Digital Civilization: Physics and Computer

Author: Hao Berlin / Zhang Shuyu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: A handful of "geniuses" have developed a variety of entry-level "automatic," "remote control," and "intelligent" devices for most ordinary people to use in labor and "enjoy" in leisure. Billions of "idiots" are unknowingly and comfortably becoming servants of computers. From keeping records with knots to card computers, can calculations be done without consuming energy? The answer is obvious—it's the genius·. Whether it's a massive machine or a micro-machine, the electronic computer is the greatest invention since humans learned to use fire. Walking and taking an Airbus, the speed increase is no more than 200 times. From 1945 to 2005, over 60 years, the speed of electronic computers has improved by a trillion times. In 1958, the value of a single semiconductor transistor could buy a powerful chip containing 100 million transistors in 2000. The dramatic improvement in performance-to-price ratio did not come from the manufacturers' economic calculations but from physicists uncovering possibilities from natural laws and engineers turning scientific possibilities into technical realities. It is the development of physics that has pushed humanity into the digital civilization era. The development of electronic computers has brought humanity into the digital civilization era. Computers originally emerged to meet the needs of physics and were prepared for their birth by physics. In the 20th century, physics first became a mature science based on the three pillars of experimentation, theory, and computation. In the 21st century, the entire natural sciences, including life sciences, are advancing along a similar path. Electronic computers are comprehensively entering various fields of production technology, scientific research, and social life, fundamentally transforming the entire process of human civilization. This book reviews the history of physics and computers complementing each other from the perspective of digital civilization, discusses the physics of computers and computation, analyzes the physical limitations faced by computer development, and explores the potential prospects that physics offers for future computing technologies. This book is rich in content, with diverse and novel material, helping science and engineering students, graduate students, and scientific and technological workers in physics and computer fields broaden their horizons, understand the bigger picture, and prepare background knowledge for further in-depth research.