The Computers of Star Trek Read Free Page B

faster than the speed of light, which defies the laws of physics. Though starships travel at warp speed, they actually are warping space, using the fourth-dimensional curvature of space time to achieve faster-than-light (FTL) speeds. Nothing in this theory (which is discussed at great length in The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss [Basic Books, 1995] and is speculative at best) justifies the concept of electrons in circuits moving at FTL speeds.
    The computers have a redundant architecture to handle system failures, yet constantly fail. They enable holographic doctors to hit humans and to fall in love. The Deep Space Nine computer is so argumentative and obstinate that Chief O’Brien must put it into manual override to save the space station from blowing up. Yet the same computer requires constant supervision, repair, and instructions from human engineers; in other words, it’s not particularly intelligent by today’s standards.
    Then there’s Data. He runs on some sort of advanced neural network (his positronic brain), but he also shows distinct signs of traditional i- then artificial intelligence—witness his love of Sherlock Holmes and his Spocklike deductive powers. And while he’s so advanced that no human seems capable of creating another Datalike creature, Data can’t interface with the ship’s main computer unless somebody takes off his “skins” (the word for the cases that house today’s computers, but in Data’s case the hair-and-skin flap on the back of his head), does some tweaking with a screwdriver or wrench, inserts what appears to be a serial cable,
and watches dozens of flashing lights in Data’s skull. (See, for example, “Cause and Effect,” TNG .) Sometimes a crewmember even has to remove Data’s entire head to create the interface. (“Disaster,” TNG )
    The flashing lights harken back to the days when we gazed at blinking LEDs, jotted down which ones were off and on, and then calculated the corresponding hexadecimal values; these values meant something to us, such as ERROR 1320: MEMORY CORRUPTION. It’s silly to think that Data’s head hundreds of years from now will have hexadecimal LEDs to indicate SUCCESS and ERROR. The method is outdated today.
    The Star Trek future comes to us courtesy of computer technology. However, we believe that computers will go far beyond the stuff of Star Trek . Tomorrow’s computers will be invisible, highly intelligent, and almost lifelike. Nanotechnology and cybernetic implants will be commonplace. We’ll talk to computers that are in our winter coats and in our summer sandals. Our computers will anticipate what we want before we even ask them. We’ll get ticked off when our computers forget to download our digital newspaper subscriptions, make our morning toast, or automatically design clothes to fit our exact body dimensions and fashion tastes. We’ll forget that computers are computers.
    Getting to this point will require breakthroughs as amazing as the microprocessor. Fortunately, computer scientists are already on the job.
    Since the 1950s, something called Moore’s Law has loosely defined the growth in our computing power. Originally stated in 1965 by Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel, it maintains that the number of components that can be put on a computer chip doubles every eighteen months while the price remains the same. Essentially, this means that computer power doubles every eighteen months. (Interestingly, in a 1997 interview with USA Today ,
Moore says that he originally stated the number of components would double every year. And that in 1971, he revised that to every two years. Eighteen months was never mentioned.)
    As transistors have become smaller, Moore’s Law has held with remarkable consistency. But there’s a limit to how small we can make tomorrow’s transistors. The limitation has to do with the wavelength of light