The Cold War
This week in class we talked about the Cold War and how it affected things, like technology nowadays. It played a huge role in the growth of technology, military strength, and the spread of knowledge. Incredible, new inventions were coming out all the time, like the atomic bomb, all prompted by the need to demonstrate dominance over the Soviet Union. Jet engines, rockets, radar technology, and so much more came to be due to this non-violent war. One major thing that came from this is the democratization of knowledge and information, as now it was becoming public. It’s important that this happened because now we all benefit from learning all this in school. Although there was one invention that Professor O’Malley mentioned in lecture that reminded of the movie, “The Imitation Game,” which is the ENIAC. Again, speaking on incredible new inventions that arose from the Cold War, this Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer was able to break the German code so that the United States could know when attacks were going to happen. The movie highlights how it was invented, but also Turing’s story. (It’s an absolutely incredible movie that I recommend to anyone!) Personally, I find it really interesting how certain events play into our growth as a civilization, especially events like war. Yet, most of them always affect us today as it changed things back then, which are normal to us now.
