Who Gives a Gigabyte?

Miriam Lacob, Gary Stix

Description

An exhilarating chronicle of the most revolutionary advancements in recent-and future-technology

Which new technologies are bound to have the biggest impact on our lives in the years ahead? This groundbreaking book looks at the latest technological superstars destined to reshape the upcoming century and offers easy-to-understand, engaging explanations of what they are, how they work, and how they will affect our lives. Written by a senior editor of Scientific American, the world's premier science magazine, and based on in-depth interviews with today's leading innovators as well as extensive research of the latest scientific literature, Who Gives a Gigabyte? takes you on a fast-paced tour into the brave new world of gene therapy, quantum computation, designer drugs, and recyclable cars.

Surveying the wide range of technological wonders, the authors investigate such diverse realms of scientific advancement as computing, telecommunications, laser beams, bioengineering materials, and alternative energy sources. From the Human Genome Project, which aims to spell out every letter of our genetic inheritance, to the implications of altering genes in important agricultural projects, to new strategies for attacking malignant cancer cells without the damaging side effects of traditional treatments, to the startling but still unsuccessful attempts to make computer software more like the human mind, Who Gives a Gigabyte? demystifies the technology of today and provides an enlightening glimpse into the limitless possibilities of tomorrow.

"An enjoyable and rewarding book." —Choice

"An informative overview of new and emerging technologies." —Booklist

"The reward for the reader is a solid grounding in technological literacy." —Scientific American

Sujets

• Technologies de fabrication
• Scientific American
• Engineering
• Technology
• Gary Stix
• Sciences et techniques
• Social Aspects

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 15 mars 1999
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780471673705
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

W HO G IVES A G IGABYTE ?
A Survival Guide for the Technologically Perplexed
Gary Stix and Miriam Lacob
To our children, Benjamin and Madeleine, in the hopes that the wise use of technology can enable the development of a future world in tune with the environment and all of its inhabitants.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright 1999 by Gary Stix and Miriam Lacob. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc. Published simultaneously in Canada
Figure 1.1 ( page 10 ): courtesy of Texas Instruments. Figure 1.2 ( page 11 ): courtesy of Lucent Technologies. Figure 1.3 ( page 16 ): courtesy of Jared Schneidman Design. Figure 1.5 ( page 20 ): courtesy of Digital Equipment Corp. Figure 1.6 ( page 25 ): courtesy of Optitek Inc. Figure 2.3 ( page 45 ): courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. Figure 2.4 ( page 50 ): courtesy of Visible Productions. Figure 2.5 ( page 51 ): courtesy of NASA. Figure 3.2 ( page 59 ): courtesy of Lucent Technologies. Figure 3.5 ( page 65 ): John McGrail. Figure 3.9 ( page 82 ): courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. Figure 4.1 ( page 91 ): courtesy of Northwestern State University. Figures 4.2 and 4.3 (pages 100 - 101 ): courtesy of Lasemaster. Figure 5.5 ( page 137 ): illustration by Slim Films. Figures 8.2 and 8.3 (page 215 - 216 ): courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories. Figure 9.2 ( page 251 ): courtesy of George Retseck. Figure 10.2 ( page 278 ): courtesy of Ford Motor Company. Figure 10.3 ( page 283 ): courtesy of Columbia University.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone]. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, [phone], fax [phone], e-mail: PERMREQ @ WILEY.COM.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Stix, Gary. Who gives a gigabyte?: a survival guide for the technologically perplexed / Gary Stix and Miriam Lacob. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-471-16293-0 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Technological innovations. 2. Technological literacy. I. Lacob, Miriam. II. Title. T173.8.S75 1999 600-dc21 98-35327
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Microchips and the Millennium

