Project Mac: Progress Report Vi, July 1968-july 1969
Project Mac: Progress Report Vi, July 1968-july 1969

Author: MASSACHUSETTS INST OF TECH CAMBRIDGE PROJECT MAC.

Publisher:

Published: 1969

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13:

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The broad goal of Project MAC is experimental investigation of new ways in which on-line use of computers can aid people in their individual work, whether research, engineering design, management, or education. The document is the sixth annual Progress Report summarizing the research carried out under the sponsorship of Project MAC. Details of the research may be found in the publications listed in the Appendices at the end of the report.

Computer Interpretation of Imperfect Line Data as a Three-dimensional Scene
Computer Interpretation of Imperfect Line Data as a Three-dimensional Scene

Author: Gilbert Falk

Publisher:

Published: 1970

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13:

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The paper describes a heuristic scence description program. This program accepts as input a scene represented as a line drawing. Based on a set of known object models the program attempts to determine the identify and location of each object viewed. The most significant feature of the program is its ability to deal with imperfect input data. Also presented are some preliminary results concerning constraints in projections of planar-faced solids. It is shown that for a restricted class of projections, 4 points located in 3-space in addition to complete monocular information are sufficient to specify all the visible point locations precisely. (Author).

Bedeviled
Bedeviled

Author: Jimena Canales

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2022-08-09

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 0691241686

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How scientists through the ages have conducted thought experiments using imaginary entities—demons—to test the laws of nature and push the frontiers of what is possible Science may be known for banishing the demons of superstition from the modern world. Yet just as the demon-haunted world was being exorcized by the enlightening power of reason, a new kind of demon mischievously materialized in the scientific imagination itself. Scientists began to employ hypothetical beings to perform certain roles in thought experiments—experiments that can only be done in the imagination—and these impish assistants helped scientists achieve major breakthroughs that pushed forward the frontiers of science and technology. Spanning four centuries of discovery—from René Descartes, whose demon could hijack sensorial reality, to James Clerk Maxwell, whose molecular-sized demon deftly broke the second law of thermodynamics, to Darwin, Einstein, Feynman, and beyond—Jimena Canales tells a shadow history of science and the demons that bedevil it. She reveals how the greatest scientific thinkers used demons to explore problems, test the limits of what is possible, and better understand nature. Their imaginary familiars helped unlock the secrets of entropy, heredity, relativity, quantum mechanics, and other scientific wonders—and continue to inspire breakthroughs in the realms of computer science, artificial intelligence, and economics today. The world may no longer be haunted as it once was, but the demons of the scientific imagination are alive and well, continuing to play a vital role in scientists' efforts to explore the unknown and make the impossible real.