Swords to ploughshares
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Swords to ploughshares is a concept in which military weapons or technologies are converted for peaceful civilian applications. The plowshare is often used to symbolize creative tools that benefit mankind, as opposed to destructive tools of war, symbolized by the sword, a similar sharp metal tool with an arguably opposite use. The common expression "beat swords into plowshares" has been used by disparate social and political groups. The term's origin is a number of biblical quotes:
- Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say "I am strong." — Joel 3:10
- They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. — Isaiah 2:4 & Micah 4:3
One of the longest-running and most intricate efforts in this vein has been the project to develop power sources out of nuclear weapon technologies. Nuclear fission has been applied to many civilian purposes since its use at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but nuclear fusion requires further research before it can become practical to the same degree.
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[edit] List of notable cases
- Radar was initially developed for detection of incoming bombers, now used in commercial airliners. The microwave oven is also a consequence of this technology
- Public key cryptography was developed by GCHQ for military communications. Now strong encryption is in general use, such as for financial transactions
- Jet engines were developed for fighter craft by Britain and Germany during the Second World War
- The Space Race was based on technology, in particular rockets, designed for nuclear warfare
- The first computers, Colossus and ENIAC were developed for codebreaking or the calculation of ballistic trajectories; many of their predecessors were designed to assist in military codebreaking
- Roman roads were designed for the rapid transport of troops, but were used by civilians for millennia afterwards
- The Global Positioning System was developed under the United States Department of Defense for military navigational purposes. The system has been released for free civilian use, e.g. in land, sea and air navigation, cartography and land surveying.
- Cyanoacrylate was developed in an attempt to produce synthetic gunsights for airplanes during World War II, but was too sticky to be useful. It is now commonly sold as super glue.
- Active sonar was developed during World War I to facilitate the discovery of enemy submarines, which led to medical ultrasonography.
[edit] References in popular culture
- A Magic: The Gathering game includes a card called Swords to Plowshares that removes target creature from the game, adding life to creature's controller, i.e. effectively converting warriors to non-violent life points.
[edit] Quotes
- Those who beat their swords into plowshares will end up plowing for those who didn't. -Anonymous
- And they'll beat swords into ploughshares and ploughshares into swords, and so on and so on, and back and forth. 'Sort of An Apocalypse', Yehuda Amichai, 1958
[edit] See also
- Swords and ploughshares weblog "An exploration of our attachment to the natural environment and each other"
