Reed's Ruminations: The Past, Present, and Future

Reflections on science, technology, and computing — leavened by personal experience

Tag: intellectual amplifier

  • U.S. House of Representatives Hearing on High-Performance Computing
    U.S. House of Representatives Hearing on High-Performance Computing

    High-performance computing (HPC) is unique among scientific instruments, distinguished by its universality as an intellectual amplifier.

  • Intellectual Amplification via Computing
    Intellectual Amplification via Computing

    As the recent performance of IBM’s Watson system on the game show Jeopardy! Illustrated, the combination of large-scale data, rich algorithm suites and powerful computing is opening new vistas. Vannevar Bush’s 1940s vision of a Memex, a device capable of storing, indexing and retrieving data from a broad knowledge base, is now within our reach.