The 21 century has begun. But our life, however, does not seem to have changed in comparacement with the 20 century. We are not living on Mars or exploring new galaxies though many writers of the 20 century predicted that. We are still cooking our meal ourselves instead of using the help of robots and spend hours travelling from one place to another though according to the predictions we were supposed to do this in several seconds. So has our life changed at all?
It seems - no. But let us look on some examples. Who could imagine the role of the computers in the modern world even 30 years ago? Sci-fi writers told us about the probable usage of the computers in science but, I believe, nobody really thought that a computer would become an absolutely necessary thing in our everyday life-a workspace and an entertainer in one thing. And what about the revolution in communications which has been happening for the last 10 years? I mean the mobile phones and the Internet. It seems it was quite recently when a telephone at home was the only way to talk with somebody far away from you and still many people preferred to write letters and then the waiting for the response could last for months sometimes. Now everything is quite different. You can get in touch with your friend from nearly any place of the Earth with the help of the mobile phone and the response on your letter arrives the next second it was sent. And these are the most obvious changes which influenced our lives. I do not mention the latest researches in biology such as the decoding of human genome which was finished in the very beginning if the 21 century or in chemistry and physics which led to the opening of a new frontier-nanotechnologies. We do not pay attention to these facts-but probably just because they have not influenced our life yet.
However, this does not mean that there would be no influence. The possible results, for example, on medicine are fascinating. And, well, it is difficult to predict what will happen in the future-technologies are improving all the time and I would not be surprised if in 10 years` time things that now we cannot imagine would become common and familiar.
Still, we should not forget about the problems that were left to us by the 20 century. The ecological situation is rather serious and globalization has led to some cultural misunderstandings between different nations. However, these problems can be solved if all the humankind would not only realize the importance of these problems but would do something about it as well.
To sum it up, we have lot things to do in the 21 century-from learning todeal with each other to exploring new scientific frontiers. So, what waits for us in the 21 century? Well, that depends on us!
It seems - no. But let us look on some examples. Who could imagine the role of the computers in the modern world even 30 years ago? Sci-fi writers told us about the probable usage of the computers in science but, I believe, nobody really thought that a computer would become an absolutely necessary thing in our everyday life-a workspace and an entertainer in one thing. And what about the revolution in communications which has been happening for the last 10 years? I mean the mobile phones and the Internet. It seems it was quite recently when a telephone at home was the only way to talk with somebody far away from you and still many people preferred to write letters and then the waiting for the response could last for months sometimes. Now everything is quite different. You can get in touch with your friend from nearly any place of the Earth with the help of the mobile phone and the response on your letter arrives the next second it was sent. And these are the most obvious changes which influenced our lives. I do not mention the latest researches in biology such as the decoding of human genome which was finished in the very beginning if the 21 century or in chemistry and physics which led to the opening of a new frontier-nanotechnologies. We do not pay attention to these facts-but probably just because they have not influenced our life yet.
However, this does not mean that there would be no influence. The possible results, for example, on medicine are fascinating. And, well, it is difficult to predict what will happen in the future-technologies are improving all the time and I would not be surprised if in 10 years` time things that now we cannot imagine would become common and familiar.
Still, we should not forget about the problems that were left to us by the 20 century. The ecological situation is rather serious and globalization has led to some cultural misunderstandings between different nations. However, these problems can be solved if all the humankind would not only realize the importance of these problems but would do something about it as well.
To sum it up, we have lot things to do in the 21 century-from learning todeal with each other to exploring new scientific frontiers. So, what waits for us in the 21 century? Well, that depends on us!