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Computers top poll of modern discoveries

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Kara Sundstrom
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« on: December 06, 2009, 01:20:09 am »

Computers top poll of modern discoveries

    * 02 December 2009 by Federico Faggin
    * Magazine issue 2737. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
    * For similar stories, visit the Comment and Analysis Topic Guide

TWO inventions have shaped our modern world more than any other: the engine and the computer. Where the engine captured and extended the human capacity to do physical work, the computer did the same for the capacity of the human brain to think, organise and control. This power has now pervaded not just homes and offices but also tens of thousands of products where it once didn't seem to fit, thanks to a small and beautiful device called the microprocessor.

Early computers were huge machines constructed from heterogeneous technologies and were very costly and wasteful of energy. Fifty years ago, a computer was an end in itself - it was inconceivable to put a computer inside, say, a toy or an electric toothbrush.

Semiconductor technology changed all that. Semiconductors made it possible to shrink computing components down to previously unimaginable sizes, enabling the invention of the microprocessor. This extended the idea of what a computer could be and provided a conceptual framework for delivering the immense power of computing technology into practical components that could be manufactured in volume, and therefore at low cost.
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Kara Sundstrom
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« Reply #1 on: December 06, 2009, 01:23:43 am »



Shaping the modern world (Image: Comstock/Getty)
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Kara Sundstrom
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« Reply #2 on: December 06, 2009, 01:24:07 am »

The microprocessor led naturally to the microcontroller, an entire computer on a single integrated circuit: very small, inexpensive and energy efficient. Today there is no industry and no human endeavour that hasn't been touched by microprocessors or microcontrollers.

Microprocessors and semiconductor technology are co-evolving, one feeding the other in a cycle of growth limited only by the "food" supply - the ability to make ever smaller transistors. This process is not only delivering ever smaller, faster and cheaper microprocessors, but also adding capabilities such as sensors and motors. We can now routinely make digital video and still cameras smaller than a grain of rice, optics included, costing less than a dollar. As time goes on, we will be able to mass-produce ever more complex and complete systems.

We are fascinated with creating machines built in our image. The microprocessor is arguably the greatest of them all.
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Kara Sundstrom
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« Reply #3 on: December 06, 2009, 01:24:51 am »


Bibliography

   1. Federico Faggin was part of the team that developed the Intel 4004, the world's first commercial microprocessor, released in 1971

The greatest discovery of the past 50 years

We invited computing pioneer Federico Faggin to write this piece to celebrate the microprocessor's victory in a poll to find the discovery that has had the greatest impact on the world in the past 50 years.

To mark the lauch of the website ImpactWorld! we teamed up with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), one of the UK government's main science funding agencies. The EPSRC came up with a list of 10 discoveries and nominated an eminent scientist to make the case for each one.

The discoveries were: the mobile phone; space exploration; magnetic resonance imaging; the World Wide Web; the global optical fibre network; error-correcting codes; lasers; public key encryption; green chemistry; and the microprocessor.

The microprocessor won hands down with 48 per cent of the vote, followed by the World Wide Web (31 per cent). Everything else was languishing in single figures. For the nominations and poll results, visit newscientist.com/special/big-impact.


http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427375.600-computers-top-poll-of-modern-discoveries.html
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