Test Your Knowledge

Science and Technology in the 1970s

Science:

• The Voyager Program sent the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 uncrewed expeditions to several of the outer planets in the Solar System, including a Voyager Golden Record with the spaceships in hopes of presenting aspects of life on Earth to intelligent alien life forms.
• The Apollo lunar spacecraft program ended, with the final flight, Apollo 17, in 1972. The Apollo–Soyuz and Spacelab programs ended in 1976, and there would be a five-year hiatus in American crewed spaceflight until the flight of the Space Shuttle.
• Deep understanding of physics became important in the 1970s. Stephen Hawking developed his theories of black holes and the boundary-condition of the universe.
• Genetic engineering became a commercially viable technology.
• The biological sciences, spurred by social concerns about the environment and life, gained tremendous detail.

Technology:

• The Intel 4004, the world's first general microprocessor, came out in November 1971.
• The Cray-1, the first supercomputer, was introduced in 1976, which could perform 230,000,000 calculations per second.
• The availability of affordable personal computers led to the first popular wave of internetworking with the first bulletin board systems.
• The 1970s was also the beginning of the video game era. Atari established itself as the dominant force in home video gaming, first with its home version of the arcade game Pong and later in the decade with the Atari 2600 console.
• The 1970s saw the introduction in the automotive field of novel technologies, particularly from Japan and Germany, that would begin to mature in the 1990s and 2000s as viable alternative propulsion sources, such as hybrid vehicles, Stirling engines, as well as solar-electric and pure-electric vehicles.
• Japanese advanced lightweight, fuel-efficient, and environmentally-conscious vehicles dramatically increased in demand, and such cars as the Honda Civic and the Toyota Corolla became some of the most popular and iconic vehicles of the 1970s.
• Microwave ovens experienced a surge in popularity as price and size decreased rapidly towards the end of the decade.

How much do you know about the science and technology advancements that took place in the 1970s? Take this quiz to find out! From the Voyager Program to the introduction of personal computers and video games, this decade saw significant progress in various fields. Test your knowledge on the first supercomputer, the development of genetic engineering, and the rise of fuel-efficient vehicles. See if you can score high on this quiz and impress your friends with your knowledge of the scientific and technological milestones of the 197