20 SOCIAL SCIENTIST the advanced countries the investment in science and research has increased hundred-fold in the last 30 to 40 years: half the scientific knowledge being used in the most diverse fields today has come into existence in the last 15 years: 90 per cent of the scientific workers in the history of mankind are our contemporaries. The interval between scientific discovery and its practical application is shrinking at an accelerated pace: it took 112 years (1727-1839) for the principle on which photography is based to be put into effect, 56 years (1820-76) for the telephone to emerge, 35 years (1867-1902) for radio communication, 15 years (1925-40) for the radar, 12 years (1922-34) for television, 6 years (1939-45) for the A-Bomb, 5 years (1948" 53) for the transistor and 3 years (1958-61) for the integrating circuit to go into production. Moreover we have an increasing number of scientists and technologists engaged in industry and production all over the world, and science is moving in, in a big way, into such spheres as administration a^d management. The result has been a concentration on science with a view to extending its scope to cover the most strategic aspects of social life, and consequently making it explicitly social and increasingly collective in character. This latter is not only restricted to the nature of scientific activity itself but more significantly refers to the collective impact of such activity. Science, man's highest cognitive activity, not only contributes materially to man's productive activity as technology, but makes a significant contribution at what is termed the 'ideal' level. Revolutions in science come into conflict with the existing conceptual system and categories that aid the cognitive process to undergo a substantial change. Old established categories become insufficient to contain the reality explored at deeper and newer levels by the sciences. In the infancy of the natural and social sciences,only some aspects of the universe could be comprehended in an isolated manner. At this point philosophy, or natural philosophy, provided the comprehension of the universe as a totality and man's place therein. Philosophy, functioning as a speculative unifying force, bears witness to the level and nature of human activity, both critical and practical, at a time when the influence of the sciences on philosophical views was both indirect and not very welcome. In the present age with the growth of science and production a concrete basis is provided for the comprehended totality of the universe, and philosophy itself has become a science. This influence of science on philosophy began to be exerted more clearly from the time of Newton and has now become the decisive factor in the development of philosophy. With the advent of Marxist philosophy this process achieves its theoretical maturation with the introduction of the categories of the materialist dialectic. These categories enable the cognisance of the objective world with all its interrelations and developing contradictions. The categories consequently continue to develop, acquiring greater meaning with the progress of science and technology. The fostering of science, its growth and development, has thus brought about a scientific conception of the universe and the possibilities open to man.