Mechanical Computing: the Computational Complexity of Computable Capable of Being Worked out by Physical Devices Calculation, Especially Using a Computer
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Simulating Physics with Computers
International Journal of Theoretical Physics, VoL 21, Nos. 6/7, 1982 Simulating Physics with Computers Richard P. Feynman Department of Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91107 Received May 7, 1981 1. INTRODUCTION On the program it says this is a keynote speech--and I don't know what a keynote speech is. I do not intend in any way to suggest what should be in this meeting as a keynote of the subjects or anything like that. I have my own things to say and to talk about and there's no implication that anybody needs to talk about the same thing or anything like it. So what I want to talk about is what Mike Dertouzos suggested that nobody would talk about. I want to talk about the problem of simulating physics with computers and I mean that in a specific way which I am going to explain. The reason for doing this is something that I learned about from Ed Fredkin, and my entire interest in the subject has been inspired by him. It has to do with learning something about the possibilities of computers, and also something about possibilities in physics. If we suppose that we know all the physical laws perfectly, of course we don't have to pay any attention to computers. It's interesting anyway to entertain oneself with the idea that we've got something to learn about physical laws; and if I take a relaxed view here (after all I'm here and not at home) I'll admit that we don't understand everything. -
Getting Started Computing at the Al Lab by Christopher C. Stacy Abstract
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ARTIFICIAL INTELLI..IGENCE LABORATORY WORKING PAPER 235 7 September 1982 Getting Started Computing at the Al Lab by Christopher C. Stacy Abstract This document describes the computing facilities at the M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and explains how to get started using them. It is intended as an orientation document for newcomers to the lab, and will be updated by the author from time to time. A.I. Laboratory Working Papers are produced for internal circulation. and may contain information that is, for example, too preliminary or too detailed for formal publication. It is not intended that they should be considered papers to which reference can be made in the literature. a MASACHUSETS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 1982 Getting Started Table of Contents Page i Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1 1.1. Lisp Machines 2 1.2. Timesharing 3 1.3. Other Computers 3 1.3.1. Field Engineering 3 1.3.2. Vision and Robotics 3 1.3.3. Music 4 1,3.4. Altos 4 1.4. Output Peripherals 4 1.5. Other Machines 5 1.6. Terminals 5 2. Networks 7 2.1. The ARPAnet 7 2.2. The Chaosnet 7 2.3. Services 8 2.3.1. TELNET/SUPDUP 8 2.3.2. FTP 8 2.4. Mail 9 2.4.1. Processing Mail 9 2.4.2. Ettiquette 9 2.5. Mailing Lists 10 2.5.1. BBoards 11 2.6. Finger/Inquire 11 2.7. TIPs and TACs 12 2.7.1. ARPAnet TAC 12 2.7.2. Chaosnet TIP 13 3. -
Selected Filmography of Digital Culture and New Media Art
Dejan Grba SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY OF DIGITAL CULTURE AND NEW MEDIA ART This filmography comprises feature films, documentaries, TV shows, series and reports about digital culture and new media art. The selected feature films reflect the informatization of society, economy and politics in various ways, primarily on the conceptual and narrative plan. Feature films that directly thematize the digital paradigm can be found in the Film Lists section. Each entry is referenced with basic filmographic data: director’s name, title and production year, and production details are available online at IMDB, FilmWeb, FindAnyFilm, Metacritic etc. The coloured titles are links. Feature films Fritz Lang, Metropolis, 1926. Fritz Lang, M, 1931. William Cameron Menzies, Things to Come, 1936. Fritz Lang, The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse, 1960. Sidney Lumet, Fail-Safe, 1964. James B. Harris, The Bedford Incident, 1965. Jean-Luc Godard, Alphaville, 1965. Joseph Sargent, Colossus: The Forbin Project, 1970. Henri Verneuil, Le serpent, 1973. Alan J. Pakula, The Parallax View, 1974. Francis Ford Coppola, The Conversation, 1974. Sidney Pollack, The Three Days of Condor, 1975. George P. Cosmatos, The Cassandra Crossing, 1976. Sidney Lumet, Network, 1976. Robert Aldrich, Twilight's Last Gleaming, 1977. Michael Crichton, Coma, 1978. Brian De Palma, Blow Out, 1981. Steven Lisberger, Tron, 1982. Godfrey Reggio, Koyaanisqatsi, 1983. John Badham, WarGames, 1983. Roger Donaldson, No Way Out, 1987. F. Gary Gray, The Negotiator, 1988. John McTiernan, Die Hard, 1988. Phil Alden Robinson, Sneakers, 1992. Andrew Davis, The Fugitive, 1993. David Fincher, The Game, 1997. David Cronenberg, eXistenZ, 1999. Frank Oz, The Score, 2001. Tony Scott, Spy Game, 2001. -
History of Computing Prehistory – the World Before 1946
