More handpicked essays just for you.
Effect of technology and innovation on society
Impact of technological innovation on society
Essay on nuclear accidents
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
As several years pass to what is now the Information Age, technology is continuing to grow where human hands determine its impact. The countless ideas engineers have and the goal of creating it becomes clearer as it benefits humanity and their endeavours. An engineer’s accomplishments of surpassing the boundaries of the impossible are from the unique innovations from people’s ingenuity. An analogy of this comparison is the similarities of an idea to a seed. In relation, a seed follows a pattern to grow until they reach the point where they can sprout to life and be beneficial to society. Because society has become interdependent by technology, the outcomes shall affect not only society, but the environment also. However, various occurrences …show more content…
A regular city that workers are grateful to work at has become an apocalypse in an instant. Above all, several people have died and the effects on survivors stay with them forever, physically and mentally. Concerning this, the explosion in Pripyat is one sight of “a vision perhaps of what the whole world might look like [if] people just [disappeared]” and that “Chernobyl does not belong to the past; its power will never die. Chernobyl is forever” (“Chernobyl: The Catastrophe That Never Ended”). Similar to 9/11, the people like Andrey Glukhov have “‘[called] it 26, which [is] the date of the accident’” (Chernobyl: The Catastrophe That Never Ended”). This incident lives in people’s minds where just as the radiation, can never leave them. Despite this, it is a lesson to remember and engineers move forward with previous disasters in mind not to allow another destruction to …show more content…
Through their existence, technology continues to be boundless, meaning that there can be both success and failure as engineers follow their path. Nevertheless, failure is inescapable for humans. Whether diminutive or devastating, deficiencies exist in the work humans take part in doing. As flawless as humans are, the problems that occur appears in what they do. In contrast, the way they succeed is similar. Having the ethical standards to prevent a disaster is an essential quality. A guideline that is not tangible is perhaps the reason that saves people’s lives. In addition, engineers are at this high level of technology due to their mistakes and failures. One key element for the future of the world is experiencing different situations. For example, from the worst rocket disaster known as the Nedelin Catastrophe in 1960, engineers have invented rockets that can now reach other planets that were unachievable in the past. Through their experience, it obliges them to think with more complexity to answer the general question of why. In the end, the goal of an engineer is not to only help society in efficient ways. The comprehension of the situation is to enhance the work, but also to improve themselves and their skills for the future. Although disasters are inevitable, it is a
The engineers in Visit Sunny Chernobyl created a new frontier past the safety zone because they want to test the limits of the reactor. What the scientists didn’t account for is that fact that the reactors already had the potential of a dangerous chain reaction. (Blackwell 6) Consequently, their boundary destroying led to catastrophic consequences and the total annihilation of a land area because of massive radiation. Blackwell thought Chernobyl was so horrific he expressed that no one should visit without a “working understanding of radiation and how it’s measured” (Blackwell 7). These are some horrific consequences that followed from surpassing the
On April 26th, 1986, operators at the Chernobyl Power Plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, ran what they thought to be a routine safety test. But fate was not on the side of these operators. Without warning, reactor #4 became unstable, as it had been operating at a low power for a possible shutdown and the reactor’s design caused it to be unsafe at this level of power. Internal temperatures rose. Attempts to cool the system produced the opposite effect. Instantly, the nuclear core surged with power. At 1:23 p.m., the reactor exploded. The first blast ripped off the reactor's steel roof. The second blast released a large plume of radiation into the sky. Flames engulfed the building. For ten long days, fire fighters and power plant workers attempted to overcome the inferno. Thirty-one of them died of radiation poisoning. Chernobyl was the worst nuclear disaster in history. It unleashed radiation hundreds of times greater than the atomic bombs exploded over Japan during World War II. [1]
Chernobyl, one word that still strikes pain and fear in the hearts of many, even after 28 years is still causing serious damage. It was largest nuclear disaster ever, Chernobyl was “. . . about 400 times more potent than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II . . .” (Walmsley “26 years on: helping Chernobyl's children”). The disaster was not immediately seen as a large threat, and this is why so many lives were taken or destroyed.
For them the issue is to maximize the gains and minimize the losses, stemming from technology. For example, they focus upon the principal practitioners of technology, the engineers, and wish to examine the moral nature of
Hopefully, with accurate analysis and innovation, my research will teach the world of its past so this disaster doesn’t occur in the future. B - Summary of Evidence Chernobyl (chrn byl) is an uninhibited city in north Ukraine, near the Belarus boundary, on the Pripyat River. Ten miles to the north, in the town of Pripyat, is the Chernobyl nuclear powerstation, site of the worst nuclear reactor disaster in history ("Chernobyl", Columbia Encyclopedia). To specify, on April 26, 1986, Unit Four of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in Ukraine, injuring human immune systems and the genetic structure of cells, contaminating soils and waterways. Nearly 7 tons of irradiated reactor fuel was released into the environment—roughly 340 million curies.
