Man has managed to adapt to life in a wide variety of conditions. The variety of its activities can be found where eternal heat prevails and where there is no heat at all - in the lowlands and high mountains, in the jungle and in the bare desert.
Human scope
It turns out that more than 56 percent of people live in an area no higher than two hundred meters above sea level. Nevertheless, this zone occupies a little more than a quarter of the earth's land area. A person can live without harm to himself and his offspring, not only in high-mountainous regions, but also in such an area that is below the level of the oceans. In mountainous countries, people do not feel any trouble associated with height.
In Bolivia, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Peru, Mexico, the altitude is mostly 1000 meters above sea level. In Tibet, more than twenty settlements are located at an altitude exceeding five thousand meters. Peru has the highest mountain village in the world, where people live at an altitude of 5200 meters. And in Mexico, near the verythe crater of the Popocamepetl volcano, at an altitude of 5420 meters, workers who mined sulfur lived for a long time. At such an altitude, without oxygen apparatus, except for them, no one has ever worked for a long time.
Under the sea and in the Far North
Forty percent of the Dutch, approximately 5 million people, live and work literally on the bottom of the sea, previously drained. Two-fifths of their small, densely populated country lies below sea level. All this land has been reclaimed from the sea. Sometimes the sea destroys the fences and tries to return the territory taken from it. But people do not give up: having strengthened the dams, they force the sea to recede and again sow bread, plant gardens and orchards on the reclaimed fertile land. Thanks to the achievements of science and technology, humanity has the opportunity to inhabit places where it could not live before.
Diversity of human activities has spread even to the Far North. This area is successfully populated by people, a person goes there to live not because he has become cramped in the lower latitudes. The Far North hides countless riches in its bowels - ore of various metals, oil, gas.
In the distant Siberian Arctic, where settled life was not even thought of before, where not a single building could be built because of the permafrost, a large city was built - Norilsk. High-rise modern houses have been built there, the permafrost has been outwitted, and the inhabitants of Norilsk enjoy all the benefits available to moderncity dweller.
Science believes that now there are no places on the planet where a person could not live if he needed to. In high school, at a social studies lesson in grade 10, the variety of activities is revealed as a way of people's existence.
How did human activity begin?
Man differs from all other biological creatures inhabiting our planet in that he has a variety of activities, which includes different aspects of the interaction of mankind with the world. This is a form of human activity, which is aimed at changing the world around us, including ourselves. At the beginning of its development, mankind adapted to climatic and geographical conditions in order to survive.
In those days, the drying up of a river or the flooding of fields by rivers could significantly affect the life of a particular settlement, the nature and types of its economic activity. It took a lot of time and effort to subordinate nature to its needs. People built all kinds of irrigation systems, canals, dams. Man has learned to control the natural elements. The directed diversity of human activity began with the manufacture of tools. Only humans can influence the environment through the means they create.
First activity
The history of human activity dates back to primitive times from the very first tools. Our ancestors had stone axes a quarter of a million years ago. Metal knives began to be used around 8thousand years ago. The oldest nails were made from copper in the Middle East and date back to around 3500 BC.
Already 5-6 thousand years ago, the first potter's wheels were invented - large tables that were rotated by the potter's assistant, while the potter himself shaped the clay. Later, the potter's wheels were equipped with a flywheel and a pedal that rotated the table quickly and evenly.
Development of science and technology
Man is a rational and curious being. With the help of his observation and logic, man took all the variety of forms of activity from nature, observing birds and animals, studying natural phenomena. Robot - a computer-controlled human mechanism - a fantasy of science fiction writers.
Nevertheless, robots as programmed machines that can adapt to new situations have existed since 1913, when the American Sperry developed an autopilot for aircraft that maintains a constant heading and independently corrects aircraft deviations from the route.
In 1940, a robot arm was invented in the United States, which could perform all kinds of manipulations with radioactive substances. Since 1970, there have been industrial robots that perform assembly, welding, varnishing in automotive plants. Now it is already impossible to imagine industrial production without such robots, which have taken root literally in any industry.
