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Essay / Role of physics in the global ICT revolution
Table of contentsIntroductionFirst breakthroughThe ornament of physicsInformation technologyIntroductionArtificial intelligence, robotics, communication gadgets and exabytes of information are stored in the centers data from around the world. We humans have achieved enormous successes in the field of information and communication technologies, or let's say ICT. This will surely give goosebumps to any curious geek. But this was not a game of one or two decades, this revolution took more than a century and many scientific efforts. It was the result of our deeper understanding of the laws of nature or more precisely the “laws of physics”. Nature holds countless hidden secrets and physics can reveal these secrets. When this big topic hit the ICT sector, the revolution began. So let's explore the history of the ICT revolution from a physics perspective. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Origins Before the 19th century, ancient people communicated in the most interesting ways. Ancient civilizations like those of China and North America used smoke signals to exchange information between distant points. Typically, smoke signals were used to convey important news, signal danger, or bring people together in a common area. Interesting, huh? However, these methods were limited by weather conditions, but they were quite practical at that time. There are some interesting anecdotes related to this method, such as: In ancient China, soldiers stationed along the Great Wall would line each other up from an impending enemy attack by signaling each other from turn to turn. In this way, they were able to transmit a message up to 750 kilometers in just a few hours! In the 8th century BCE, King “You of Zhou” used to deceive his warlords with false warnings. But when a real rebellion broke out, no one came to the king's aid. Around the same time, ancient Indians used letters to share information. There were the 'Raj Doots', the official messengers of the kings, who collected information and also passed on the king's messages to other kingdoms. Other methods of communication include drums and conch shells. They played drums or conch shells in coded language to convey the message. It was the quickest way to signal imminent danger. Sometimes animals and birds were also used for the same purpose.First BreakthroughThe first breakthrough came in 1800 when the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta invented the battery, which reliably stored electrical energy and made it possible to use current in a controlled environment. In 1820, Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted demonstrated the connection between electricity and magnetism by deflecting a magnetic needle with an electric current. These two discoveries opened the doors of possibilities. Scientists and inventors around the world began experimenting with batteries and the principles of electromagnetism to develop some sort of communications system. The revolution was about to begin. After a decade of these discoveries, Samuel Morse, Joseph Henry, and Alfred Vail developed an electric telegraph system that revolutionized long-distance communications. This system sent pulses of electrical current along wires that controlled an electromagnet located at the receiving end of the telegraph system. To support this discovery,Samuel Morse invented a coded language called Morse code. It consists of a set of lines and dots, quite similar to zeros and ones. In 1844, Morse sent his first telegraph message from Washington, D.C. to Maryland. In 1866, a telegraph line crossed the Atlantic Ocean, connecting the United States to Europe. The second breakthrough was the discovery of the telephone. The history of this invention is slightly controversial because there was a patent war between many scientists. In 1840, American Charles Grafton Page observed that connecting and disconnecting the current caused a ringing sound in the magnet. It was according to this principle that Antonio Meucci invented the first telephone. But it was Alexander Graham Bell who was credited with developing the first practical telephone in March 1876 when he won the case. The first complete, coherent sentence – the famous “Mr. Watson, come here; I Want You” was transmitted into Bell’s lab. The Ornament of PhysicsA research paper and four equations that shook the minds of every physics enthusiast! Yes, it was “Maxwell’s equations”. These are the equations of light, the mathematical relationships that have shown us how to electrify our world and transmit energy and information through the air. In 1865, James Clerk Maxwell unified the work of Carl Friedrich Gauss, Michael Faraday and André-Marie Ampère on classical electromagnetism and showed that light is an electromagnetic wave capable of propagating in free space. This marked the beginning of a whole new era of physics. People around the world began experiments with electromagnetism and tried to test its theory. Heinrich Hertz achieved the first success thanks to his famous “Hertz