SCIENCE IN DAILY LIFE (OR) SCIENCE IN THE MODERN WORLD

Science, in the opinion of Earl Russell: "had few social effects except upon the small number of learned men who took an interest in it, but in recent times it has been transforming ordinary life with ever-increasing velocity."

Since this comment was made in 1949, many rapid developments in all spheres of human life have been brought about by science. No single walk of our existence can now be found on which science has not lent its hand. Man is, in fact, followed by science as by his own shadow. Our daily life as much as the whole society is now so thoroughly intertwined with science that we cannot run away from the shadow of science without bringing life itself to a dead halt.

Science has changed and recast the very nature and pattern of our daily life. Our dependence on it never begins and never ends. It serves us as much when we work, as when we sleep, as largely at home and abroad. Thus, modern life has become a life planned, shaped, adorned and finished in a science laboratory. When a man is at home, science heats the chilly winter and cools the sultry summer accordingly as he wishes. When he goes out, science provides him the swiftest vehicle to travel with speed and comfort. When he is in his office, factory, farm or any other place science follows him like a faithful dog and provides all the services that he may need. Again when it is night, science lights up the streets and homes for his convenience. It also supplies him the purest water to drink and every kind of beverage, hot or cold, accordingly as he chooses. Science also brings him the morning wspaper, the midday entertainment over the radio and the night's recreation in the shape of television, etc. If he wants none of these but a book, that also science has arranged for him. If at dead of nights he desires to contact somebody far away from him right from his bedroom, science is ready with the telephone to help him. If the man is ailing and will not strain to walk up the stair on his return home, there is the lift at his service. Thus a modern man's daily life is made smooth and comfortable, swift and dynamic, by the service of science at everyone of its turns.

Science has also shown us how we can save time and labour. At home, science does our cooking, washing, preserving and even cleaning. It saves our time and money and particularly in these days of self-help many households would face difficulty in the absence of the service rendered by science. Then in the office, science has given us the typewriter, the computing machine, the dictaphone, the duplicator, the telephone, and hundreds of other labour-saving methods. Not only these mechanical devices save our time and give us more leisure to enjoy but also without their assistance the gigantic volume of work required to keep pace with the tempo of last moving life of the day could never be performed in full.

Before the advent of science, man ate food blindly and did not know what food should be taken to preserve health. Science came, analysed the nutritive value of every food-stuff and conveyed the first knowledge of balanced diet. We now know what should be eaten at breakfast and also what should not be taken at night. It went further and prepared synthetic food, containing vitamins and other food values.

Science has contributed no less to the making of modern life incalculably cheap. The application of power to production and the even distribution of world's products among all countries through the use of scientific communication have combined to make daily essentials food, clothes and others very cheap. Books and papers are now available at a price which could not be thought of before the advent of science. Radio and television, are catering cheap amusement on a mass basis. Thus science gives us all that we need for both physical and mental existence and all at the cheapest rate possible.

Even in the villages, where science has not yet made much headway, the daily life of the people are considerably under the influence of science. The villagers get the benefit of industrialism no less than the urban people. They do not have electricity but have kerosene to light their houses and torches to help them in darkness. There are motorable roads and buses which ply regularly affording cheap traffic to men and goods. The radio and gramophone amuse them regularly, while the cycle and the rickshaw carry them from place to place. The life-saving boons of science are open to them as much as in the towns while cheap transport facilities secure them frequent access into the advantages of urban life.

Thus science involves our existence from head to foot. We are so much dependent on it that to isolate science from life would be to cease to live. But we do not feel that we owe so much to science because we have grown accustomed to its gifts and look upon them as things of course. If someday science stops serving us then and there we shall realize in full what it is doing for us now.