Industrial revolution in the 17th-19th centuries, when manuallabor was replaced by the machine, and changed labor in agriculture. The improvement of tools made it possible to obtain much more food. The first modern seeder was designed in 1701 by the Englishman Jethro Tull, this design used elements of a musical organ, including a pedal.
The first production tractors were designed by Henry Ford in 1916. About 5 thousand years ago, people first mixed copper and tin and got a new metal - bronze. He played such an important role in the development of science and technology that an entire historical period, the Bronze Age, was named after him.
A little later, about 3.5 thousand years ago, during the Iron Age, people first smelted iron ore into iron. At that time, whoever owned iron, owned the world, because this metal was more suitable for the manufacture of weapons and military equipment than bronze. Cast iron was then made in Europe in 1400, and the first stainless steel appeared in 1913 when an Englishman mixed steel with chromium.
Vehicles in the sky, on water and on land
Vivid examples of the variety of activities are various vehicles created by man. Long before the use of electric propulsion, engineers dreamed of sailing a ship under water. The Dutchman van Drebbel in 1620 designed a submarine rowing boat with sealed holes for oars. This boat looked like a barrel with fins.
In 1801, the American Robert Fulton built a submarine that could move under water for many hours, and the first nuclear submarinethe device was launched in 1955. The first gasoline-powered cars were designed by the Germans Benz and Daimler, which looked like carriages, in which horses were replaced by a built-in engine. The French Tanhar and Levassor have invented a car that looks more like a modern one.
The first steam locomotive was invented in 1800 by the Englishman Trevithick, and only a quarter of a century later the first passenger train began to run between English cities. In 1981, the era of high-speed trains began in Europe. It was then that the first bullet train began to run between Paris and Lyon at a speed of 260 kilometers per hour. In 1903, the famous Wright brothers made the first flight in an airplane with a motor, covering a distance of 260 meters. Since that time, the era of aviation began.
The first jet aircraft with two jet engines was built in 1939 by the German engineer von Ohain. Even 1000 years ago, the Chinese had rockets that were used as a military weapon. In 1932, in the war with the Mongols, they used arrows equipped with rockets. The first modern rockets, the forerunners of space rockets, were used as artillery weapons in England. Today's space shuttles conquer the vastness of the universe, expanding the knowledge of mankind.
Computer and Internet
We are surprised every time we see the variety of human activities and realize how quickly and widely computers have spread their influence to all areas of our lives -production, life and leisure. The very first computing machine can be considered the ancient Greek abacus. Mechanical machines for computing were built in the 17th century by Pascal and Leibniz.
And the first computer was built in the USA in 1946. Personal computers appeared in 1976, and the Internet began to conquer the world in 1980.
Art and music
Man has improved not only scientific knowledge, surrounding himself with a technically comfortable existence. Spiritual development plays an important role in the interaction of a person with the outside world. It is difficult to imagine the modern world without music, visual arts, literature, theater or cinema.
They open to us an immense world of beauty, fill the soul with healing balm, the meaning of life, inspire new victories and make us forget the problems around us. Without this, the world of man would be gray and bleak, and the man himself would become like a robot.
Space exploration
500 years ago, our ancestors believed that the Earth is a flat disk located in the center of the universe. Since then, astronomy has not only changed our ideas about our home planet, but also presented a completely different picture of the universe. Today's space shuttles conquer the vastness of the universe, expanding the knowledge of mankind.
Amazing data has been obtained. Mankind has something to be proud of and admire, because the variety of activities has received a new perspective - the conquest of space.
Despite the variety of human activities, all the benefits of civilization and technical achievements, we remain part of nature, we live by her grace. Nature from time to time reminds of this to humanity, which is sometimes forgotten in its craving for progress.
Preserving the irreplaceable resources of nature, its pristine beauty and uniqueness should be the task of all mankind, because we are all part of nature, we live inside, obey its laws and cannot exist without it.
