Read and Speak. Круглова М.В. - 91 стр.

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TEXT 5D. SCIENCE PROBLEMS

Learn some more material about science and answer the

questions: “Why is the division between science and

technology being eraised?”

Science problems can be roughly classified as analytic and synthetic. In analytic

problems we seek the principles of the most profound natural processes, the scientist

working always at the edge of the unknown. This is the situation today, for instance,

within the two extremes of research in physics - elementary particle physics and

astrophysics - both concerned with the properties of matter, one on the smallest, the

other on the grandest scale. Research objectives in these fields are determined by the

internal logic of the development of the field itself. Revolutionary shocks to the

foundations of scientific ideas can be anticipated from these very areas.

As to synthetic problems, they are more often studied because of the possibilities

which they hold for practical applications, immediate an distant, than because their

solution is called for by the logic of science. This kind of motivation strongly

influences the nature of scientific thinking and the methods employed in solving

problems. Instead of traditional scientific question: «How is this to be explained?»

the question behind the research becomes «How is this to be done?» The doing

involves the production of new substance or a new process with certain

predetermined characteristics. In many areas of science, the division between science

and technology is being erased and the chain of research gradually becomes the

sequence of technological and engineering stages involved in working out a problem.

In this sense, science is a Janus-headed figure. On the one hand, it’s pure science,

striving to reach the essence of the laws of the material world. On the other hand, it’s

the basis of a new technology, the workshop of bold technical ideas, and the driving

force behind continuous technical progress.

In popular books and journals we often read that science is making greater strides

every year, that in various fields of science discovery is followed by discovery in at

steady stream of increasing significance and that one daring theory opens the way to

the next. Such may be impression with research becoming a collective doing and

scientific data exchange a much faster process. Every new idea should immediately