Digitized The Science of Computers and How It Shapes Our World

by Bentley, Peter J.

• ISBN13: 9780199693795
• ISBN10: 019969379X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-05-04
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

There's a hidden science that affects every part of your life, a science so powerful that you would be hard-pressed to find a single human being on the planet unaffected by its achievements. It is the science behind computers, the machines which drive the supply and creation of power, food, medicine, money, communication, entertainment, and most goods our stores. It has transformed societies with the Internet, the digitization of information, mobile phone networks, and GPS technologies. Written in friendly and approachable language,Digitizedprovides a window onto the mysterious field from which all computer technology originates, making the theory and practice of computation understandable to the general reader. This popular science book explains how and why computers were invented, how they work, and what will happen in the future. Written by a leading computer scientist, Peter J. Bentley, it tells this fascinating story using the voices of pioneers and leading experts interviewed for the book, in effect throwing open the doors of the most cutting-edge computer laboratories. Bentley explores how this young discipline grew from the early work by pioneers such as Turing, through its growth spurts in the Internet, its difficult adolescent stage where the promises of AI were never achieved and dot-com bubble burst, to its current stage as a semi-mature field, capable of remarkable achievements. Packed with real-world examples,Digitizedis the only book to explain the origins and key advances in all areas of computing: theory, hardware, software, Internet, user interfaces, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. If you have an interest in computers--whether you work with them, use them for fun, or are being taught about them in school--this book will provide an entertaining introduction to the science that's changing the world.

Author Biography

Peter J. Bentley maps out the breakthroughs in theory and technology that have brought us from Alan Turing's original ideas in the 1940s to the omnipresent reality of our digitized world today. This is the extraordinary story of computer science, of pioneering individuals and leaps of imagination that have revolutionized our world-and will continue to revolutionize it in future.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. xi
List of Illustrations	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Computers uncovered	p. 4
The science of computers	p. 8
Can You Compute?	p. 13
Understanding the impossible	p. 16
Turing's unstoppable machines	p. 21
Turing's legacy	p. 25
Complexity is simple	p. 29
Does P = NP?	p. 34
Oracles and other complexities	p. 38
Theoretical futures	p. 41
Disposable Computing	p. 43
Thinking logically	p. 45
Building brains	p. 49
Anatomy of a digital brain	p. 54
The end of the beginning	p. 58
The Law of Moore	p. 62
The future is many	p. 67
Beyond von Neumann	p. 71
Oil Your Life in Binary Digits	p. 74
Learning to program computers	p. 80
Climbing higher	p. 85
Bases for data	p. 91
Software crisis	p. 95
Virtual futures	p. 102
Monkeys with World-Spanning Voices	p. 104
Diverse connections	p. 108
Inter-networking	p. 112
Addressing for success	p. 119
Spinning webs over networks	p. 123
Weaving tangled webs	p. 129
Webs of deceit	p. 134
Digital lives	p. 137
My Computer Made Me Cry	p. 140
The birth of friendly computing	p. 145
Seeing with new eyes	p. 149
Photos and chicken wire	p. 153
Waking dreams	p. 156
It's not what you do but the way that you do it	p. 162
My pet computer	p. 168
Human-computer integration	p. 170
Building Bionic Brains	p. 173
Teaching computers how to play	p. 175
The birth of intelligence	p. 179
The seasons of AI	p. 182
Intelligence from feet to head	p. 190
Adaptation by natural selection	p. 195
Learning to learn, predicting the predictors	p. 201
Complex futures	p. 205
A Computer Changed My Life	p. 209
Computer creativity	p. 210
Computational biology	p. 218
Computer medicine	p. 225
Computer detectives	p. 233
Endnotes	p. 241
Bibliographic Notes	p. 263
Index	p. 285
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