LSP 120 Technological Literacy Some of the tools and forces driving the evolution of science and technology G. P. Labedz DePaul University Spring 2011

Outline Today you will see how every major topic from this course helps you to understand one of the most powerful forces in the world. It affects almost every human alive You could call it a trend

First, the work of a master of the “old school” (flat paper) display of data Edward Tufte is regarded as one ofthe most insightful creators of the graphic display of data alive and working today

A Graphing Master: Edward Tufte Clarifies the Challenger Disaster To launch or not? The engineers saw this: Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative.Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. Edward Tufte

Tufte charted the SAME data To launch or not? Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative.Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. Edward Tufte Notice the low end “prediction” on the graph (dotted)

The “virtuous cycle” The virtuous cycle is one in which the cycle is self-reinforcing The self-reinforcing makes things better and better (hence, “virtuous”) Driving many sciences, and “technology” today there is a virtuous cycle, the one we’ll examine today

At the core: Semiconductor “chips” Source: Intel, Inc

Where “chips” come from: wafers They are made from sand Source: Intel, Inc

Moore’s “Law” Moore’s “Law” is really an observation made in 1967 Who is Gordon Moore? Co-founder of Intel It says, based on experience at the time, that the number of transistors/area (note, a rate) doubles approximately every 24 months Hmmm. And how would we model that?

The number of transistors on here doubles every 24 months but the wafer costs the same Source: Intel, Inc

So the cost of making this goes in half every 24 months Source: Intel, Inc

Anybody sense A TREND? Moore’s “Law” is a description of a trend based on experience and (originally) extended into the FUTURE

Note vertical axis Is exponential increasing by 10x Each interval

The virtuous cycle As the number of transistors/area grows The transistors shrink. The circuits get much cheaper, all electronics get cheaper And when they shrink, they get faster When the transisitor get faster, everything speeds up All the computers and controllers speed up When the computers speed up, more can be computed When more can be computed, sceintific and engineering calculation becomes more sophisticated When science becomes more sophisticated, Science and engineering advance at a more rapid pace.

It is possible to: Build computer models allowing Crashing a car in a computer (GM, Ford); building earth-moving equipment; creating an entire cellular system; testing a helicopter; studying wind-turbines and on and on...

These computer simulation create enormous amounts of data output to be studied Billions and billions of numbers to “graph” It’s incomprehensible to humans

Prof. Donna Cox An art professor married her visual skills to the data sets of scientists at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in the mid-1980s Using newly-created computer graphics from the movie industry Scientific Visualization was born

Tonado multivariate simulation and visualization. Prof. Bob Wilmhelmson National Center for Supercomputing Applications

Some bumps in the road: end of Moore’s Law? Gene Amdahl’s Law Heat on the integrated circuits has killed the speedups! It’s the unexpected end of a trend!! The micoprocessor industry can no longer just Add more transistors and expect everything to go faster So they put multiple “computers” in the computers That’s what “multicore” means

Lousy citation from Wikipedia

Moore’s “Law” is alive but it’s companion speedup is not This trend CANNOT be projected forward. It’s over

In Biological Science: Human Genome Project Benefiting from massive computing speedups but benefits are early and small The Human Genome Project originally aimed to map the nucleotides contained in a human haploid reference genome (more than three billion).nucleotides contained in a human haploid reference genome (more than three billion). But, except for identical twins, no two humans are alike! Bibliographic details for "Human Genome Project" Page name: Human Genome Project Author: Wikipedia contributors Publisher: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Date of last revision: 23 May :17 UTC Date retrieved: 28 May :42 UTC Permanent link: Primary contributors: Revision history statisticsRevision history statistics Page Version ID:

If they can put a man on the moon why can’t they cure the cold? It’s because THEY are not the same people with the same tools

The people who put humans on the moon had the benefit, even in the 1960s, of highly accurate mathematical models of motion in space, and the ability to use computing to predict what would happen in all the important aspects of building and launching the equipment Biologists don’t have that yet.

From this little talk you have learned... That the shrinkage, and speedup of semiconductor-based circuits is the driver of a “virtuous cycle” It enables radical cost reduction and performance increase In computing and control of many things

... from this little talk you have learned... Which in turn enables radical increase in scientific computing; In turn creating huge data sets; But also creating the ability of people to comprehend the huge data sets using Complex computer-driven animation of data

... from this little talk you have learned... And in turn enhancing knowledge At an incredible rate in some fields of thought.

... from this little talk you have learned... An expression of the underlying force behind these advancements Is called “Moore’s Law” From which predictions up to now have held true But which may be in a disruption.

From this little talk you have also learned... That “Moore’s Law” is an exponential process, That the rate of increase of transistors on a semiconductor die is what matters, And that visual representation of data, modern graphing, is moving knowledge forward. And that this trend, which has so enhanced and disrupted the world, may be over

SO In other words This is the math class you’ve all been waiting for!

The only three things you need to know about PowerPoint Or, Bonus material on the DVD About how I made this presentation And how you can quickly make yours.