View Full Version : Wild scientific article on the future potential of computing...
Check this out: http://www.newscientist.com/features/features.jsp?id=ns225415
Warning: not an easy read. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif
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Wow...quite amazing and quite scary once you actually start thinking about it... http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/eek.gif
Rossgr
09-18-2000, 03:20 PM
This reminds me of an old Asimov short story. It starts with a couple of drunk programers sitting in front of a state of the art (for 1960) computer and feeding in the question, "What happens when the sun burns out". Of course the computer finally spits out "Insufficient Data" . The story progresses thru successive generations of smaller and smaller computers( in its day everything after the first was ScFi!) always with the same result, until finally the question is asked of the "Cosmic Computer" (The one referred to in this article). This time the computer answers, "Insufficient data, will continue to gather data". So after the sun burns out the computer keeps working and finally, finds the solution.
Says, "Let there be light" , and there was.
Unfortunatly I can not remember the title of this story. It has stuck in my mind over the years as I have watched computers evolve much as Isaac predicted in ~15BA (Before Apple). Now this artile seems to be talking about the final stage, its a bit scary, as we are several hundred years AHEAD of Isaacs schedual!
jeeza
01-20-2004, 09:59 AM
That page doesn't exist anymore as their site has been redesigned.
They are giving however a list of links to their most popular pages.
Does someone know where to look for that article ?
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david eaton
01-20-2004, 03:13 PM
Unfortunatly I can not remember the title of this story.
The Last Question.
jeeza
01-20-2004, 06:34 PM
This was a statement about a story by Asimov, not about the article.
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