1 Computers 101: From Bits to Gigabytes and Beyond

2 Software: Making a Computer Bend to Your Will

3 Wiring the World: Telecommunications and Data Networks

4 Lasers: The Light Fantastic

5 All in the Genes: DNA Becomes an Industry

6 Medicine and Molecules: New Approaches to Drug Development

7 Spare Parts and High-Tech Flashlights: Repair Kits and Diagnostics for the Human Body

8 Material Improvements: Better Living through Advanced Chemistry

9 Mother Earth, Wind, and Fire: Energy for a Small Planet

10 Clean Machines: Technology and the Environment

Conclusion: Great Expectations

Further Reading

Index
Acknowledgments
Any book is a collaboration beyond the efforts of the individual authors. This one is no exception. It would not have been possible without the abundant resources available to us from Scientific American magazine. A large measure of thanks must also go to Emily Loose, the John Wiley editor who helped enormously with the conception of the book. In addition, invaluable research assistance came from Robert Cox. A long list of manuscript reviewers helped correct and improve this volume. They include, in alphabetical order: Federico Capasso, Donna Cunningham, James Ellenbogen, Jerrold Gold, Paul Hoffman, John Horgan, G. Dan Hutcheson, Wayne Knox, John MacChesney, Mahmoud Naghshineh, George Musser, Joseph Pelton, Dr. Charles Pelizarri, Monica Roth, Phil Rotheim, Ricki Rusting, David Schneider, Pamela Tames, Chris Stix, Paul Wallich, Richard Wright, and Philip Yam. Gratitude goes to Edward Bell for obtaining illustrations, and to our children, Benjamin and Madeleine, for being so patient.
Introduction
Microchips and the Millennium
The watchmaker who lives in our neighborhood retired a few years ago. A German immigrant, he studied his trade for decades, becoming an expert in the finely balanced, exquisitely intricate machinery of Swiss clockwork. He decided to retire as the interlocking gears and cogs inside the timepiece started to be displaced by tiny blocks of silicon without moving parts. I was an apprentice in Germany for ten years, he used to say. I don t understand these new things. There is nothing to fix.
The days of the mechanically oriented watchmaker-or even the child tinkerer who pries open an appliance to see how it works-have faded. In their place is a flat, featureless landscape populated by countless electronic circuits. Its topography can only be inspected with powerful microscopes and its description rendered in the obtuse argot of DRAMS, ASICs, and SRAMs.
Microcircuitry surrounds us, not only in watch mechanisms, but in toasters, refrigerators, automobiles, and microwave ovens. The number of transistors in a typical American home outnumbers by far the nails attached to the wooden studs holding up its walls. The average homeowner has driven in a few nails, but has not a clue about the electronic viscera of the digital coffeemaker.
Thus it is with much of the high technology that saturates the modern world: even as the products of applied physics, chemistry, and biology disperse ever more widely, their workings become more obtuse to the consumer who has come to depend upon them. The enabling technologies for the Nintendo game, the gene test, and the pocket cell phone require intimate knowledge of the deepest recesses of the atom, the living cell, and the electromagnetic spectrum.
To create sub-micron-sized electronic circuits that obey the orders of our relatively gigantic fingertips, chip designers tap into precise atomic knowledge of the material and electrical properties of such elements as silicon, germanium, and copper. With ever-more-refined tools and techniques, the genetic engineer manipulates a DNA molecule that would be almost a meter long if unwound from the nucleus of a human cell, yet is so infinitesimally thin that 5 million strands can fit through the eye of a needle.
As anyone knows who reheats a cup of tepid coffee in the microwave, it is entirely possible to enjoy the fruits of this technological age without having any idea of the functioning of the gizmo that excites the water molecules in the cup s recesses. True, many people wrestle with programming the VCR. Yet the majority of new technologies pay lip service to the credo of ease of use. Electronic mail speeds on its way by a simple click of a Send button. The many layers of computer programming that re-create a visual screen-based rendition of an office desktop remain opaque to most of us.
Maybe the inner workings of home appliances and the genetic code that shapes our destiny are best left to the experts. But the extent to which vast numbers of otherwise highly educated people remain technological illiterates periodically surfaces as a matter of societal and even personal concern. Arthur Koestler, a social critic, once described as urban barbarians people who own devices they do not understand. Koestler noted that the traditionally humanities-educated Western man will quite cheerfully confess that he does not know how his radio or heating system works, while he would be reluctant to admit that he did not understand a famous painting.
What s in It for You?
There is a list of reasons for trying to educate oneself about the full complement of advanced technologies that drive modern industrial society. The foremost motivation is a selfish one. The creation of smaller and cheaper microcircuits and the diciphering of the genetic code are among the most exciting and stimulating challenges in science and engineering. In short, they hold an innate interest to the intellectually curious. One can follow the travails of solid-state physicists and engineers as they borrow hand-me-down methods from ancient lithographers to pattern circuit lines on a silicon chip that are less than one hundredth the width of a human hair. On a more basic level, will the breakneck pace of development of faster and cheaper chips continue? Or will technologists stumble on physical limits that will force designers to make radical changes in the way they build chips? Those hurdles could threaten the inexorable decline in the cost of microcircuits, which will have seen the price of an electronic memory circuit drop from $10 in the 1950s to an estimated hundred thousandth of a cent somewhere around the turn of the millennium.
Similarly, one of the few remaining big science projects-the Human Genome Project-faces equally daunting challenges. In the next few years it plans to elicit the codes for the roughly 80,000 genes for the stuff from which we are made, the proteins that constitute everything from brain cells to toenails. But unraveling the human genetic code will not be enough. For decades afterward, scientists will labor to determine, perhaps with only limited success, what the genes are used for. Behavi