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"... what statement would contain the most information
in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis...
that all things are made of atoms---little particles that move around
in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little
distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another''.
- Richard
Feynman
TECHNOLOGY'S QUANTUM DIGITAL ROOTS
Newton's Laws, the combustion engine, refrigeration, air flight,
radio, television, and space flight are just a few of the many wonderful
achievements of humankind. Since the computer undoubtedly is at
the peak of our present technological achievements, we shall focus
on the specific knowledge that culminated in its rise to dominance
starting with the atomic hypothesis and leading to an ultimate
fulfillment in quantum theory, the basis of digital (semi-conductor)
technology.
The universe was once thought to be infinite in both time and
size. Now, after many experimental confirmations, we know that it
had a beginning, that it is running down (entropy)
and that, although immense, it has a limited size at both ends,
macroscopically (how big the total universe is) and microscopically
(how small it's pieces can be).
The atomic
hypothesis, which started way back in 400-500 BC with Leucippus
and Democritus has been progressively refined over the passage of
time. The once indivisible atom was found to be made of smaller
parts (protons, neutrons, electrons) which later were also composed
of even smaller parts (quarks) and ultimately the quanta (a single
quanta is calculated to be about 10-33 cm!).
| When we look at the smooth continuous surface of water we
forget that it is really composed of discrete bumpy little
H20 molecules. Seemingly smooth pictures on the
television are really just a collection of dots (called pixels)
when we look closely with a magnifying glass. Even our eyes
see the most perfect image as a collection of retinal dots
from our rod and cone cells. When we assume any
measureable thing varies smooth and continuously it can be
called an ANALOG device. When something is composed
of definite quantifiable units (pixels, atoms, DNA, cells,
quanta, etc.) it is DIGITAL in nature. Considering this,
even analog devices are really an illusion of continuity
because most often our measuring devices lack the resolution
to see these miniscule sub-units. A violin (analog) verses
a piano (digital) is a good example. A properly tuned piano
plays 88 discrete notes equally spaced on its musical spectrum.
A sound in between 2 adjacent keys is not made possible, but
a violinist can play any tone (no matter how "out of
tune" it might sound) because there are no frets that
limit the tones to specific spacings. |
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QUANTUM NATURE OF REALITY
In October 1900 Max Planck serendipitously
guessed the correct formula that perfectly fit
a previously unexplanable phenomenon called blackbody
radiation but was not satisfied and tried to find
a reason why his formula worked. He discovered that to make
it work he had to assume that all atomic energies are made
up of extremely small packets or quanta. (Planck
won a Nobel Prize for Physics for this work)
In 1905 Albert Einstein examined another unexplanable
phenomenon called the photoelectric effect (the
release of electrons from semiconductors by specific wavelengths
of light). Einstein proposed a quantum theory that solved
the problem and realised Planck's theory agreed. (Einstein
won a Nobel Prize for Physics for this work on the photoelectric
effect)
The transistor was a direct spin-off of this quantum
technology. It was the equivalent of a semi-conductor switch
that could be made extremely small and worked extremely
fast. Arrays of transistors could amplify signals, store
information and manipulate data. While Charles
Babbage proposed the idea of the first computer
(called the Analytical Engine), the inexpensive transistor
made it a reality.
John Atanosoff was the first person to suggest binary
as the basis for computer operation. Since transistors
are switches that can be either ON or OFF, the binary number
system (composed entirely of 0's or 1's) made perfect sense.
The number 42 (decimal) would become 00101010 in binary.
Here's a comparison:
| decimal |
... |
... |
... |
... |
1000's |
100's |
10's |
1's |
places are powers of 10
digits are 0-9 |
|
|
|
|
0 |
0 |
4 |
2 |
| binary |
128's |
64's |
32's |
16's |
8's |
4's |
2's |
1's |
places are powers of 2
digits are 0-1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
So, 42 in decimal equals 4 10's + 2 1's and in binary
equals 32 + 8 + 2. Letters are also represented digitally
(e.g. A=01000001, B=01000010, C=01000011). This binary computer
language is called software
and can direct the functioning of the hardware.
