Jeff Chelf
Contents
Wiki Entry Number One: The Abacus
The Abacus, a calculation device with roots back to the sixteenth century is one of the earliest precursors to our modern digital computers. The origins of the abacus are thought to be in Mesopotamia but regardless of its roots it had a clear impact on mathematical thinking at the time of its invention. An Abacus is in essence a small wooden frame that supports a series of beads in a row that are suspended on wires on which they can freely move side to side. While different world regions have slight variations on their devices, often in whether their beads count as different numerical amounts, they all are used for making fast calculations via sliding and counting of the beads. By using even such a simple machine people have been able to greatly increase the speed of simple calculations falling in the categories of addition/subtraction as well as multiplication/division. While seemingly simple by our modern standards the abacus did revolutionize mathematics in many areas in the world, and is thought by some to have helped contribute to the idea of zero. Despite its inherent simplicity, or even because of its simplicity, the abacus is still taught in modern schools in some oriental nations even to this day. In Taiwan specifically, children in the 4th and 5th grade still learn basic math skills on an abacus, which greatly improves their ability to do mental math and also gives them a lesson in the history of computing instead of starting them off on the most modern, most user friendly device that is our modern calculator. It is not just holding to tradition either, as the children who do study using the abacus that become proficient with it end up developing what is described as a mental abacus and are able to do rapid calculations in their head much faster than a user can input numbers into a modern calculator. While being both a practical and easy way for individuals to make calculations, for many tasks the modern computer is clearly more well suited, but without the abacus the digital computer may have never been created.
The idea of having a machine that can aid in calculations is not one that has always been around. It was not until the invention of the abacus that the idea really took hold allowing for further creation in the field. While it seems hugely simplistic by our modern standards the abacus is still the originator and needs to be taught not just as a device to teach faster mental math but also to help show individuals today the roots of our technology instead of having users blind to their own historical connections. Their is also a lesson in that just because a more advanced technology exists does not make it more efficient at every task, reminding us that sometimes you need to use older technologies to complete the task the fastest.
References
Stigler, James. (Aug. 1986) The Case of Abacus Training in Taiwan. Retrieved from the American Journal of Education Vol 94
The Abacus Today. Retrieved from The Mathematical Association Vol 4, No. 5. (Pgs 18-19)
Wiki Entry Number Two: Steve Wozniak
Born on August 11th, 1950 Steve Wozniak is best known for his involvement in co-founding the Apple Computer Incorporation. Wozniak, a native of California would grow up to attend the University of California at Berkeley and after dropping out in the seventies would eventually obtain his Bachelors of Science from the institution. The inventor of early computers such as the Apple 1 and the Apple II he has a rightfully earned place in the inventors hall of fame, though he is the lesser known of the two Steve's of Apple Computer, the other being co-founder and current CEO Steve Jobs. Despite the lesser fame, Wozniak was a vital contributor to making the home computer a reality. The Apple II computer with its integrated circuitry, internal floppy drive, and keyboard interface was a huge step in toward the modern computers of today. More importantly the Apple II Computer had eight expansion slots and had the option of being purchased as just a motherboard without even coming in the case. Both of these options encouraged user upgrades and left the door open for future development. Also, the computers display was six colors, being one of the first to do so made it much closer to our modern counterparts than a single color display. Wozniak and Steve Jobs did not create this computer assuming success either but rather to follow their passions in electronic equipment. Wozniak specifically was working for Hewlett Packard when he met Steve Jobs and the two decided to develop their own prototype. After quitting his job at HP and selling off possessions to acquire the money to build a prototype he set up shop in his own house to build the first apple computer. From there the story of Apple Computers takes off, securing Wozniak's future, and while Apple has hits rough patches over the years it is the single largest computer company in existance today thanks to devices like the iPhone, iPad, and what seems like a household item, the iPod in any of its various forms.
Despite early involvement in the development of the modern personal computer, Wozniak left apple in 1985 to work on his philanthropic pursuits helping to integrate technology into classrooms across the country. Wozniak does not just work with children on a technological level but also gives talks to students on being the "masters of their own fate" and staying off drugs and avoiding dangerous activities that take control of the users life. At one point Wozniak even took the helm and taught a fifth grade class. So, while Wozniak earned a place as a true innovator and changed the face of the world we live in through his invention he was and still is a philanthropist in every sense of the word. Without his contributions to the modern computer, it is hard to say where we would be today, it is possible we would still be controlling our keyboards with a series of switches or looking at a single color screen.
