Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Biologie und Technik. Die Arbeitsweise tierischer Sinnesorgane im Vergleich zu technischen Meßgeräten

Regarding the topic of the lecture at first adefinition of the terms "Bio­ logy" and "Technics" is given. The recognitions of biology with regard to the provisions of organisms and living creatures for securing their existence and preserving the species may be compared with the tasks and aims of technology which adds substantial means to the "equipment" of man provid­ ed by nature. For further development technology mostly requires long periods of time too. In a direct or transferred sense it takes possession of solutions for certain tasks that nature has al ready solved. To a large extent nature is the teacher of technical science; but technology also creates such products as for instance the wheel with the continuous rotary movement both of which as a principle do not exist in nature. The correlations between biology and technology must be considered already beginning from that date when technology comes into existence. Technics must follow the same laws as nature. For the rotary movement nature has a substitute and uses other means and principles for locomotion than human technology. Never­ theless the teclmics of vehic1es by land, by water and in the air show many parallels with nature where from our point of view nature would have to solve technical problems. The correlations between carriage-way and vehic1e are very similar to those between living creatures and their area of motion.