2. The development of nuclear energy (mid-1900's)
The new insights in physics
of the early 1900's led to the development of nuclear weapons,
whose potential for unprecedented destruction shaped the political life
of our planet throughout the last half of the 1900's. The advances
in physics also led to the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,
such as electric power production. Thus, nuclear energy presented both
the grave danger of possible radioactive pollution and, at the same
time, the bright promise of a potential source of almost unlimited amounts
of nonpolluting energy.

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Ivan Soll
is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His
Top 10 list also focuses on large-scale, far-reaching developments. He
sounds a note of caution based on rapid world population growth and technological
development, referring to our "tendency to pollute, or otherwise destroy
without using, the very resources we so desperately need."
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