Global communications, We human beings tend to forget how far we have come as a species in a relatively short period of time. It was only in the 1870s when we had the first house that was lighted with electricity. Cars just started to become available 100 years ago. Charles Lindbergh made the first trans-Atlantic flight in 1927. Televisions did not become widely available until after World War 2. In other words, the advances humankind has made in a relatively short period of time have been nothing short of extraordinary is how we tend to simply adapt to these incredible changes, not realizing how completely our world has been altered in a short span of time. With that in mind, it is worth looking back at some of the amazing scientific advances we have made in the last few decades.
The Artificial Heart: There is nothing that piques the interest of the human being quite as much as the prospect of living a longer life. Implanting a person with an artificial heart in 1982 was an extraordinary step towards increasing the human lifespan. A Seattle based dentist, Dr. Barney Clark, was the first person implanted with the Jarvik-7, an artificial heart intended to last a lifetime. The Jarvik-7 artificial heart was designed by Robert Jarvik. Though the patient survived 112 days, its was a huge step towards the development of heart transplant surgery. One day, more advanced versions of artificial organs will likely allow us to live much longer and more productive lives. When we get there, we will owe a lot to Robert Jarvik’s artificial heart.
Cell phones: Phones have been around since the late 1800s, but cell phones made their appearance only in the 1990s. Today, by some estimates, more than 100 million people in Bangladesh and more than 4.6 billion people worldwide have mobile phones. Anything that is useful and spreads so fast has to be considered one of the greatest inventions of all time. Just two decades ago, in Bangladesh, even land lines were difficult to obtain, let a line mobile phones. Today people from all social strata use cell phones, from street vendors to business executives in luxury cars and villagers to urbanites. Since May 2015, Bangladesh joined its South Asian neighbours India (862 million) and Pakistan (122 million) on the list of countries with 100 million or more mobile phone users. The other counties on the list are China (one billion users), Russia, Brazil, the United States, Indonesia, Japan, Germany, the Philippines and Nigeria.
The Personal Computer: Today, we take for granted that we have one machine that allows us to access the Internet, do word processing, use a calculator, watch TV, play games and do a host of other things. But the personal computer only became available to 1985 and it’s good that it was since without the prevalence of personal computers, the Internet wouldn’t have had nearly as big an impact as it has ever since.
First Communications The Satellite: People on Earth mays take for granted today’s high-tech world lf cell phones, GPS and the satellites high above the planet that make instant communication possible. But it all began 50 years ago with one giant space balloon. 10 July 1962 marked the birth of satellite communications. On this day the Telstar satellite commenced its journey into space and became the first ever active communications satellite. It carried the first live trans- Atlantic TV broadcasts. Telster was built by a team at Bell Telephone Laboratories in USA and incorporated many innovations such as the transistor and the 3,600 solar panels that powered the satellite. Telstar produced 14 watt and relayed its first and non –public television pictures on 11 July 1962. The satellite could carry 600 voice calls and one black-and-white TV channel from an egg-shaped orbit. Today, we use satellites for GPS, TV, radio, weather tracking, military surveillance, space exploration and among other things.
