Technikatörténeti szemle 25. (2001-02)
Papers of the Third International Conference on the History of Chemistry and Chemical Industry (Budapest, 2–4 July, 1999) – First Part - Inczédy János: The role and responsibility of scientists influencing the wordl; past, present and future
"seven free arts" were taught in schools for centuries. The places of the teaching were the monasteries, where the teachers provided the books and the practical trainings. The first Universities were established in the 12th and 13th centuries (Bologna, Oxford, Salerno, Paris, etc.) concerned for high level studies of theology, philosophy, medicine, mathematics, astronomy etc. The technical faculties started only in the 17th - 18th centuries. The time of the education has been extended, and the percentage of the educated people has increased in the last centuries very rapidly. Today the "intellectual potential of the society" the "human capital", is one of the highest value of a population, because it is the overall determining factor of the position and perspectives of the society in the world, being more significant than wealth, natural resources or infrastructure together. The intellectual capacity of a community (nation or country) includes the general education level of the total population, and more importantly, the number and abilities of outstanding intellectuals, their knowledge, creativity and dynamics. In a developed country today, the time necessary for reproduction of the intellectual (mental) capacity is between 15 to 20 years. According to the economic calculations 4 the total cost of education, which includes not only the direct costs and infrastructure necessary for the education, but also cost of living of the students for 15-20 years, is more than twice the gross domestic products annually. The technical - economic level of a country depends strongly on the general education level of the inhabitants, but the progress of the development is determined by the potential of the leading intellectuals, and by their efficiency. Plotting the number of inhabitants in a country number of people, A M contribution to the development, B average knowledge according to their knowl- Fig. 3. Knowledge level distribution in a community (A); edge, a curve, very Similar to Personal contribution to the development (B) the normal distribution density curve can be obtained. (Few people with very low and very high level knowledge, and majority of medium level.) If we represent in the same diagram the personal contributions to the technical - economic development of the community, we obtain an exponential function, i.e. the highest contributions come from very few people. See Fig. 3. 5