References
Steve Wozniak aka "The Woz"Co-founder, Apple Computer Inc.Chief Scientist, Fusion-io. Woz.org. http://www.woz.org/wozscape/wozbio.html.
Wiki Entry Number Three: TCP/IP
TCP/IP or Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol or yet another creation of the digital age to have its roots in the department of defense. Initially these protocols were designed to integrate a number of different networks that existed in different branches of the armed forces. As H. Gilbert of Yale University points out, the initial success of TCP/IP was "because it delivered a few basic services that everyone needs (file transfer, electronic mail, remote logon) across a very large number of client and server systems." Essentially TCP/IP created what we think of as the internet today. Internet protocol allowed for packet transfer and controlled the routing of information from local networks into the global network of computers using a sequence of 4 numbers that provide a unique IP address for individual machine identity. The transmission control protocol section provides error detection support to make small errors in a network self correcting. This self correcting feature was useful in a defense system where a network needs to be consistently running. The problem of a system such as this was that it would allow small errors to be continually auto corrected and never properly fixed opening the door for the problem to make itself larger over time.
The strength of TCP/IP networks is that it can work over multiple mediums, self-correct minor network errors, and work across different networking systems. Not only can TCP/IP network over LAN but also over cable television lines, which is why we can have cable internet providers, or it can be used locally over corporate SNA networks without actually networking to the global network. Another strength of this department of defense created system is the routing abilities that is has to help work against network failures. TCP/IP networks can be set up in a loop, so as every address has two routes in and out. If one of this patches fails the information can be sent in a longer loop to the alternative line, which is slower but still allows for less down time in the event of network issues. This can create another problem in the form of congestion. While the network stays up network traffic can be routed in such a way that can slow down a network in a given area but funneling a volume of information to great for the lines to handle at speed greatly reducing the speed of information delivery in the event of said congestion.
While TCP/IP has its distinct problems, it helped launch our modern world wide web by enabling more robust and efficient networks across the world. Also, by allowing such easy data transfer setting up a local network became cheaper and therefore more readily used in the corporate world, helping to create the computer driven culture of today where computers and their technological counterparts are not only ubiquitous but often so overlooked that people forget there was ever a world without them.
Gilbert, H. (1995) Introduction to TCP/IP. Retrieved from: http://www.yale.edu/pclt/COMM/TCPIP.HTM
Wiki Article: Computers in Modern Medicine
Abstract: Computers are a vital part of our lives in most any imaginable way, from our phones, to our atms, and even ours cars. The question is if the medical industry has kept up with this trend or if they have at times fallen behind since the inception of digital computing technologies in the 1940’s. As it turns out the computer has been a vital component in medicine for as long as they were viable on the private market. Not only this, but the medical field has played a large role in developing new technologies that suit their unique needs as doctors and researchers in an increasingly complex world.
Digital Technologies in the medical field over time.
Technology and medicine have always gone hand in hand. As a society picked up a skill there could often be a way to apply it to medicine. If a society developed the technology for bone carving this could be applied for sutures or rock flaking could make a blade to relieve a swollen body part. Later on, metal working technologies would be quickly applied to the medical field continuing to our modern times where metal instruments still have a large role in medical practice, though this modern tools are of course more refined, and undoubtedly more sterile. When technologies for rapid communication were developed it followed that they could be used for emergency medicine, and when transportation improved the modes of transporting patients did concurrently. The question then is, does this long standing rule apply when technology is no longer simply a physical product but instead a digital machine capable of solving complex logical problems and relies on increasingly less human input? A digital computer is unlike many technologies in the past, mainly in that it requires much less human interaction and can in a sense work itself, and often does not perform as a physical tool so much as it does an aid in tasks that had been completed by human hands. Also, a computer can run outside of the times a doctor is in a room. Tasks can continue to resolve even as a doctor is not present, and many simple administrative task can be greatly sped up with the use of computers, which are both positive and negative aspects, as they increase efficiency yet allow for a certain margin of error. With the capabilities of technology as they are, but also the flaws inherent with digital technologies at times, I hypothesize that while computers play a large role in the medical field medical technologies have been slow to catch on in comparison to technologies that are and have been available at any given time in the past.
