the finite resources that will keep fuelling the population growth. Not forgetting that the advances in medical field increases fertility while it lowers the death rates. This results to a continued increase in the global population exponentially and there is no end in sight this therefore means that a lot needs to be done to counter the effects of population growth as well as to control the population growth (Rajendra). Works Cited Bellis, Mary. 20th Century - the technology, science, and inventions. 2009. 27 March 2012 . Rajendra, Pratik. Technological Advancements and Its Impact on Humanity. 2010. 27 March 2012 . Cutcliffe, Stephen H. "New World of Technology." New worlds, new technologies, new issues. Lehigh University Press, n.d. Panchoo, Oorvashi. Yahoo! Contributor Network. June 2008. 28 March 2012 . Werff, Terry J. van der. Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century. 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