Catalysts for Change

Who were the computers during the Victorian Era? What were the implications of their work during that time?

There were no computers during victorian era but but there are people who contributed their work. The Victorian Era was also a time of tremendous scientific progress and ideas. Darwin took his Voyage of the Beagle, and posited the Theory of Evolution. The Great Exhibition of 1851 took place in London, lauding the technical and industrial advances of the age, and strides in medicine and the physical sciences continued throughout the century. The radical thought associated with modern psychiatry began with men like Sigmund Feud toward the end of the era, and radical economic theory, developed by Karl Marx and his associates, began a second age of revolution in mid-century. The ideas of Marxism, socialism, feminism churned and bubbled along with all else that happened.

Who was Charles Babbage and what was the significant contribution he made during his time? If his computer was made, what ethical consideration could have been addressed? RE: WWI,Hindenburg,Titanic to have a few?

Charles Babbage was known as the "Father of Computer".In 1821 Babbage invented the Difference Engine to compile mathematical tables. On completing it in 1832, he conceived the idea of a better machine that could perform not just one mathematical task but any kind of calculation. This was the Analytical Engine (1856), which was intended as a general symbol manipulator, and had some of the characteristics of today’s computers. Unfortunately, little remains of Babbage's prototype computing machines. Critical tolerances required by his machines exceeded the level of technology available at the time. And, though Babbage’s work was formally recognized by respected scientific institutions, the British government suspended funding for his Difference Engine in 1832, and after an agonizing waiting period, ended the project in 1842. There remain only fragments of Babbage's prototype Difference Engine, and though he devoted most of his time and large fortune towards construction of his Analytical Engine after 1856, he never succeeded in completing any of his several designs for it. George Scheutz, a Swedish printer, successfully constructed a machine based on the designs for Babbage's Difference Engine in 1854. This machine printed mathematical, astronomical and actuarial tables with unprecedented accuracy, and was used by the British and American governments. Though Babbage's work was continued by his son, Henry Prevost Babbage, after his death in 1871, the Analytical Engine was never successfully completed, and ran only a few "programs" with embarrassingly obvious errors.

Throughout his life Babbage worked in many intellectual fields typical of his day, and made contributions that would have assured his fame irrespective of the Difference and Analytical Engines. Despite his many achievements, the failure to construct his calculating machines, and in particular the failure of the government to support his work, left Babbage in his declining years a disappointed and embittered man. He died at his home in London on October 18, 1871.

What computer was developed during WW II and who made it possible? Name the two major players and how did they contribute to the war effort? What happened to the after the war?

The Lorenz Cipher

Although ENIAC is widely regarded as the first programmable computer, other contenders can make legitimate claims for that title. Perhaps the strongest case can be made for Colossus, a decrypting machine developed by the British during WWII.As war raged, the Allies found themselves confronted with a complex German encryption cipher called Lorenz. Germany believed that the cipher was unbreakable. A computer and a group of dedicated British engineers proved them wrong.

In December 1943, while work on ENIAC was just getting underway in Philadelphia, engineer Tommy Flowers delivered Colossus to British codebreakers working in top-secret conditions in England’s Bletchley Park. Colossus had an electronic memory, was programmable by means of switches and patch cords and could look for matching sequences that might help crack the code.

Output was created by means of an IBM electric typewriter.
Cracking the Lorenz cipher and being able to quickly translate captured orders and military plans helped change the course of the war and helped shorten it. Their near-miraculous secret work prompted British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to call the Bletchley Park codebreaker s “the geese that laid the golden eggs and never cackled.”

The Enigma machine

The German military used the Enigma cipher machine during WW2 to keep their communications secret. The machine was available commercially during the 1920s, but the military potential of the device was quickly realised and the German army, navy and air force all used a more developed model of the machine to encipher their messages believing that it would make these communications impenetrable to the enemy.

The Enigma machine is an electro-mechanical device that relies on a series of rotating 'wheels' or ‘rotors’ to scramble plaintext messages into incoherent ciphertext. The machine's variable elements can be set in many billions of combinations, and each one will generate a completely different ciphertext message. If you know how the machine has been set up, you can type the ciphertext back in and it will unscramble the message. If you don't know the Enigma setting, the message remains indecipherable.

The German authorities believed in the absolute security of the Enigma. However, with the help of Polish mathematicians who had managed to acquire a machine prior to the outbreak of WW2, British code breakers stationed at Bletchley Park managed to exploit weaknesses in the machine and how it was used and were able to crack the Enigma code.Breaking the Enigma ciphers gave the Allies a key advantage, which, according to historians, shortened the war by two years thus saving many lives.

What is AI,Robotics,Cyborgs?What ethical issue call be desired from those inventions?

>> AI (Artificial Intelligence) - is usually defined as the science of making computers do things that require intelligence when done by humans. AI has had some success in limited, or simplified, domains. However, the five decades since the inception of AI have brought only very slow progress, and early optimism concerning the attainment of human-level intelligence has given way to an appreciation of the profound difficulty of the problem.

The ethics of artificial intelligence falls into two separate but dependent issues. The first is whether or not the research in the area of artificial intelligence is ethical and to what extent should the research be limited, if at all? Second, if the research were to be unlimited and to have limited monitoring, what would happen if a true artificial intelligence close to that of a human were to exist? We will be focusing on the first of the two issues.Many different parties would be affected by the existence or nonexistence of artificial intelligence. The most obvious are the AI machines themselves; after all it is their existence or creation that is the issue at hand here. The inventors and researchers have a stake in the technology. Many of the researchers have made making innovating steps in artificial intelligence the purpose of their lives. They spend day in and day out working to improve the technology. Placing limitations on these people's creativity would be disastrous for them.

>> Robotics is the science and technology of robots, their design, manufacture, and application.Robotics requires a working knowledge of electronics, mechanics and software, and is usually accompanied by a large working knowledge of many subjects.

The term robotics was introduced by writer Isaac Asimov. In his science fiction book I, Robot, published in 1950, he presented three laws of robotics:
1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Robots are now widely used in factories to perform high-precision jobs such as welding and riveting. They are also used in special situations that would be dangerous for humans -- for example, in cleaning toxic wastes or defusing bombs.

Although great advances have been made in the field of robotics during the last decade, robots are still not very useful in everyday life, as they are too clumsy to perform ordinary household chores.

>> Cyborg - a compound word derived from cybernetics and organism, is a term coined by Manfred Clynes in 1960 to describe the need for mankind to artificially enhance biological functions in order to survive in the hostile environment of Space. Originally, a cyborg referred to a human being with bodily functions aided or controlled by technological devices, such as an oxygen tank, artificial heart valve or insulin pump.

The future may include the reality of science fiction's "cyborgs," persons who have developed some intimate and occasionally necessary relationship with a machine. It is likely that computer chips implanted in our brains and acting as sensors or actuators may soon not only assist the blind and those with failing memory, but even bestow fluency in a new language, enable "recognition" of previously unmet individuals and provide instantaneous access to encyclopedic databases. Developments in nanotechnology, bioengineering, computers and neuroscience are converging to facilitate these amazing possibilities.

What is the real treat that IT world would face in the future (its not nuclear).How could this happen and what is its effect to our world?

Information technology is an integral part of all of the problems associated with a pandemic, according to Round table director Bill Darte, CAIT senior technical associate at Washington University in St. Louis. Darte said a key, overlooked impact a pandemic would have on a community is Internet traffic and communications.