Early History of the Computer
The computer has a long history, and one not strictly limited to the digital computers we are familiar with today. The earliest computer, going back over one thousand years is the abacus, which are essentially beads on a frame used to do simple math problems more quickly. Closer to our own time, and also closer in form are problem solving devices of the 1800’s that could solve equations using mechanical methods. The most advanced of these could be programmed to achieve different results and is for the most part a mechanical precursor to the programmable digital machines that we use today. Up until this point computes are simple calculation machines, made for specific purposes and those with programming options were still great limited in their abilities. They are in few ways like the modern pc’s that are ubiquitous today. It was not until World War Two and a need for strong code breaking equipment that computers really were able to take off in the digital form that we would currently recognize. England in World War Two made great strides in the development of digital computing. Their need to break Nazi codes during the war gave the technology the needed push and while what was developed was room sized and extremely slow to our standards this was literally the precursor to our personal computers. Without this vital development medical fields never could have picked up the technology or even had a chance to. Despite development in the mid forties the technology did not become used publicly for nearly a decade more. Even as the technology was being integrated into the public sector it was so prohibitively expensive that only major national corporations could even begin to afford to put them to use. Also, these computers were still geared toward simple computation, not things like administrative work or patient monitoring as you would need for the medical industry to pick it up. In fact it would be years yet before computers would be practical for use in much other than large commercial enterprise. Once things like the transistor and the microprocessor were invented the technology could really take off, however, and it is at this point that you begin to see the medical field utilizing digital computing technologies on any mass scale.
The first uses of electronics in medicine.
As mentioned previously, early computers were prohibitively expensive to such an extent that their widespread use in any industry did not come until decades after their time of invention in the 1940’s. By the late 50’s to mid 60’s this was beginning to change and the computer was taking on a role in the medical industry. The first mention to be found when researching the introduction of computers can be found in the publication entitled, “The Science News Letter” in a volume published in 1959. The author of the piece puts in detail the devices already in use by doctors at the time and notes, however that these machines are not “replacements of doctors, but rather aids.” (Segman, 219) These is interesting in relation to certain computers of today which perform and can analyze tests, only needing the doctor as an aid. Also interesting is that the machines that gave them hope for a digital computer taking off in the field was the current use at the time of electronic muscle simulators, and optical visual simulators to attain certain brain responses. In relation to my hypothesis I am very surprised that the use to stimulate different sectors of the brain had already been achieved by this point. My initial thought was that this would be a later development, and that the first use of computers in medicine would be more strictly tied to administrative work. It was equally surprising that the pacemaker, a device used to restart a patient’s heart using electricity, was developed in 1957 and already in use saving lives by 1959 when Segman’s article was published in “The Science Newsletter” on the emergence of electronic devices in medicine. Being such a fundamental tool in helping patients with heart problems, this was stunning to find this as such an early invention, again disproving my thought that medicine has had trouble keeping up with the technologies available to them. In the same article my hypothesis would once again face scrutiny in that in 1958 the first long distance diagnosis took place in which a doctor monitored remotely, sensors attached to a patient from a thousand miles away, and more remarkable yet at this same time, digital devices to simulate lung and heart function during difficult operations were already being tested at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota. In fact, by this time there were machines that could monitor nearly many common conditions, count blood cells and tumor cells and analyze nutrient density in a patient “20 times faster than a trained technician.” (Segman, 219) At least in the early days of the digital technology boom the medical field was not only up to date on available technologies but already creating many to solve otherwise unsolvable problems. The only hole in my research for this time period is that I could not find the extent to which computers were used in administrative work in the field at this point. Being so heavily used for diagnostic problems already it would follow that they would also be used for simpler things like streamlining paper work and data storage. It is clear even without confirmation on the use in administrative work that the computer, contrary to my own previously held belief, did keep up with technology when it was emerging in the 1950’s, but this could be different than the decades to follow.
Later Trends
As technology developed and the computer became more and more like our modern equivalents, the documentation of the technology increased, itself showing an increasing reliance on digital technology but also easing the process of researching early computer use in medicine. Jumping up to the late 60’s the view of the computer as an assistant was the exact same as the previous decade. Again, in a British Medical Journal volume, the author, Peter Parish, says that, “the most powerful computer can originate nothing.” (Parish, 483) At this point there is also a disgruntled attitude forming with doctors that can’t get from their computers and software what they want, and have trouble communicating to programmers on their exact needs. Along the same lines, the doctors were having trouble using their own computers in conjunction with a colleague in that there were such varying platforms that were entirely incompatible with one another. During this time a new development in computer use in medicine was in diagnosing diseases. Doctors would input symptoms and other data, for the computer to cross reference with known diseases to gain a diagnosis. Also, smaller machines in hospitals were being used to administer doses of medicine, assign staffing in hospital wards, work out data in a lab, and even help create diets for patients with special needs. The biggest trend I find in this time period is not an abundance of new development, but instead new uses for computers that only required different programming, and also more ideas for the future as to what the computer could someday mean in the field of medicine. The big thing to note in the sixties is the increased use of computers in diagnostic tests and the great boost in efficiency they gave in processing data collected from patients. This same trend had been present in the late 50’s when Segman mentions that digital technologies could someday replace human body parts and organ, which is something we see as a reality at times today. What I notice most of all though, is that during this period there are not the leaps and bounds that the fifties saw. Where there was a great boom in the early time the sixties were more about broadening the scope of already invented devices, which in certain ways this time period fits in with my hypothesis that medicine would not keep up with digital technologies. If the trend continues I would say I was partially correct, but that initial boom is enough to at least indicate the ability for medical practice to keep up with technology in the modern age.
