Beyond the stone age

In one of the better episodes of Star Trek Kirk and Spock have travelled through time. They’ve been transported back into the 1930’s and Spock has to improvise a repair to his Tricorder using radio tubes.

In invention two aspects are closely linked, Need and Technology. The technology of the day determines what can be done, and the need establishes the effort to be expended.

The invention of the triode valve (1905), by Lee de Forest, marks the occasion when electrical technology took a deep breath and suddenly became electronics. The triode provided a means of amplification of small electrical signals. This opened the way for audio amplification and radio, and eventually made practicable many previously unimagined applications.

The triode, shown here in schematic form, takes very small electrical signals connected to Vg, and amplifies them to makes a larger, but similair signal. on Va. The amplified signal can be used to drive, for example, a loudspeaker and make what might previously have been a tiny, inaudible signal from a microphone into something large enough to be useful.

Previously, when mechanical engineering had reigned supreme, inventors had sometimes attempted to implement devices that pushed the technology beyond what was realistically practicable. The story of Charles Babbage and his efforts to develop a programmable, mechanical computer has been told many times.

In the days before electronic amplification recorded sound using mechanical means had limited success. Television, in its first versions, used mechanical scanning which was soon superseded by electronic systems. These technologies were driven by a need which could not quite be met by the technology of the day. The principles were sound, but in practice the limitations of mechanical systems were soon evident.

The triode was a crucial turning point, it was a practical means of amplification of high frequency signals. The crucial aspect is high frequency. Mechanical systems can provide a measure of amplification. Levers and pulleys are ways of rescaling or amplifying physical movement, but inertia limits how quickly a physical system can move. All mechanical systems are doomed to relatively low speed operation.

The electronic amplifier using triodes and similair components was soon joined by a variant, the electronic oscillator. (Oscillators are a key element of radio technology.)

When the first radars started to appear, they were built using the established elements of radio: amplifiers and oscillators.  A third element was added, electronic switching. The first computers, when they came along, needed the new electronic switches in huge numbers.

The numbers required started to reach the limits of the viability of valves and  a replacement was needed. The transistor arrived at just the right time. Transistors could be used as amplifiers, oscillators or switches. They were smaller, used less power, and were soon much more reliable. Moreover, transistors lent themselves to implementation in bulk as integrated circuits, which led to further improvements in size, cost and reliability.

As the new technology matured, other parts of the computer were re-engineered. The first computers had been a grab bag of borrowings from other devices. The first memory systems had used delay lines, which had previously been used in ground based radars. (Many of the early computer designers had worked on radars and knew how to make such esoteric technologies work.) As soon as it was possible delay lines and other weird and wonderful memory systems were replaced by semiconductor memory. At present the spinning magnetic disc is bravely hanging on to its traditional role as a non-volatile memory back up but it can’t hold out much longer.

Computer technology is now so highly developed that a computer is not always an end in itself. It’s often a component within a bigger system. Radios and radars, which had previously contributed technology to computers now contain, as components many computers.

The development of computers has taken place while electronics emerged from the stone age and is still driving the cutting edge of technology development. For a while though, quite a number of complex computers were developed using mechanical systems and stone age electronics. These were analogue computers but that's something for another blog.

The Nine Billion Minds of Clarke

Arthur Schopenhauer said “To read is to think with somebody else’s mind.” It’s a nice idea, but it takes a pretty good writer to bring it off. Arthur C Clarke, who died in March 2008, was such a writer.

With typical prescience Sir Arthur said goodbye to his fans the Christmas preceding. It’s pleasing to say that he kept his wits, sense of humour and his distinct Somerset accent  intact to the end.

After his death many words were spent discussing the Clarke ego, and the fact that he was gay. So what? All that really matters are his words, and these endure.

Margaret Attwood, in the days before she grew disdainfuly of SF, said that the Golden Age of Science Fiction is fourteen. If you are going to be an SF fan, that’s when you find out. That’s the age when it changes you forever. What a delight it was for me, as a teenager, to visit the village library after school and discover a new volume of those yellow Gollanz Science Fiction books. In England, before publisher Victor Gollanz got SF between hard covers, it was not really considerd respectable reading material.