Over time, people have advanced technology to produce inventions meant to increase efficiency in work, and this is shown in the movement for environmental change. Since the rise of industrial factories, the use of chemicals for agriculture, and more recently, the growth of nuclear power, pollution has become a major environmental concern. Although these developments signify progress and productivity, they can be damaging, as they disrupt natural processes. In “The Obligation to Endure,” Rachel Carson makes this point, and argues that the use of pesticides to simplify and enhance agricultural processes has harmed the environment. Is technology and invention to blame for society’s environmental problems, or do these problems stem from something much broader? Because of self-interest, people continue to develop technology to make the environment cater to their needs, and thus become ignorant to the long-term effects and consequences of their inventions.
In today's world, technology is constantly changing from a new paperclip to an improvement in hospital machinery. Technology lets people improve the way they live so that they can preserve their own personal energy and focus on the really important factors in life. Some people focus their energy on making new innovations to improve transportation and the health of people that may save lives and some people focus on making new designs of packaging CDS. Technology is significant in everyone's life because it rapidly changes what is in the market. But, some new innovations of technology are ridiculous because they serve no purpose in helping mankind.
In the modern world, the role of engineers and engineering as a profession has an enormous impact on our everyday lives. Almost everything we touch was designed by engineers; from the cars we drive to the houses we live in. It is essential, then, that a system is in place to ensure engineering decisions are handled with moral integrity and safety in mind. This is known as ethics. On some level, all engineering decisions are governed by an overarching code of ethics in the form of a code of conduct put in place by engineering institutions.
Chernobyl was the greatest nuclear disaster of the 20th century. On April 26th, 1986, one of four nuclear reactors located in the Soviet Union melted down and contaminated a vast area of Eastern Europe. The meltdown, a result of human error, lapsed safety precautions, and lack of a containment vessel, was barely contained by dropping sand and releasing huge amounts of deadly radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere. The resulting contamination killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people and devastated the environment. The affects of this accident are still being felt today and will be felt for generations to come.
When engineers decide to design a product, a lot of things get into the process of decision making when it comes to design, selection of materials and the process of manufacturing. A major concern that has always been in the process of decision making is attempting to ensure that the outcomes of the product will be ethically sound, though this is not the case always. Nobody is perfect and therefore, what they do is to try out the functionality of a product, and accidents may occur. Upon any eventuality of an engineering disaster, several factors may be involved, such as design flaws, material failure, extreme conditions, and human factors. Whenever these things happen, it is necessary to look into the engineers ethical aspects of every failure
mental degradation. The mass production of goods, in manufacturing industries, more so has led to a lot of pollutants being released into the atmosphere. These pollutants continue to degrade the environment. There are several forms of pollutions that continue to be heavily experienced as a result of the activities of Multi-National Corporations. The two most adverse types of pollution are water pollution and air pollution. They affect a lot of the systems that are in play.
This form of analysis, typically done with the risk-benefit principle, is the deciding factor that determines what job or project an engineer will perform. As with any aspect involving the chaotic nature of life and human’s interaction with it, this process isn’t perfect. Complete reform is not feasible and enhancement is difficult, but these changes are necessary to promote a sustainable future where safety is paramount. Some sort of combination between the precautionary and risk-benefit principles would be sufficient as they are strong in areas in which the other is weak. Regrettably, there are instances in which theory cannot be achieved completely as there individuals who hold little value to ethics.
“The bottom line in engineering ethics is the idea that engineering ought to be aimed at the good of humanity, and that individual engineers ought to be using their skills to improve the lot of humanity.”
Engineers design, build or maintain applications and systems to solve various societal problems. Their behaviors thus have a non-negligible impact on human development. Oftentimes, however, engineers are faced with the dilemma to choose between compromising their code of ethics and threatening their promising careers. It is important that engineers deem public welfare as a supreme concern and stand their ground so that they will report any observed situations that potentially can harm public safety to their superiors. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) case study is a good example of engineers being responsible with society in that they attempted multiple times to inform their supervisors in management about their concerns with the possible imminent system failure of BART. Even though their voices were ignored and they were fired by the company in the end, they made the passengers realize the probable dangers underneath this regional rail service. Consequently, on October 2nd, 1972, as a result of Automatic Train Control (ATC) failure, a BART train overshot the station at Fremont and wounded several people. In order to prevent these tragic accidents from happening, the BART case needs to be further examined for deeper understanding of the problem. This paper will use deontological ethical framework to address the cause of BART train system failure and recommend feasible plans to avert similar tragedies from occurring in the future to BART employees. Therefore, not only engineers, but also managers and board of directors should be educated about ethics and should be familiar with basic technical knowledge regarding their business.
Mechanical engineers have a responsibility of ensuring they abide by general ethics as that have been laid down by engineering bodies such as the American Society of Mechanical engineers. Engineers have to sound alarm whenever safety violations are breached or when the organization does not perform required procedures that may endanger lives. It is the engineer’s duty to inform members of the public whenever legal bodies fail to nullify projects which may cause disasters.