Experiment”. Subsequently, Guglielmo Marconi managed to transmit electromagnetic signals over approximately 2.4 km in late 1895, resulting in the invention of radio. Furthermore, this led to the discovery of the "electromagnetic spectrum", as Maxwell's equations predicted an infinite number of electromagnetic wave frequencies, all traveling at the speed of light. With this knowledge, other gadgets were also invented. But for me the most amazing fact is that visible light is also part of this spectrum, which means that what we can see is just a special case of Maxwell's equation!!! informationIn the 20th century, people began to unify all the ideas that came from different aspects. But one area of research that was in the spotlight was semiconductor devices. Using semiconductor devices, all digital electronics were developed, which allowed the construction of several integrated circuits and microprocessor devices. This sparked a whole new electronic era. The first revolutionary result of this era was the invention of the computer. To understand the progress of digital computing, intellectuals have created four sections. The first was the era of vacuum tubes and punch cards, used by ENIAC and Mark 1 computers. Rotating magnetic drums were used for internal storage. In the second generation, heavy vacuum tubes, transistors and punched cards were completely replaced by small transistors, magnetic strips and magnetic cores. It was also during this time that several programming languages were developed, through which a person could talk to a computer! The third generation replaced transistors with integrated circuits. Magnetic tape was used in all computers and the magnetic core was made into metal oxide semiconductors. The fourth and final generation introduced processors,which contain memory and control circuits on a single chip. Therefore, we were able to develop the personal computer. The second and most popular electronic gadget is the cell phone. Mobile phones have revolutionized the ICT sector and are now part of our culture. Cell phones are like wizards, they put everything in the palm of our hand. The principle of operation of the mobile phone is as follows: it first converts the human voice into an electrical signal, which is then transmitted by radio waves to the nearest cell tower. Then the receiving phone converts the radio waves back into audible sound. The world's first telephone call was made on April 3, 1973, by Martin Cooper, a senior engineer at Motorola. The phone Cooper used weighed 2.5 pounds and took about 10 hours to charge! A big change happened when Apple founder Steve Jobs released an iPhone that included a digital music player, a camera (2 MP!) and an Internet-enabled device. Subsequently, many companies entered the market and increased competition. As a result, people had more sophisticated and reliable devices. 6 AI - Artificial Intelligence As its name suggests, AI means intelligence demonstrated by machines. Nowadays, tech giants like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Alibaba are using AI technology to reach maximum people with less human help. AI has huge applications in robotics, military, medical diagnostics and remote sensing. In AI, machines attempt to imitate human intelligence using what is called an artificial neuron, the mathematical model of the biological neuron. In 1943, Warren S. McCulloch and Walter Pitts had a revolutionary idea. They were the first to propose the mathematical model of a biological neuron - Artificial Neuron (AN). After a decade, this model was successfully tested on the “Ferranti mark 1” computer and the code written for it was the first AI program. This encouraged many programmers and computer scientists. Around the 1980s, the artificial neuron evolved into the artificial neural network (ANN). ANN was capable of handling much more complex tasks than a single AN could handle. Continuous research and development has led to the improvement of this model. So, in 1999, Sony presented AIBO, the first domestic robot. Currently, we have a well-developed ANN model, powerful supercomputers and numerous data centers. With this enormous computing power, many giant tech companies are trying to imitate the human brain, the most complex thing known in the universe! (e.g. Google Brain). Google is the world leader in the field of AI. Google has released the free and open source TensorFlow library. Thanks to TensorFlow, people create interesting projects that are useful in their daily and professional lives. The future goals of AI sound like fantasy science. If the researchers succeed, most of our work will now be done solely by robots. I believe that AI will revolutionize the healthcare industry the most because it is able to quickly classify the symptoms of a disease. Another interesting application of AI is in agriculture. AI technology can monitor crops and soil. If it finds an undesirable crop or insect, it will spray pesticide. This will save a lot of time and increase productivity. AI technology offers endless possibilities. Let's see what happens in the next few years. 7 Quantified future Since its creation, mechanics »’.