ACC, at his best, in a collection such as ‘The Other Side of the Sky’ was the master of the Science Fiction short story. He made it seem so effortless that I was dismayed to discover that a lot of other writers couldn’t come close. In his hands the SF short could be polished, memorable and beautiful.

ACC had very strong views on religion and declared that at his funeral there should be no hint of any religious rites. He’s also known for the memorable quote, "One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion."

Many of his stories touch on religion in a unique way. ‘The Nine Billion Names of God’ is one of the best known. In this story Tibetan monks have been engaged for centuries in a search for the ultimate - correct name of God, the quest involves writing out all possible words that may be derived from combinations of characters in a special alphabet. After labouring with pen and parchment, technology becomes available and the monks buy a computer to hash through all the remaining word combinations.

We follow along with a couple of techies who are the site support for the machine. One of them has discovered that it is the belief of the monks that once all possible names are written down man’s purpose will be complete. Rather than risk a possibilty of confronation with an angry mob they decide to leave before the machine has made it all the way to letter combination nine billion. As they journey down a dusty mountain road, well let ACC tell it his way:

‘Look ,’ whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven. (There is always a last time for everything)
Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.

The narrative has taken us from the mundane here and now, - a computer factory in Manhattan, via a monastery on the side of a Tibetan mountain, to a universe where a rather petulant god can, at will, terminate the whole of creation. Not a bad trip, for a man with a typewriter and a few sheets of A4.

Now if Schopenhauer is right, after you’ve read these words, you will have got to think, just for a moment, with the mind of ACC. That fact that he’s dead and gone matters not. A little part of his conscious just had a moment inside your head.

ACC disdained all religions and was dismissive of an afterlife. Yet some aspect of the mind of ACC lives on everytime one of his books is read. Of all the after lives that men have speculated on, I think that is one that ACC would approve of.

Golems

Prague is an amazing city. After four years living in southern Germany I’ve become used to being around beautiful buildings but I must admit that Prague trumps even Bavaria. This may be in part because Prague managed to escape, almost completely, the bombing that most German cities were subjected to. As a consequence the town is a patchwork of all manner of buildings from all centuries.

Guarding the entrance to the old Jewish quarter is this guy, the Golem. Golem looks a bit like Darth Vader, I fancy the Star Wars designers had a pretty good look at all the classic monsters and drew on one of the most fearsome.

The Golem, in Jewish legend, is an artificial being who looks like a real person but is without consciousness. Legend says that very holy men could create such creatures from clay, as God created Adam, but only God could create a life that was truly conscious. The ‘quickening’ of a Golem involves the use of the true name of God, which was known only to very holy men. To activate him was necessary to put a clay tablet in his mouth.

The Golem in Prague was created to be a sentry on guard. One version of the legend tells how the creature fell in love, but it was rejected and then set about creating mayhem. Its creator then deactivated it. On its forehead was the word EMET which in Hebrew means truth, the E was erased to leave MET, which means death.

If you are anything like me you’ll probably have little trouble seeing a connection between Golems and those robots who, by long tradition, wreak havoc across classic black and white sci-fi films. Frankenstein’s monster, which according to the story was put together just down the road from Prague, in Ingolstadt, shares more than a few Golem traits.

In 1921 a play called, R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) premiered in Prague. It was notable for the first introduction of the word Robot which is derived from the Czech word robota, implying the labour of serfs. These robots were biological machines, factory assembled from vat grown flesh, rather than those clanking suits of armour that were later considered to be robots.

While paying tribute to the name robot, Isaac Asimov was not impressed by the play but it was obviously a great success. It was translated and produced in London and New York, Chicago and Los Angles. In 1938 the BBC adapted it and broadcast it as thirty minute TELEVISION production, which is considered to be the first broadcast TV science fiction ever. The author, Karl Capek conceded eventually that what he had done was retell the Golem legend.

It’s hard to not be impressed by Prague, a place of Golems, Kafka and Cubism.

Now maybe it’s just me but this statue, which was actually erected to commemorate Kafka, seems to be saying as much about Golems and their ilk, as it says about Kafka. It seems to sum up the relationship between men and those who seek to control them. The rider requires from his mount only muscle and blind, mindless obedience. In the absence of the necessary magic to create Golems men who behave like Golems must be found. Mindless men, without conscious, or conscience. Unfortunatly, as history shows, such men can often be found.