Social and Professional Issues in IT Prehistory - the world before 1946 History of Computing Prehistory – the world before 1946 The word “Computing” Originally, the word computing was synonymous with counting and calculating, and a computer was a person who computes. Since the advent of the electronic computer, it has come to also mean the operation and usage of these machines, the electrical processes carried out within the computer hardware itself, and the theoretical concepts governing them. Prehistory: Computing related events 750 BC - 1799 A.D. 750 B.C. The abacus was first used by the Babylonians as an aid to simple arithmetic at sometime around this date. 1492 Leonardo da Vinci produced drawings of a device consisting of interlocking cog wheels which could be interpreted as a mechanical calculator capable of addition and subtraction. A working model inspired by this plan was built in 1968 but it remains controversial whether Leonardo really had a calculator in mind 1588 Logarithms are discovered by Joost Buerghi 1614 Scotsman John Napier invents an ingenious system of moveable rods (referred to as Napier's Rods or Napier's bones). These were based on logarithms and allowed the operator to multiply, divide and calculate square and cube roots by moving the rods around and placing them in specially constructed boards. 1622 William Oughtred developed slide rules based on John Napier's logarithms 1623 Wilhelm Schickard of Tübingen, Württemberg (now in Germany), built the first discrete automatic calculator, and thus essentially started the computer era. His device was called the "Calculating Clock". This mechanical machine was capable of adding and subtracting up to 6 digit numbers, and warned of an overflow by ringing a bell. -
Creativity in Computer Science. in J
Creativity in Computer Science Daniel Saunders and Paul Thagard University of Waterloo Saunders, D., & Thagard, P. (forthcoming). Creativity in computer science. In J. C. Kaufman & J. Baer (Eds.), Creativity across domains: Faces of the muse. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1. Introduction Computer science only became established as a field in the 1950s, growing out of theoretical and practical research begun in the previous two decades. The field has exhibited immense creativity, ranging from innovative hardware such as the early mainframes to software breakthroughs such as programming languages and the Internet. Martin Gardner worried that "it would be a sad day if human beings, adjusting to the Computer Revolution, became so intellectually lazy that they lost their power of creative thinking" (Gardner, 1978, p. vi-viii). On the contrary, computers and the theory of computation have provided great opportunities for creative work. This chapter examines several key aspects of creativity in computer science, beginning with the question of how problems arise in computer science. We then discuss the use of analogies in solving key problems in the history of computer science. Our discussion in these sections is based on historical examples, but the following sections discuss the nature of creativity using information from a contemporary source, a set of interviews with practicing computer scientists collected by the Association of Computing Machinery’s on-line student magazine, Crossroads. We then provide a general comparison of creativity in computer science and in the natural sciences. 2. Nature and Origins of Problems in Computer Science December 21, 2004 Computer science is closely related to both mathematics and engineering. -
Flight Results of the Inflatesail Spacecraft and Future Applications of Dragsails
SSC18-XI-04 FLIGHT RESULTS OF THE INFLATESAIL SPACECRAFT AND FUTURE APPLICATIONS OF DRAGSAILS B Taylor, C. Underwood, A. Viquerat, S Fellowes, R. Duke, B. Stewart, G. Aglietti, C. Bridges Surrey Space Centre, University of Surrey Guildford, GU2 7XH, United Kingdom, +44(0)1483 686278, [email protected] M. Schenk University of Bristol Bristol, Avon, BS8 1TH, United Kingdom, +44 (0)117 3315364, [email protected] C. Massimiani Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. 20 Stephenson Rd, Guildford GU2 7YE; United Kingdom, +44 (0)1483 803803, [email protected] D. Masutti, A. Denis Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, Waterloosesteenweg 72, B-1640 Sint-Genesius-Rode, Belgium, +32 2 359 96 11, [email protected] ABSTRACT The InflateSail CubeSat, designed and built at the Surrey Space Centre (SSC) at the University of Surrey, UK, for the Von Karman Institute (VKI), Belgium, is one of the technology demonstrators for the QB50 programme. The 3.2 kilogram InflateSail is “3U” in size and is equipped with a 1 metre long inflatable boom and a 10 square metre deployable drag sail. InflateSail's primary goal is to demonstrate the effectiveness of using a drag sail in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to dramatically increase the rate at which satellites lose altitude and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. InflateSail was launched on Friday 23rd June 2017 into a 505km Sun-synchronous orbit. Shortly after the satellite was inserted into its orbit, the satellite booted up and automatically started its successful deployment sequence and quickly started its decent. The spacecraft exhibited varying dynamic modes, capturing in-situ attitude data throughout the mission lifetime. -
Made in Space, We Propose an Entirely New Concept
