Today we talked about what "digital" means. We began by talking about what is information (based on a simplified version of Shannon's development of information theory - one of my favorite expositions of this is Pierce's book). The students had some fun (or maybe it was more me) guessing my age by doing a binary search. I lied about my age, and so they learned an important lesson - that there is good information and bad information! We then discussed how various forms of media - books, audio, images, video - encode their information as sequences of numbers. Pythagoras said more than 2500 years ago that "all is number," and we are coming full circle with quantum physics (which we talked about!). We discussed information vs. knowledge (and how little we really know - think Descartes). Finally, we segued to discussing analog vs. digital computation (and communication). I think this is the part the students enjoyed the most, because they learned how to use an abacus (and why it captures the essence of digital computation) and how to use a slide rule (analog computation). All in all, a fun afternoon.
We never got to the "big" questions that I promised at the beginning of the session: Is the brain digital or analog? Can a human be digitized? Is the universe a giant digital computer? Maybe we will revisit these at a later date. (But there's just too much to cover!!!).
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6 comments:
ah.... too bad I missed this lecture Joe. I wish I were there. It really sounds fascinating!
The lecture was really good! Sorry I haven't gotten around to commenting sooner. I love the lectures that have us think about major concepts we never normally think about. I always used to think of digital as just something that is on a computer, but now I have such a better understanding! I very am excited for Monday's lecture.
I mean I am very excited for Monday's lecture.
Mr. Pasquale I love the idea of teaching us to use the abacus. i have always wanted to learn or reasearch about it but i never did. I also loved the one on one conversation. That makes me think that our proffesors and the TA's ( including Mrs. Miranda ) dont just think to teach us and its done but wants us to understand the concepts in class and still make sure we are doing great in our social life back at the dorms. i thank you and I know I will treasure these 2 weeks that are left because it has passed so fast that i don't want it to finish.
Thanks for your comment Luis. You are exactly right: we want you to have a deeper understanding of the concepts, AND we want you to have a good time here. As for the last two weeks, I can tell you that we should all indeed try to treasure every moment during this time, as many of us may never see each other again after COSMOS is over (though I hope not!).
Hi Derek: Thanks for your kind comments about our lectures. And as Monday's lecture, I am very excited about it also!
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