COMPUTER HARDWARE
The standard personal computer is composed of a video
monitor, a main case (containing the motherboard,
CPU, memory, power supply, video controller card, modem and/or
network card, disk drives, etc.), keyboard, mouse, and possibly
a printer and scanner. The CPU stands for Central
Processing Unit and is equivalent to the
brain of the computer, orchestrating all the instructions
called for by the software program. Software is loaded from
a drive (Hard Disk Drive, Floppy Drive, CDROM...) into memory.
There are 2 types of memory, permanent ROM and temporary
RAM. RAM stands for Random Access
Memory and ROM stands for Read Only
Memory. When you upgrade your computer memory it is
the RAM that you are changing. The Hard Disk
Drive (HDD) is a small box with metallic disks
that store data and programs magnetically in binary format.
The CD (Compact Disc) is another drive
that stores information optically on familiar discs using
a thin layer of aluminum sandwiched between plastic layers.
The 70 minute size CD's are most often used for games and
music and the data is recorded as microscopic bumps on a single
8 kilometer spiral track, bumps represent digital binary
(bits) and each track is .5 microns wide. An infrared
laser reflects off the bumps to transmit the recorded software/information.
SOFTWARE PROGRAM LANGUAGES
Again, computers communicate in digital binary signals at
their most elementary machine level using machine
language. Voltage levels within the computer circuitry
are switched back and forth (millions of times a second) from
0 volts or 5 volts to represent the binary digits (bits)
of 0 and 1, respectively. A group of 8 bits is called
a byte and can be a computer command, e.g. ADD numbers
or PUT a result on the video screen. To write a computer program
in machine language (e.g. 10100001 10110000 11100110 ...)
would be very monotonous, time consuming and highly prone
to error so using Hexadecimal (base 16) coding compressed
this some (e.g. 10100001 10110000 11100110 becomes A1 B0 E6).
Assembly Language was then introduced as a symbolic
shorthand. The following assembly language program
will print the words "Hello World" to the video
screen:
reset
LDX #$00
cycle
LDA hworld,X
BEQ reset
STX cache
JSR $FFD2
LDX cache
INX
JMP cycle
hworld
.text "Hello, World!"
.byte 13,0
cache
.byte 0 |
Confusing? Probably so. This language required you to know
the specific architecture of the computer you were programming
and while it did speed the programming process up, it was
still quite abstract and frustrating for the average person.
Efforts continued to make programming even less abstract and
more "human". Here is an example of the same
"Hello World" program using the C++ language:
#include <iostream.h>
main()
{
for(;;)
{
cout << "Hello World! ";
}} |
Getting better? Here is an example of the same "Hello
World" program using the BASIC
language:
10 CLS
20 PRINT "Hello World!"
30 END |
Even better! In BASIC, CLS is a command to CLear
the Screen. The rest is fairly straight forward. BASIC
was made to be a programming language for the average person.
But making it easier for the human made it harder for the
computer. Fortunately, computers keep getting faster and cheaper
and don't have a tendency to complain (too much). Finally,
with the advent of the internet, here is how your would write
the "Hello World" program using the HTML
web language.
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Hello, World Page!</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
Hello, World!
</BODY>
</HTML> |
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HELLO WORLD! WE'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE!
The first computer programs were quite simple by comparison to present
standards. "Hello World!" has become World Creation
as AI (Artificial Intelligence), 3-D, and other increasingly complex
algorithms have made digital simulations (and games) more realistic
and lifelike.
If our virtual reality creations could become conscious, how would
we explain the world we created for them?
Could they understand our world or would we have to transfer their
consciousness program into a body like ours for them to begin to
understand?
Could they get into our universe without our help?
Finally, ZERO
POINT theory states that the energy in 100 billion suns
burning for 100 million years exists in every cubic centimeter of
our so-called empty space. Thus, according to E=mc2
this equates to far more energy than a solid cubic centimeter of
our denseest matter. Coupling this with the quantum theory,
even our universe appears to be a digital holographic simulation!
Hello World!!!
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