Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology

scientific computing applications 419fiction called cyberpunk, where outlaws and murderous corporationsduel on the virtual frontier. Beyond the high-techchases, questions of the ultimate meaning of cyberspace andof reality itself emerge, as in the Matrix trilogy of movies, orin the ultimate transformation of consciousness in humanand machine (see singularity, technological).Perhaps the most famous science fiction movie of all is 2001: ASpace Odyssey (1968). However, the millennial year passed withouteither an AI like Hal or passenger space lines. (©ArenaPal /Topham / The Image Works)the answers to history trivia questions. Although the Logicis essentially an electronic-mechanical system, its functionalityis startlingly similar to that achieved by the Internetalmost half a century later.Writers such as William Gibson (Neuromancer) and VernorVinge (True Names) later began to explore the worldmutually experienced by computer users as a setting wherehumans could directly link their minds to computer-generatedworlds (see virtual reality). A new elite of cyberspacemasters were portrayed in a futuristic adaptationof such archetypes as the cowboy gunslinger, samurai, orninja. Unlike the morally unambiguous world of the oldwestern movies, however, the novels and movies with thenew “cyberpunk” sensibility are generally set in a jumbled,fragmented, chaotic world. That world is often dominatedby giant corporations (reflecting concerns about economicglobalism) and is generally dystopian.Meanwhile as cyberspace continues to become reality,cyberpunk has lost its distinctiveness as a genre. Gibson’slatest work (and that of other writers such as Bruce Sterlingand Vernor Vinge) is more apt to explore ways of communicatingand networking that belong to just the day aftertomorrow, if not already appearing (particularly amongyoung people) today.Cyberpunk and BeyondAs personal computers and networking began to burgeonin the 1980s, the focus began to shift from computers as“characters” to the ways in which people interact with, andare changed by, new technology.Although the term cyberspace was introduced by writerWilliam Gibson in his 1982 short story “Burning Chrome,”the word did not come into greater prominence until his1984 novel Neuromancer, where it was described as “a consensualhallucination experienced daily by billions. . . .” (Seecyberspace.) It became the arena for a new style of scienceFurther ReadingAsimov, Isaac, Patricia S. Warrick, and Martin H. Greenberg, eds.Machines That Think: The Best Science Fiction Stories aboutRobots and Computers. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston,1984.Computer in Science Fiction. Available online. URL: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science_List_Detail.asp?BT=Computer.Accessed November 14, 2007.Conklin, Groff, ed. Science-Fiction Thinking Machines: Robots,Androids, Computers. New York: Vanguard Press, 1954.Franklin, H. Bruce. “Computers in Fiction,” 2000. Availableonline. URL: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hbf/compulit.htm. Accessed November 14, 2007.Frenkel, James, ed. True Names by Vernor Vinge and the Opening ofthe Cyberspace Frontier. New York: Tor, 2001.Gibson, William. Neuromancer. New York: Ace Books, 1984.———. Pattern Recognition. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2003.Vinge, Vernor. Rainbow’s End. New York: Tor, 2006.Warrick, Patricia S. The Cybernetic Imagination in Science Fiction.Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1980.scientific computing applicationsFrom microbiology to plasma physics, modern sciencewould be impossible without the computer. This is notbecause the computer has replaced the scientific methodof observation, hypothesis, and experiment. Modern scientistsessentially follow the same intellectual procedures atdid Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein. Rather, understandingof the layered systems that make up the universehas now reached so complex and detailed a level that thereis too much data for an individual human mind to grasp.Further, the calculations necessary to process the data usuallycan’t be performed by unaided humans in any reasonablelength of time. This can be caused either by theinherent complexity of the calculation (see computabilityand complexity) or the sheer amount of data (as in DNAsequencing; see bioinformatics and data mining).InstrumentationSome apparatus such as particle accelerators are complicatedenough to make it expedient to control the operation bycomputer. It is simply more convenient to have instrumentssuch as spectrocopes process samples automatically undercomputer control and produce printed results.Most instruments for gathering data use electronicsto turn physical measurements into numeric representations(see analog and digital and data acquisition).The modern instrument’s built-in processor and softwareperforms preliminary processing that used to have to bedone later in the lab. This can include scaling the data toan appropriate range of values, eliminating “noise” data,and providing an appropriate time framework for interpretingthe data. Use of electronics also enables the data to be