As time progresses the articles on a technology address the same issues. What is fascinating though is that in the later articles, you can see a reflection process by doctors on the earlier systems and recognition of the things that were unachievable with older technologies. Once you get into the eighties, doctors are relying even more on computers as decision making instruments, and a greater exploration of their research capabilities beyond data storage. At this time, researchers are beginning to also ask the question if computer use beyond the current usage of the day would still be ethical. Seeing errors that occurred because of technology in the past made researchers at this time question if the risk of any error was worth continuing the of computers use on patient cases, as “the use of such systems must not cause harm.” (Dombal, 181) The concern also existed that patient privacy would be comprised by the use of technologies, which is hardly different today. The trend, however, is still one of redeveloping the technology already available, but it matches in many ways what the computer industry on the whole was doing, the medical field seemed have been following suit at this point, which does contradict my hypothesis once again but it is still not on par with the medical developments in technology present in the 1950’s. The 90’s and later would once again bring the change seen in the fifties, and perhaps also matched perfectly with what technology could accomplish.
Computers in medicine today.
The latest era in medical computing technologies once again brought in developments that went above and beyond what was being supplied by computer industries. During this time, there was a great boom in home and office computing technology which in itself was a great boost in medicine as well. Even more important is the greater use of computers in lab work to process even greater levels of data than ever before and even examining traits in highly complex DNA sequences. Also, machines such as the CAT scan and MRI were being fully developed and put to use to scan the human body and display our anatomy and even brain signals in a visual manner never before even imagined. Also, computers in the medical field run primarily off the Microsoft Windows platform so problems of incompatibility between researchers computers is less of a problem than ever. Data can be moved in a way that there is little time between transmission and reception and great precision as well as accuracy with our newer equipment. Technologies have even been taken to the road now, with global positioning systems to help guide emergency medical vehicles through unfamiliar areas, and monitoring systems that can keep track of a patient’s status at home and automatically report any problems they may be having. There are even things so advanced as surgical procedures being performed by more precise robots to provide a steadier hand than even the greatest surgeon on staff. At this point the computer and medical practice are nearly inseparable, just as it is in everyday life, the computer has become a needed tool in many practices in medicine, in every imaginable way. The field of medicine is not only keeping up with technology now but has itself been a fuel in the technological boom, becoming one of the greatest sources of new development in advanced technologies.
Digital computers, since being invented in the 1940’s, have consistently played a role in medicine once they became in any way convenient for use in a real world environment. Just like other technological developments in history, the medical field was on top of using the computer to conduct in a more efficient manner research they had to do by hand and also to keep patients that would have otherwise died. At certain points in time the medical field was not only a follower of the technology being released by the computer industry but also a contributor of entirely new technologies designed to help solve some of the unique problems faced everyday by doctors. While there were brief lulls in the adaptation of technology by doctors also, the facts show clearly that the medical field kept up with new technologies as well as physically possible, refuting completely my idea that this would be one area where the medical profession would lag behind and not catch up until more recent years. Thankfully this is the case, because as it turns out, computers help save lives every day in an increasingly wide array of situations, ranging from heart attack patients, to diabetics, to the computers used in diagnosing any number of problems that any one of us could potentially contract over the period of a lifetime. Had the industry not been so persistent in keeping up with technology this could be a very different world about us, though I would not want to make any false predictions.
References
Dombal, F.T. (1987) Ethical Considerations in Medicine in the 1980’s.
Journal of Medical Ethics, Volume 13(No. 4), pages 179-184.
Parish, Peter. (1967) Computers in Medicine. The British Medical Journal.
Volume 4(No. 5577) Page 483.
Segman, Ralph. Medicine Turns to Electronics. (1959) The Science
News-Letter. Volume 75(No. 14)Pages 218-219
(1965) Computers in Medicine. The British Medical Journal, Volume 2(No.
5475), pages 1427-1428.
(1967) Computers in Medicine. The British Medical Journal, Volume 4(No.
5574), pages 250-251
