101-1 Mid-term Exam of Grobal Technology Revolution

(10 points each question. You will be asked to defende your answer when I give back yor exam papers, so please be consistent with your answers.)

1. What does the so-called "ubiquitous computing" mean ?

2. Describe Moore's Law.

3. What is a transistor ? How was millions transistors made on top of a small area of silicon chip ?

A transistor is an electronic device that has three wires connects to it. electric current can flow in and out from two lines and controlled by the third wire called gate. A transistor can act as an amplifier or a NOT gate in digital circuits, it is therefore of fundamental importance of modern electronic computers.
A chemical substance call photo-resist is coded on flat silicon crystal surface, image of circuit is shrink and project onto that surface. photo-resist surface is therefore selectively exposed to or not exposed to lights, forming protective and unprotected layer for later etching (remove of unwanted material by erosive gas), this them produce a very very small scale of circuit lines on silicon.

4. What are the "three phases of computing" ?

5. What are the three scientific revolutions of the 20th century ?

6. What is the prupose of emotion for biological being ? How to build emotion into a machine ?

7. Dalai Lama met with scientists at the New York Academy of Sciences to explore the link between science and religion. He was asked if he was familiar with work on artificial intelligence. When he said he was, he was asked if an artificial intelligence being was a reincarnated being. What did Dalai Lama replied ?

8. Briefly outline the story of the firm "The 13th Floor".

9. Give one reason each why a computer chip "can be" and "can not be" cost as chip as a piece of paper.

Computer chip, following Moore's law, is growing exponentially in capacity and become much cheaper in the future, so it can become as cheap as a piece of paper.
Paper is a consumable, people throw them away (recycled or not recycled) so the demand of paper in quantity is huge, they can therefore be cheap to produced. However, if computer chip in the future is not as demanded in the huge scale as paper, it could still be expensive.

 

10. Tell me a brief story of who is Alan Turing and what is a so called Turing Test.

Alan Turing is a British mathematician who help cracking German code during World War II. He has made huge pioneering contribute to computer science as well as other branches of sciences, such as non-linear physics, he was accused being homosexal and die young by accidentally (or intentionally) taken a poisoned apple.

The idea of Turing Test is to set up two rooms, one has computer, one has human. People outside the room can only communicate to them with text-typing device. If people outside can not distinguish which room has computer, the computer "pass" the Turing Test and is regarded to have higher form of intelligence.