Future Computer And Communication: Our Dream: Actually Fictions

1.     Introduction: Scientific research has conclusively established that man is a part of nature. While the aim of science is to find answer to “why nature is like as it is” or “what makes nature as it is”; the technology apparently speaking or as is told aims to address the application of science for sustainable growth and development. In this process technology changes leaps and bounds. But over the recorded history of technological changes, the pace at which information technology(IT =Computer + Communication) has changed over last half of 20th century is un precedent. One of the reasons for such rapid growth may be that with this technology human intelligence finds a source of recreating him or her some noble parts. The several empirical laws correlate this un precedent growth of IT. The laws of Computing are: Joy’s law which states that the computing power, expressed in MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second), doubles every 2 years, Moore’s laws that state that (a) the number of components on an IC would double every year (this is the original Moore’s law predicted in 1965 for the then next ten years), (b) the doubling of circuit complexity on an IC every 18 months (this is known as revised Moore’s law), (c) the processing power of computer will double every year and a half (Moore’s second law which closely resembles to Joy’s law) and Law of “Price and Power” that states that over the years the computing, processing, storage and speed up power of computers will continue to increase whereas the price of computers will continue to fall. The laws of communication are: Ruge’s law that estimates that the communication capacity necessary for each MIPS is 0.3-1Mbps (Million of Bits Per Second) and Metcalfe’s law which states that if there are ‘n’ computers in a network, the power of the computers in a network like Internet is multiplied by ‘n’ square times. If these laws are any guiding paths for future technologies of Computer and Communication, there remains only one dream of these technologies: theses technologies will touch human axis at relative parameters if not on absolute terms. However most of the wonderful achievements in science and technology are not without their predecessors’ in form of Science Fiction. Logically it is hard to find clear and precise line of demarcation between fiction and vision. In this paper we like to highlight the future of computer and communication in form of fiction.

2.    A few Fiction and Realities of Science: Way back in 1979, the great visionary Dr Arthur C Clarke wrote a novel “The Fountains of Paradise” on a space elevator. Like the elevator you use in air port to move up and down, like the one such you often use in modern multistoried super market, space elevator is to make you move between space and earth, earth and moon, earth and mars, mars and moon. Think of enjoying it your kids in summer or winter vacation. The thought of such fascinating whisking between space and planets was dreamt more than a century ago by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian scientist. Making of a space elevator is a simple idea. An orbiting satellite and the earth will be connected by a cable in carrying vehicle up and down.
The technological challenge is to design very rugged cable of huge length. If the satellite is geo stationary, the cable length will be twice the orbit height that is 36,000 km approximately. The cable will be strong not only to carry vehicles up and down but to carry its own weight also. In 1991 carbon nano tubes were discovered. Carbon nano tubes are tiny molecular –scale threads of carbon atoms. It is believed that these tubes are suitable to design the space shuttle cable. But the amount of nano tubes required to design a cable thread is not readily available, neither so technically so easy to design. The ruggedness required for space cable is much higher than that is available with so far produced nano tubes. Problem is not just of getting suitable cable thread. How to power the lift? Bettery power is out of question because of time required to carry the lift. Carrying fuel or battery on vehicle will tremendously increase the load that the cable may not sustain. Then comes how to manage the space debris left over when launched over years. These technical problems need solutions before a successful take off. The dream is now however taking a shape towards reality. In fact, two projects are already taken up to implement space elevator. These are LiftPort and x-Tech projects. The project cost may be well around US$10 billion. To encourage the projects, the US space agency, NASA has announced an annual competition with a prize fund of US$ 400,000. It is expected that the project may get a shape around 2015-20.

