A spider web of metal, sealed in a thin glass container, a wire heated to brilliant glow, in short, the thermionic tube of radio sets, is made by the hundred million, tossed about in packages, plugged into sockets—and it works!
The comparison of technology shows both the strength and delicacy of it. Spider webs are incredibly strong when withstanding brute force, but can be easily broken if you poke a stick through it. Technology AND spiderwebs are underestimated tools.
For the biologists, and particularly for the medical scientists, there can be little indecision, for their war has hardly required them to leave the old paths. Many indeed have been able to carry on their war research in their familiar peacetime laboratories. Their objectives remain much the same.
Here you can see the way that biologists have a finite amount of things to discover, whereas physicists, who you would often not connect to technology, have more infinite possibilities of exploration in their field, which is something we still see today.