SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL
Science and technology, embracing subjects that are for the most part objective, and allowing for little, if any, variation based upon politics or philosophy, are areas where practitioners from around the globe have long been able to agree and work together. One property which promotes universal agreement among people in the scientific and technological communities is the uniformity with which the physical world and its processes are endowed. That is to say, twelve inches is twelve inches, no matter where you are, and no matter what political or religious dogma you subscribe to.
In the sixteenth century, an improved, or corrected, uniform method for specifying days and years was devised by Pope Gregory XIII, and eventually adopted by most of the world. This internationally accepted common system for dating and measuring periods of time has been said to be a sign of growing unity in world civilization. This subject proceeds further, in 1875, with the establishment of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, in which fifty or so nations hold membership. Its basic function is the universal standardization of weights and measures throughout the world. Furtheer progress has resulted in the founding, in 1947, of the International Organization for Standardization, a worldwide standard-setting body which determines universal industrial and commercial standards.
A further accomplishment for worldwide standardization took place in 1967, with the establishment of the Internationas Standard Book Number (ISBN) system, which has in this respect unified the publishing world on an international level.
Medicine is a branch of science where international efforts and cooperation seem especially necessary, in that illness and health concerns know no political limits. Thus, as early as 1910, an international conference on cancer research opened in Paris. And in 1913, a similar conference was convened in Brussels.
In 1919, the International Rersearch Council was founded to coordinate the activities of a number of international unions concerned with the natural sciences. In 1931, the name was changed to the International Council of Scientific Unions; and its membership now numbers twenty such worldwide organizations.
The World Health Organization is an agency of the United Nations. Founded in 1948, and consisting of more than one hundred member nations, it assists its membership in health-related fields. Helping its members to develop programs in disease control, health education, nutrition, sanitation, and population control, it is a vital factor in the preservation and well-being of a large portion of the world's inhabitants, especially in less developed qreas. Among a number of accomplishments attributable to efforts and coordination by this agency, was its announcement, in May of 1980, of the worldwide eradication of smallpox.
As atomic weapons came to be an ominous threat to the world and mankind, some wise and sensible persons of science and letters began to speak out on behalf of all of us. In 1955, a manifesto was offered by Bertrand Russell, and cosigned by Albert Einstein. In it, the signatories identified themselves as "speaking...not as members of this or that nation, but as human beings, members of the species of man, whose continued existence is in doubt...."
The significance of the nuclear discoveries of the mid-twentieth century, and particularly of the dangers posed by the atomic weapons that ushered in the nuclear age, has been addressed on an international level a number of times. In 1953, America's President Eisenhower, proposed that the nations of the world which then possessed nuclear capability pool their resources into an international nuclear energy stockpile. He referred to his invitation with the slogan "atoms for peace."
President Eisenhower made this proposal to the U.N. General Assembly, coupled with suggestions that a world organization be created which would be devoted exclusively to the peaceful uses of atomic energy. His plan was unanimously endorsed in1954; and its result was the International Atomic Energy Agency. A particularly critical function of this agency is ensuring that nuclear materials intended for peaceful use are not diverted to military purposes.
Further international meetings having reference to the new nuclear age were held during the 1950s. In 1955, Geneva was host to a conference attended by scientists from sixty two nations concerning atomic energy. And another Geneva conference opened in 1958 to discuss international measures to be taken to detect atomic tests.
In June, 1982, a particularly emphatic demonstration of the widespread fear of nuclear destruction on the part of people throughout the world occurred when over 800,000 men, women, and children filled the streets of Manhattan and the lawns of Central Park, comprising a mass demonstration against nuclear proliferation.
During these same years, the conquest of space became another subject that occupied the thoughts of man. In 1957, the United States announced a plan whereby there would be no national claims to any part of outer space; as well as limiting use and occupancy of all of outer space to peaceful purposes. This plan was endorsed internationally by the vote of twenty tow nations.
In a similar act of international cooperation, twelve nations signed a treaty in 1959 which would treat the Antarctic region in much the same way. Antarctica would be exempt from national claims; and scientists from all nations would have free access to all parts of the continent.
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