Section III. The main trends of the development of science and technology in the informative era

Theme 3.1. The world science and technology in the 1920–1940`s

A characteristic feature of the technological development in the interwar period was the widespread use of electricity in all industries. In electricity, the construction of a combined heat and power plants begins.

Another feature of the development of electric power industry since the mid-1930`s was the enhancing role of hydroelectric power plants, which are much more economical then the heat ones.The creation of the regional stations’ lines of distributive networks starts.So, in 1927, their total length in the United States was about 80 thousand Km.

In the 1940’s the cost of iron and its alloys accounted for about 93% of the total cost of all the used materials.To add specific properties to the steel the introduction of the alloying elements began: manganese, tungsten, nickel, molybdenum, vanadium, cobalt, titanium.In the interwar period the aluminum alloys are starting to be applied in the electricity industry, automotive industry, shipbuilding, construction of railway locomotives and wagons.

The development of aviation and automotive industry has increased demand for the products of the chemical industry (fuel, oil, new materials). On the eve of the war, the scientists and engineers at factories of German concern IG «Farbenindustrie» launched the production of the synthetic gasoline and rubber.The exploratory drilling has extended in the oil industry. In 1922, the Soviet scientist Matthew Kapelyushnikov created a down whole motor-turbo drill.The principle of its work was to convert hydraulic energy into mechanical energy of the water shaft turbo drill.

In engineering a large value was purchased by electronics, without application of that automation of industry was impossible. It allowed passing to the mass specialized production of model standard products. The productions of aircraft and tank engines with a capacity exceeding 1,000 HP resulted in foundry technology to the use of refining and melt degassing method (chlorination).Electric welding technology got the application in the metal working.So, in 1930, the team of scientists, led by Professor Paton, turned to the creation of automated welding lines.

In the 1920–30's the tank passed difficult way of its development and during the Second World War, medium and heavy machinery, as well as self-propelled artillery, based on them, amounted to 1944 more than 87% of the total number of combat vehicles. Their armor was more than 100 mm: German Pzkpfw VI Ausf E «Tiger I» of the company Herschel designed by Erwin Adders, Soviet IS-2 designed by Joseph Katina, and they were armed with machine guns and cannon fire of caliber 75–120 mm.

In the military shipbuilding came to the fore the construction of aircraft carriers – the ships, whose upper deck is a runway for aircraft, at the same time ground attack aircraft, torpedo bombers, bombers are situated on the lower decks and fully equipped before departure are served on the top by the special lifts. By the end of the war the speed of American, Soviet, British and German fighter aircraft with piston engines exceeded 700 km/h.

To achieve the high speeds needed significantly to increase the engine power, leading to the growth of its size and weight, and this, in turn led to a reduction of the power plant functions.Thepossibilities of piston engines have been exhausted.They were replaced by jet engines that at identical sizes and weight with piston motors developed much more power.

The greatest progress in the creation of the air-jet engines has made the French scientist Rene Lorenz.During the war, the German cruise missiles (V-1, Fi-103), run with the help of the Catapult of Walter and bomber He-111S, were equipped by these Argus As 014 engines designed by Paul Schmidt. In a turbojet engine (TJE) the gas turbine drives the compressor that pumps air into the combustion chamber.It is such a powerful and reliable turbojet engine created English designer Frank Whittle.In May 1941 he flew the aircraft of Closter firm with this engine. A large-scale production of fighter-bombers Me-262 Jumo-004B with turbojet engine has been established in Germany at the end of the war.The peculiarity of liquid-jet engine is that along with fuel, it carries with it the entire supply of an oxidizer to fuel combustion, not takes air from the atmosphere. TheGerman Me-163 Komet fighter aircraft designed by Wilhelm Messerschmitt were equipped with these engines. But the best its quality the liquid-jet engine created by Walter Thiel showed on the German V-2 ballistic missiles-2 (A-4, V-2) of Werner von Braun's design. The Thiel`s engine developed cravings 25.4 m (270 kN), had a capacity of 500 thousand hp., that provided to the rocket weighing 12, 9 t to speed up to 1700 m/s (6120 km/h).In addition, during the Second World War the multiple-launch rocket systems for solid fuels were applied: the Soviet BM-13 Katyusha, BM-31; the German Nebelwerfer-41; British 32-barrel Land Mattress; American 4.5 inch (114 mm) with 60 tubular Rails, mounted on the M4 Sherman tank.

In 1934–1935, a British researcher of the ionosphere Robert Watson-Watt created radar equipment working on ultra-short waves.In 1929 a period of electronic television began, when the American inventor Vladimir Zworykin created a ray tube with electrostatic focusing, which he called a kinescope.

In the 1930's the scientific thought came close to the creation of electronic computing machines (computers). In 1936, the German engineer Conrad Zuse got two patents for saving machine instructions in the same memory, and the other data.In 1941, he built the Z3 computer, which was based on telephone relays, use a binary system.

In 1939 John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry of Iowa State University (United States) developed the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC), the construction of which consisted of 300 electronic vacuum tubes.To decrypt the coded radiograms, sent by German submarines in England the computer Colossus MK I was created, certification for which was making by a team of specialists, under the leadership of Professor Max Newman.In 1945, the fastest and most powerful computer of its time – ENIAC was created in the United States under the leadership of John Moushli.

John von Neumann designed a machine EDVAC project, in which both program and data are stored in a single universal memory. The principles of construction of this computer were called the «von Neumann architecture».

In 1942/43 fiscal year the United States Government has provided 54 million dollars on the production of fissile material and has approved the project for the construction of research industrial installations.On June 18, 1942 the Manhattan project, headed by Brigadier General L. Groves was created in the United States Army Corps of engineers to coordinate efforts in the production of atomic weapons. On December 2, 1942 in the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago the team of scientists led by Nobel Prize winner Enrico Fermi conducted the first controlled chain reaction and proved the possibility of obtaining plutonium in the uranium-graphite boilers.On July 16, 1945, the first experimental atomic explosion was carried out in a desert area of New Mexico.

On August 6, 1945 the atomic bomb «The kid» was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima and on August 9, the bomb «The fat man», which is equivalent to 20 thousand tons of TNT – on the city of Nagasaki. This was the beginning of the nuclear era in the history of mankind.