Magic (was Re: just outta curiosity

From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis_at_mcmanis.com>
Date: Sun Apr 8 17:38:29 2001

At 11:20 PM 4/8/01 +0100, Tony wrote:
> > "Any sufficeintly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
> >
> > I suffix this with: "If you don't look under the hood".
>
>Is this related to the the fact that I've met many people, including
>computer scientists, who believe there's something magical about a
>processor, and that it can't be understood in terms of simple gates and
>flip-flops?
>
>I don't know where that myth comes from, but a few hours with a
>minicomputer technical manual is the best way I know to remove it :-)


It actually came from Arthur C. Clarke and its getting a bit scary.
Consider the quantum teleportation of photons, or stopping light, or room
temperature superconductors using carbon nanotubes, or Extreme UV
Lithography where the chips look like so much glass even with a really
powerful microscope.

There are things where you _cannot_ look under the hood without some
serious tools and to those of us who don't understand computers at all,
this is for all intents and purposes magic. Recent work in photonic
switches will yield I/O cards that look like solid black bricks. You slide
them into the case and they start working "magically". Organic LED displays
are going to put full color displays into wall paper. Touch the wall and a
window appears, on the Alps, in real time. Yup, its going to be an
interesting century.

--Chuck
Received on Sun Apr 08 2001 - 17:38:29 BST