The Energetics of Computing in Life and Machines PDF Download

Author: Chris Kempes
Publisher: Seminar
ISBN: 9781947864184
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description
Why do computers use so much energy? What are the fundamental physical laws governing the relationship between the precise computation run by a system, whether artificial or natural, and how much energy that computation requires? This volume integrates concepts from diverse fields, cultivating a modern, nonequilibrium thermodynamics of computation.

Author: Melvin Berger
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780690041002
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
Explains how computers work and discusses their increasing importance in more and more areas of day-to-day life.

Author: Eric G. Swedin
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801887747
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
A great technological and scientific innovation of the last half of the 20th century, the computer has revolutionised how we organise information, how we communicate with each other, and the way we think about the human mind. This book offers a short history of this dynamic technology, covering its central themes since ancient times.

Author: Michael Crichton
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description

Author: Konrad Zuse
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3662029316
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Konrad Zuse is one of the great pioneers of the computer age. He created thefirst fully automated, program controlled, freely programmable computer using binary floating-point calculation. It was operational in 1941. He built his first machines in Berlin during the Second World War, with bombs falling all around, and after the war he built up a company that was taken over by Siemens in 1967. Zuse was an inventor in the traditional style, full of phantastic ideas, but also gifted with a powerful analytical mind. Single-handedly, he developed one of the first programming languages, the Plan Calculus, including features copied only decades later in other languages. He wrote numerousbooks and articles and won many honors and awards. This is his autobiography, written in an engagingly lively and pleasant style, full of anecdotes, reminiscences, and philosophical asides. It traces his life from his childhood in East Prussia, through tense wartime experiences and hard times building up his business after the war, to a ripe old age andwell-earned celebrity.

Author: Ronald M. Baecker
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198827083
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 549

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Book Description
The last century has seen enormous leaps in the development of digital technologies, and most aspects of modern life have changed significantly with their widespread availability and use. Technology at various scales - supercomputers, corporate networks, desktop and laptop computers, the internet, tablets, mobile phones, and processors that are hidden in everyday devices and are so small you can barely see them with the naked eye - all pervade our world in a major way. Computers and Society: Modern Perspectives is a wide-ranging and comprehensive textbook that critically assesses the global technical achievements in digital technologies and how are they are applied in media; education and learning; medicine and health; free speech, democracy, and government; and war and peace. Ronald M. Baecker reviews critical ethical issues raised by computers, such as digital inclusion, security, safety, privacy,automation, and work, and discusses social, political, and ethical controversies and choices now faced by society. Particular attention is paid to new and exciting developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the issues that have arisen from our complex relationship with AI.

Author: David Alan Grier
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400849365
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
Before Palm Pilots and iPods, PCs and laptops, the term "computer" referred to the people who did scientific calculations by hand. These workers were neither calculating geniuses nor idiot savants but knowledgeable people who, in other circumstances, might have become scientists in their own right. When Computers Were Human represents the first in-depth account of this little-known, 200-year epoch in the history of science and technology. Beginning with the story of his own grandmother, who was trained as a human computer, David Alan Grier provides a poignant introduction to the wider world of women and men who did the hard computational labor of science. His grandmother's casual remark, "I wish I'd used my calculus," hinted at a career deferred and an education forgotten, a secret life unappreciated; like many highly educated women of her generation, she studied to become a human computer because nothing else would offer her a place in the scientific world. The book begins with the return of Halley's comet in 1758 and the effort of three French astronomers to compute its orbit. It ends four cycles later, with a UNIVAC electronic computer projecting the 1986 orbit. In between, Grier tells us about the surveyors of the French Revolution, describes the calculating machines of Charles Babbage, and guides the reader through the Great Depression to marvel at the giant computing room of the Works Progress Administration. When Computers Were Human is the sad but lyrical story of workers who gladly did the hard labor of research calculation in the hope that they might be part of the scientific community. In the end, they were rewarded by a new electronic machine that took the place and the name of those who were, once, the computers.

Author: Cedric Cullingford
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317162587
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
How have schools been affected by the introduction of computer technology, and has it changed the school life and experience of students? This book uses research from both large and small secondary schools, including those specializing in technology and those with higher numbers of pupils with special needs, to look at the results of all the political initiatives and investment in ICT. The authors found that the ambitious expectations fell short of reality. Their research into the reasons for this shortfall can help teachers understand and develop ways to make the best use of computers in their schools. It is equally informative for educational researchers and policy-makers.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Jonathan E. Steinhart
Publisher: No Starch Press
ISBN: 1593279701
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 505

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Book Description
A primer on the underlying technologies that allow computer programs to work. Covers topics like computer hardware, combinatorial logic, sequential logic, computer architecture, computer anatomy, and Input/Output. Many coders are unfamiliar with the underlying technologies that make their programs run. But why should you care when your code appears to work? Because you want it to run well and not be riddled with hard-to-find bugs. You don't want to be in the news because your code had a security problem. Lots of technical detail is available online but it's not organized or collected into a convenient place. In The Secret Life of Programs, veteran engineer Jonathan E. Steinhart explores--in depth--the foundational concepts that underlie the machine. Subjects like computer hardware, how software behaves on hardware, as well as how people have solved problems using technology over time. You'll learn: How the real world is converted into a form that computers understand, like bits, logic, numbers, text, and colors The fundamental building blocks that make up a computer including logic gates, adders, decoders, registers, and memory Why designing programs to match computer hardware, especially memory, improves performance How programs are converted into machine language that computers understand How software building blocks are combined to create programs like web browsers Clever tricks for making programs more efficient, like loop invariance, strength reduction, and recursive subdivision The fundamentals of computer security and machine intelligence Project design, documentation, scheduling, portability, maintenance, and other practical programming realities. Learn what really happens when your code runs on the machine and you'll learn to craft better, more efficient code.