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>why do all these advances just start in 1945 and they actually didn't start in 1945. We entered WWII with propellers, exited with jets, entered with visual/op
by trhway 7y ago
>why do all these advances just start in 1945
and they actually didn't start in 1945. We entered WWII with propellers, exited with jets, entered with visual/optical targeting, exited with radar and targeting computer, entered with Enigma style and other mechanical primitive calculation devices, exited with the first real computers, entered with an idea of possibility of nuclear energy, exited with A-bomb, etc. V-2 ballistic missile became the foundation of Space Age in US and USSR. Mass production of antibiotics, and really mass production of anything, Liberty ships for example. We exited WWII with tremendously scaled up R&D and mass production capabilities which were put in significant part to peaceful use after the war. And of course GI bill in the US. And the formation of 2 super-empires - Eastern Bloc and NATO/Bretton Woods. As far as i see at least the technology and economy of the Golden Quarter is firmly rooted in WWII.
- christocracy 7y agoThe invention of the transistor was stunted by ~5 years because of ww2, when Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain were redirected to war projects, such as bomb sights, magnetic detection of submarines and radar. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1956/summary/ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1956/summary/
- WalterBright 7y agoThe first jet aircraft (He178) flew a few days before the start of WW2.
- bawolff 7y agoRight. I guess another contributing factor is these technologies build on another. Computers especially - I can only imagine how much effort computers saved by being able to simulate some physical systems very cheaply. After all that's a major point in the quantum computer hype train: that a quantum computer will be able to do for sciences that touch the quantum world what a normal computer did for sciences dealing with the non-quantum physical world.