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY “Those who control the spice control the universe.” – Frank Herbert, Dune Many interesting ideas have been conceived for building space-based infrastructure in cislunar space. From O’Neill’s space colonies, to solar power satellite farms, and even prospecting retrieved near earth asteroids. In all the scenarios, one thing remained fixed - the need for space resources at the outpost. To satisfy this need, O’Neill suggested an electromagnetic railgun to deliver resources from the lunar surface, while NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission called for a solar electric tug to deliver asteroid materials from interplanetary space. At Made In Space, we propose an entirely new concept. One which is scalable, cost effective, and ensures that the abundant material wealth of the inner solar system becomes readily available to humankind in a nearly automated fashion. We propose the RAMA architecture, which turns asteroids into self-contained spacecraft capable of moving themselves back to cislunar space. The RAMA architecture is just as capable of transporting conventional sized asteroids on the 10m length scale as transporting asteroids 100m or larger, making it the most versatile asteroid retrieval architecture in terms of retrieved-mass capability. ii This report describes the results of the Phase I study funded by the NASA NIAC program for Made In Space to establish the concept feasibility of using space manufacturing to convert asteroids into autonomous, mechanical spacecraft. Project RAMA, Reconstituting Asteroids into Mechanical Automata, is designed to leverage the future advances of additive manufacturing (AM), in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) and in-situ manufacturing (ISM) to realize enormous efficiencies in repeated asteroid redirect missions. -
Session 2020-21 (PERIODIC TEST II PORTION) Subject: COMPUTER Class : V Chapter 1: EVOLUTION of COMPUTERS Students to Read the Fo
Session 2020-21 (PERIODIC TEST II PORTION) Subject: COMPUTER Class : V Chapter 1: EVOLUTION OF COMPUTERS DAY-1 Students to read the following topics thoroughly: Every aspect of our lives in this present era has been influenced by the most advanced machine known as computer. Initially computers were used only by scientists and engineers for complex calculations and were very expensive. Nowadays, computers can be afforded by individuals and small organizations. Computers are extensively used in banks, hospitals, media and entertainment, industries, schools, homes, space technology and research, railways, airports and so on. The term ‘Computer’ is derived from the word, ‘compute’ which means to calculate but a computer is not limited to perform only calculations. A computer is a versatile device that can handle different applications at the same time. Now, let us glance through the major milestones in the journey leading to the evolution of present day computer. ❖ HISTORY OF COMPUTERS: Right from abacus - the first counting device, many devices were invented, leading to the development of computers. ❖ COMPUTING DEVICES: 3000 BC ABACUS: ➢ Abacus was the first mechanical device for calculations, developed in China. ➢ It was made up of a wooden frame with rods, each having beads. ➢ The frame is divided into two parts – Heaven and Earth. ➢ Each rod in Heaven has 2 beads and each rod in Earth has 5 beads. ➢ This device was used for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. ASSIGNMENT: (To be written in computer notebook, both questions & answers) Q 1. In which country was Abacus developed? Ans: Q 2. Computer has been derived from which word? Ans: DAY-2 Students to read the following topics thoroughly: PASCAL ADDING MACHINE: ➢ Pascal adding machine was the first mechanical calculator invented by Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician at the age of 19. -
2012, Dec, Google Introduces Metaweb Searching
Google Gets A Second Brain, Changing Everything About Search Wade Roush12/12/12Follow @wroush Share and Comment In the 1983 sci-fi/comedy flick The Man with Two Brains, Steve Martin played Michael Hfuhruhurr, a neurosurgeon who marries one of his patients but then falls in love with the disembodied brain of another woman, Anne. Michael and Anne share an entirely telepathic relationship, until Michael’s gold-digging wife is murdered, giving him the opportunity to transplant Anne’s brain into her body. Well, you may not have noticed it yet, but the search engine you use every day—by which I mean Google, of course—is also in the middle of a brain transplant. And, just as Dr. Hfuhruhurr did, you’re probably going to like the new version a lot better. You can think of Google, in its previous incarnation, as a kind of statistics savant. In addition to indexing hundreds of billions of Web pages by keyword, it had grown talented at tricky tasks like recognizing names, parsing phrases, and correcting misspelled words in users’ queries. But this was all mathematical sleight-of-hand, powered mostly by Google’s vast search logs, which give the company a detailed day-to-day picture of the queries people type and the links they click. There was no real understanding underneath; Google’s algorithms didn’t know that “San Francisco” is a city, for instance, while “San Francisco Giants” is a baseball team. Now that’s changing. Today, when you enter a search term into Google, the company kicks off two separate but parallel searches. -
