Corporation

The physicist and humanitarian took his place beside the great teachers with the publication of Relativity: The Special and General Theory, Einstein’s own popular translation of the physics that shaped our “truths” of space and time

He was the embodiment of pure intellect, the bumbling professor with the German accent, a comic cliché in a thousand films. Instantly recognizable, like Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp, Albert Einstein's shaggy-haired visage was as familiar to ordinary people as to the matrons who fluttered about him in salons from Berlin to Hollywood. Yet he was unfathomably profound — the genius among geniuses who discovered, merely by thinking about it, that the universe was not as it seemed.

The Soroban - the traditional Japanese "natural calculating divice" - has unique advantages in the digital age. Soroban is the name given to the traditional Japanese abacus, or calculating frame, which is increasingly being seen as a valuable mathematical tool for a technological age.
It is now certain that Soroban -teaching helps children to develop an active approach to learning, and greatly increased their powers of mental calculation. Development of logical thought processes and powers of concentration flow from the pleasurable disciplines involved in Soroban study.

Hardy:The History of the Net

Master's Thesis
School of Communications
Grand Valley State University
Allendale, MI 49401

If we could look in on the future at say, the year 2000, would we see a unity, a federation, or a fragmentation? That is: would we see a single multi-purpose network encompassing all applications and serving everyone? Or a more or less coherent system of intercommunicating networks? Or an incoherent assortment of isolated noncommunicating networks... The middle alternative--the more or less coherent network of networks-- appears to have a fairly high probability and also to be desirable...

[Licklider and Vezza 1978, p. 1342]

"Faith and Reason" is an hour-length documentary about the interaction between science and religion, both historically and today. Through interviews with leading scientists and theologians, the program explores the history of the relationship between these two fields, and reveals that, contrary to widespread popular opinion, for most of history science and religion have been deeply entwined. Moreover, the program looks at a growing movment of scientists and theologians around the world today who believe that faith and reason can support one another. Here we consider issues in evolutionary biology, cosmology, genetics, and technology.

In 1949, a young engineer named Ralph Baer was given an assignment to build a television set. He wasn't supposed to build just any television set, but one that would be the absolute best of all televisions. This was not a problem for Baer, but he wanted to go beyond his original assignment and incorporate some kind of game into the set. He didn't know exactly what kind of game he had in mind, but it didn't really matter because his managers nixed the idea. It would take another 18 years for his idea to become a reality, and by that time there would be other people to share in the glory, like Willy Higinbotham, who designed an interactive tennis game played on an oscilloscope, and Steve Russell, who programmed a rudimentary space game on a DEC PDP-1 mainframe computer. And then there was also Nolan Bushnell, who played that space game and dreamed of a time when fairground midways would be filled with games powered by computers.

Nearly 4,000 years ago, the Egyptians were using hide glue for their furniture adhesive. This is proven by hairs found in Pharaoh's tombs and by stone carvings depicting the process of gluing different woods. Hide glue is still in use today for wood gluing and over the years much has been written about the manufacture and use of hide glue for hundreds of other adhesive applications. With the evolution of synthetic (ready to use) adhesives, hide glue has taken a lesser role in industry but has maintained a major role in repair and restoration of antique furniture, reproduction of period furniture, restoration, production and repair of musical instruments as well as numerous other applications.

Fiber optics is a concept that amazes many people. To fully understand the concept, the composition of light needs to be examined. Light has been characterized by six major theories over the past 3,000 years. The six theories are known as:
1. The tactile theory
2. The emission theory
3. The corpuscular theory
4. The wave theory
5. The electromagnetic theory
6. The quantum theory

In 1949, a young engineer named Ralph Baer was given an assignment to build a television set. He wasn't supposed to build just any television set, but one that would be the absolute best of all televisions. This was not a problem for Baer, but he wanted to go beyond his original assignment and incorporate some kind of game into the set. He didn't know exactly what kind of game he had in mind, but it didn't really matter because his managers nixed the idea. It would take another 18 years for his idea to become a reality, and by that time there would be other people to share in the glory, like Willy Higinbotham, who designed an interactive tennis game played on an oscilloscope, and Steve Russell, who programmed a rudimentary space game on a DEC PDP-1 mainframe computer. And then there was also Nolan Bushnell, who played that space game and dreamed of a time when fairground midways would be filled with games powered by computers.

The world was created in six days. On the seventh day there was Pac-Man.

OK, so it's not that extreme. But it does feel that way. Pac-Man goes back further than almost any other game in history. If you've never played Pac-Man (or one of its clones), you'll be hard-pressed to call yourself a "real" gamer. Now that I've insulted scores of video-game addicts around the world, I can sit back, relax, and wait for the flames to pour in.