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LSP 120Technological Literacy
Some of the tools and forcesdriving the evolution
of science and technology
G. P. LabedzDePaul University
Spring 2011
Outline
Today you will seehow every major topic from this course
helps you to understandone of the most powerful forces in the
world.
It affects almost every human alive
You could call it a trend
First, the work of a masterof the “old school”
(flat paper) display of data
Edward Tufte is regardedas one ofthe most insightful
creators of the graphic displayof data
alive and working today
A Graphing Master: Edward TufteClarifies the Challenger Disaster
To launch or not? The engineers saw this:
Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. Edward Tufte
Tufte charted the SAME dataTo launch or not?
Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. Edward Tufte
Notice the low end“prediction” on the graph (dotted)
The “virtuous cycle”
The virtuous cycle is one in which the cycle is self-reinforcing
The self-reinforcing makes things better and better (hence, “virtuous”)
Driving many sciences, and “technology” today there is a virtuous cycle, the one we’ll examine today
Moore’s “Law”
Moore’s “Law” is really an observation made in 1967
Who is Gordon Moore? Co-founder of Intel
It says, based on experience at the time, that the number of transistors/area (note, a rate) doubles approximately every 24 months
Hmmm. And how would we model that?
The number of transistors on heredoubles every 24 months
but the wafer costs the same
Source: Intel, Inc
Anybody sense A TREND?
Moore’s “Law”is a description of a trend
based on experienceand (originally)
extended into the FUTURE
The virtuous cycle
As the number of transistors/area growsThe transistors shrink.The circuits get much cheaper, all electronics get cheaperAnd when they shrink, they get fasterWhen the transisitor get faster, everything speeds upAll the computers and controllers speed upWhen the computers speed up, more can be computedWhen more can be computed, sceintific and engineering calculation becomes more sophisticatedWhen science becomes more sophisticated,Science and engineering advance at a more rapid pace.
It is possible to:Build computer models allowing
Crashing a car in a computer (GM, Ford);building earth-moving equipment;creating an entire cellular system;
testing a helicopter;studying wind-turbines
and on and on . . .
These computer simulationcreate enormous amounts of
data output to be studied
Billions and billions of numbers to“graph”
It’s incomprehensible to humans
Prof. Donna Cox
An art professor married her visual skills tothe data sets of scientists
at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
in the mid-1980s
Using newly-created computer graphics fromthe movie industry
Scientific Visualization was born
http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/~cox/
Tonado multivariate simulation and visualization.
Prof. Bob WilmhelmsonNational Center for
Supercomputing Applications
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgumU0Ns1YI
Some bumps in the road:end of Moore’s Law?Gene Amdahl’s Law
Heat on the integrated circuits has killed the speedups!It’s the unexpected end of a trend!!
The micoprocessor industry can no longer justAdd more transistors and expect everything to go faster
So they put multiple “computers” in the computersThat’s what “multicore” means
Moore’s “Law” is alivebut it’s companion speedup is not
This trend CANNOT be projected forward. It’s over
In Biological Science:Human Genome Project
Benefiting from massive computing speedupsbut benefits are early and small
The Human Genome Project originally aimed to map the nucleotides contained in a human haploid reference genome (more than three billion).But, except for identical twins, no two humans are alike!
Bibliographic details for "Human Genome Project"Page name: Human Genome ProjectAuthor: Wikipedia contributorsPublisher: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.Date of last revision: 23 May 2011 01:17 UTCDate retrieved: 28 May 2011 13:42 UTCPermanent link: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Human_Genome_Project&oldid=430439003Primary contributors: Revision history statisticsPage Version ID: 430439003
If they can put a man on the moonwhy can’t they cure the cold?
It’s becauseTHEY
are not the same peoplewith the same tools
The people who put humans on the moon had the benefit, even in the
1960s, of highly accurate mathematical models of motion in
space, and the ability to use computing to predict what would
happen in all the important aspects ofbuilding and launching the equipment
Biologists don’t have that yet.
From this little talkyou have learned . . .
That the shrinkage, and speedupof semiconductor-based circuitsis the driver of a “virtuous cycle”
It enables radical cost reductionand performance increase
In computing and control ofmany things
. . . from this little talkyou have learned . . .
Which in turn enables radical increase in scientific computing;
In turn creating huge data sets;But also creating the ability of people
to comprehend thehuge data sets using
Complex computer-driven animation of data
. . . from this little talkyou have learned . . .
And in turn enhancing knowledgeAt an incredible rate
in some fields of thought.
. . . from this little talkyou have learned . . .
An expression of the underlying force behind these advancements
Is called “Moore’s Law”From which predictions up to now
have held trueBut which may be in a disruption.
From this little talkyou have also learned . . .
That “Moore’s Law” is an exponential process,
That the rate of increase of transistors on a semiconductor die is what matters,
And that visual representation of data, modern graphing, is moving knowledge forward.
And that this trend, which has so enhanced and disrupted the world, may be over