A Brief History of IT
IT Computer Technical Support Newsletter A Brief History of IT May 23, 2016 Vol.2, No.29 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction........................1 Pre-mechanical..................2 Mechanical.........................3 Electro-mechanical............4 Electronic...........................5 Age of Information.............6 Since the dawn of modern computers, the rapid digitization and growth in the amount of data created, shared, and consumed has transformed society greatly. In a world that is interconnected, change happens at a startling pace. Have you ever wondered how this connected world of ours got connected in the first place? The IT Computer Technical Support 1 Newsletter is complements of Pejman Kamkarian nformation technology has been around for a long, long time. Basically as Ilong as people have been around! Humans have always been quick to adapt technologies for better and faster communication. There are 4 main ages that divide up the history of information technology but only the latest age (electronic) and some of the electromechanical age really affects us today. 1. Pre-Mechanical The earliest age of technology. It can be defined as the time between 3000 B.C. and 1450 A.D. When humans first started communicating, they would try to use language to make simple pictures – petroglyphs to tell a story, map their terrain, or keep accounts such as how many animals one owned, etc. Petroglyph in Utah This trend continued with the advent of formal language and better media such as rags, papyrus, and eventually paper. The first ever calculator – the abacus was invented in this period after the development of numbering systems. 2 | IT Computer Technical Support Newsletter 2. -
Quantum-Mechanical Computers, If They Can Be Constructed, Will Do Things No Ordinary Computer Can Quantum-Mechanical Computers
Quantum-mechanical computers, if they can be constructed, will do things no ordinary computer can Quantum-Mechanical Computers by Seth Lloyd very two years for the past 50, computers have become twice as fast while their components have become half as big. Circuits now contain wires and transistors that measure only one hundredth of a human hair in width. Because of this ex- Eplosive progress, today’s machines are millions of times more powerful than their crude ancestors. But explosions do eventually dissipate, and integrated-circuit technology is running up against its limits. 1 Advanced lithographic techniques can yield parts /100 the size of what is currently avail- able. But at this scale—where bulk matter reveals itself as a crowd of individual atoms— integrated circuits barely function. A tenth the size again, the individuals assert their iden- tity, and a single defect can wreak havoc. So if computers are to become much smaller in the future, new technology must replace or supplement what we now have. HYDROGEN ATOMS could be used to store bits of information in a quantum computer. An atom in its ground state, with its electron in its lowest possible en- ergy level (blue), can represent a 0; the same atom in an excited state, with its electron at a higher energy level (green), can repre- sent a 1. The atom’s bit, 0 or 1, can be flipped to the opposite value using a pulse of laser light (yellow). If the photons in the pulse have the same amount of energy as the difference between the electron’s ground state and its excited state, the electron will jump from one state to the other. -
Mechanical Computing
Home For Librarians Help My SpringerReference Go Advanced Search Physics and Astronomy > Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science > Mechanical Computing: The Related Articles Computational Complexity of Physical Devices Unconventional Computing, Introduction to Cite | History | Comment | Print | References | Image Gallery | Hide Links Author This article represents the version submitted by the author. Dr. John H. Reif It is currently undergoing peer review prior to full publication. Dept. Comp. Sci., Duke Univ., Durham, USA and Adj. Fac. of Mechanical Computing: The Computational Complexity of Comp., KAU, Jeddah, SA, Durham, USA Physical Devices Editor Page Content [show] Dr. Robert A. Meyers RAMTECH LIMITED, Larkspur, USA Glossary Session History (max. 10) Mechanical Computing: The - Mechanism: A machine or part of a machine that performs a particular task computation: Computational Complexity of Physical the use of a computer for calculation. Devices - Computable: Capable of being worked out by calculation, especially using a computer. - Simulation: Used to denote both the modeling of a physical system by a computer as well as the modeling of the operation of a computer by a mechanical system; the difference will be clear from the context. Definition of the Subject Mechanical devices for computation appear to be largely displaced by the widespread use of microprocessor‐based computers that are pervading almost all aspects of our lives. Nevertheless, mechanical devices for computation are of interest for at least three reasons: (a) Historical: The use of mechanical devices for computation is of central importance in the historical study of technologies, with a history dating back thousands of years and with surprising applications even in relatively recent times.