3.    What is there in Computer: Electromechanical and electronics computers were developed as mathematical tools to support huge quantitative and mathematical works of specialized nature. Before that, this exercise was the prerogative of human being. Once human intelligence finds there are mechanisms that can help them out in exercising their analytical work, temptation leads them to go for next step:  seeking a tool for helping them in performing intelligence exercise. Scientists begin to think of intelligence machines by virtue of which ideas of “Brainy Computer”, “Chemical Computer”, “Bio Computing” and finally ”Quantum Computer” have cropped up. With quantum and bio computing, the radical changes in technology are noticed: from application of mathematics and electrical circuit in computing to application quantum laws of physics and that of biological laws in computation. History of science and technology showed us that no idea ever evolved has gone to ruin. People’s dreams of going to moon and furthest stars once though of science fictions today are just reality. Moreover there is no theory to prove that intelligent person can not design an intelligent machine. Thus I have a high dream that future computer technologies will be intelligent machine at par with human being even they will be of talking and thinking types. They will be bio technology based computers made of bio chips by which people will fail to resist temptation to use bio computing CPU/chips to enhance his memory and intelligence. If philosophy and literature is any guide to future demand of technology, we have the Bharat Ratna and Oscar Winner Satyajit Roy’s famous cinema/film “Hirak Rajar Dehse” (in the land of King of Hira). The “brain washing machine” developed by a scientist was used by king to change the thinking power of farmers. Future may witness similar type of dreamy computers’ exploitation by super powers. Remember: great machines & technologies, super powers and kings always support for their benefits. This trend will augment the evolution of dreamy technology I have thought of as mentioned above.



4.    What is there in Communication: What is communication? What a baby is born, what he does is nothing but a sort of communication. This acoustic and human natural communication has several interesting aspect: It is wireless and it uses single identification for everywhere & anywhere. If the baby’s name is “Bob”, he is called by Bob for any sort of communication and anywhere whether he is in USA or in New Delhi. For the purpose of communication his name is not changed. This means a connection of people, not of machine. With telephony, connection is wired and connection is made to geographic locations where telephone sets are kept. With mobile we tend a little towards human natural communication; as with mobile connection is wireless and connection to mobile machine. But even then your mobile number changes from country to country, no personal single identification you can use over world unlike single identification for example “Bob” in human communication. Technology now is being thought of to provide UTN(Universal Telecommunication Number) so that with single identification number one can communicate world over. Thus it is imperative to say that communication is evolving to become human like communication world over. Today communication trend is “fast is first”. High speed electrical communication is the crying need of the hour. No delay in communication tolerable like that in natural human communication. Life is fast, world is fast, communication must be fast be it satellite, mobile, telephone. But how much fast? At least we are limited by the highest speed that of light. I have a dream. Once the Great Akbar asked his Naba Ratnas: What moves fast? While eight of nine Ratnas pointed towards Royal horse, ninth Ratna, Birbal got an edge over others by saying that “Our Mind, Sir.” With the way technology is being evolved I have every reason to dream of a communication technology like human natural communication with mind moving speed. As of today we have heard of knowledge management with today information technology, I dream of tomorrow’s conscious management with my dream of human like Computer and Communication Technology.

5.    Conclusion: Tagore once told “we have only one country in this universe, and that is world.” Noble Winning Poet Rabindranath Tagore’s such a powerful philosophy may ultimately realize , Cerf, father of Internet has already started a project of inter space and inter star Internet….moving ahead any boundary. We dream of computer and communication technology to lead us to a age when one person may move from one planet to another planet for nosiness, agriculture, education and diplomacy etc, and that too may be with space elevator.

6.     References:
1.    Arthur C Clarke, (1960) The Challenge of the Spaceship.
2.    Arthur C Clarke, A space Odyssey, 1968-2001
3.    Arthur C Clarke, (1980) Myterious World.
4.    Scott Burleigh et al, Interplanetary Internet, (2002) 53rd Int’l Astronautical Congress, The World Space Congress’ Texas, pp 1-9
5.    Toby Howard, The Interplanetary Internet, http://www.cs.man.ac.uk
6.    Kelvin Fall, (2001) Thoughts on the Current IPN Architecture Proposal, Intel Research Document, 2001, Berkeley, CA