"Heinlein, Robert A - The Worlds Of Robert A Heinlein" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

disabling as the nonsense of Lysenkoism is to Russian technology.
Nevertheless there are clear-cut trends which are certain to make this
coming era enormously more productive and interesting than the frantic one
we have just passed through. Among them are:

Cybernetics: The study of communication and control of mechanisms and
organisms. This includes the wonderful field of mechanical and electronic
"brains" Ч but is not limited to it. (These "brains" are a factor in
themselves that will speed up technical progress the way a war does.)

Semantics: A field which seems concerned only with definitions of words. It
is not; it is a frontal attack on epistemology Ч that is to say, how we
know what we know, a subject formerly belonging to long-haired
philosophers.

New tools of mathematics and log, such as calculus of statement, Boolean
logic, morphological analysis, generalized symbology, newly invented
mathematics of every sort Ч there is not space even to name these enormous
fields, but they offer us hope in every other field Ч medicine, social
relations, biology, economics, anything.

Biochemistry: Research into the nature of protoplasm, into enzyme
chemistry, viruses, etc., give hope not only that we may conquer disease,
but that we may someday understand the mechanisms of life itself. Through
this, and with the aid of cybernetic machines and radioactive isotopes, we
may eventually acquire a rigor of chemistry. Chemistry is not a discipline
today; it is a jungle. We know that chemical behavior depends on the number
of orbital electrons in an atom and that physical and chemical properties
follow the pattern called the Periodic Table. We don't know much else, save
by cut-and-try, despite the great size and importance of the chemical
industry. When chemistry becomes a discipline, mathematical chemists will
design new materials, predict their properties, and tell engineers how to
make them Ч without ever entering a laboratory. We've got a long way to go
on that one!

Nucleonics: We have yet to find out what makes the atom tick. Atomic power?
Ч yes, we'll have it, in convenient packages Ч when we understand the
nucleus. The field of radioisotopes alone is larger than was the entire
known body of science in 1900. Before we are through with these problems,
we may find out how the universe is shaped and why. Not to mention enormous
unknown vistas best represented by ? ? ? ? ?

Some physicists are now using two time scales, the T-scale, and the
tau-scale. Three billion years on one scale can equal an incredibly split
second on the other scale Ч and yet both apply to you and your kitchen
stove. Of such anarchy is our present state in physics.

For such reasons we must insist that the Age of Science has not yet opened.