Technology and Warfare

The advancement of science and technology has its positive and negative factors. Medically, technology has played a significant role in improving health with cures and life expectancy. Technologically, much of the hard and dangerous labor has been made more efficient by machines. Developments of new substances, like plastic, has increased production of goods by being a substitute for more expensive materials. Like everything else, science has also advanced weapons in warfare. This has resulted in weapons that are more and more deadlier and cause the most harm to a human being. Compared to swords, arrows, and rifles, war today is much different than it used to be. Heavy and dangerous weapons are the result of scientific and technological improvements. World War I first showed signs of these improvements when aircrafts, submarines, barbed wires, poisonous gas, and tanks began to come into the battlefield. Later in World War II, flame throwers, rockets, mines, and more advanced aircrafts and guns came into play as well since technology was still advancing. The Manhattan Project to this day is known as the turn of the tide in the war. This was a research and development project that created the first nuclear weapons. With science becoming more advanced, the equation e=mc^2 (created by Albert Einstein) helped reach the goal of this project. Today, weapons of mass destruction are enough to wipe out cities. Essentially, although technology has helped human civilization progress, it has also played a role in weapons becoming more destructive.