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------------- - 1958 - Computer design and applications in the medical field.
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- In 1965 Gordon Moore wrote a paper claiming that the power of computers would double every 12 months. I was working at HP, Palo Alto. I was building my own TV from a kit. PC boards for the Apple computer were being manufactured in HP’s platting shop. HP was starting into big business computers and was eager to help the little guy who wanted to build home computers. HP did not see the money in that market. I bought serial 200 Apple II computer and a decade later donated it to a school.
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- Moore’s law also stated that the price for computers would fall 50% as the capability doubled.
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- Today this geometric growth has flattened out. Nest generation computers are slower to arrive. They are needed for advances to occur in virtual reality, artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, medical and genetic engineering, and smart phones.
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- Computer engineers squeezed better performance from chips by shrinking their size. Physics says they can not get much smaller, down to the atomic level. The space between components is nanometers. The thickness of a piece of paper is 0.1 millimeters, that is 100,000 nanometers Today’s chips have spaces down to 1 / 8,000 of a sheet of paper, about 13 nanometers.
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- The industry says to get to 7 nanometers it would cost $100 million and there are only 3 companies that could attempt it. Well, one company is already pledging $9 billion to develop a 7 nanometer processor in 4 years. Heat and power issues become the biggest design problems.
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- The design is attempting to stack chips on top of each other, the processor, memory and power source stacked into a cube. This shortens the distances between components. To counter balance this effort we need to learn how to remove the heat being generated. To make the stack successful we need a thermal engineering solution.
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- The heat solutions being considered include gels, pastes, flexible fibers in place of copper and aluminum plates.
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- Power density is the amount of power in a set amount of space. Even the slightest mistakes in balancing greater power with tighter designs can create a bomb, a fire hazard.
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- Your cell pone battery drains too quickly. What will happen with robots, drones, or electric cars? Storing energy, charging batteries, drawing power all generate “heat”.
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- Getting the heat and power right is the next big engineering challenge. Progress is never a linear process. It goes in spurts and dips.
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- Looking at the application for these new computers, just in the medical field alone is staggering. Let’s start with the physics of your own body. Your body is biology not physics, right?
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- Well, electric currents play a major role in the nervous system and the heart beat. Mechanics is involved in muscles and the skeleton. Fluid dynamics in blood flow and nutrients passage into and out our cells. Physics is used in the design of X-rays and PET scans and computers create images of the inside of your body..
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- The heart is particularly amenable to electrical analysis, an EKG. When the heart beats the cells temporarily lose their electric charge. Electrocardiography machines measure the voltage that varies with time, recording each beat.
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- Special cells comprise the pacemaker, that sets the rhythm of the heart beats. Defibrillators deliver a heavy dose of electric current to restart normal rhythm.
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- Blood flow is measured in maximum and minimum pressure. If the pressure in the artery drops it could mean the blood is flowing faster through narrower channels due to plaque build up.
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- X-rays penetrate soft tissue but not the bone. Computerized Axial Tomography, CAT scans, are a series of X-ray images from many points in a circle surrounding the patient. 3-D images are constructed on the computer.
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- Magnetic Resonance Imaging, MRI, uses nuclear magnetic resonance, NMR, a very strong magnetic field switching the orientation of the hydrogen nuclei in the body tissue. Radio waves of just the right frequency flip these nuclei. When the nuclei flip back they emit a radio signal. Analyzing these signals can determine molecular structure.
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- Positron Emission Tomography, PET scans, use positrons, (anti-electrons) emitted in the body tissue meeting electrons and they annihilate each other sending out Gamma Rays. Detectors pick up the Gamma Ray signals and computers process them to create the image.
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- Lasers are replacing scalpels. Laser vision correction is now common place. Often a 10 minute operation. Lasers are also used in angioplasty, that vaporize plaque.
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- Strong sound waves are used to break up kidney stones.
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- High energy radiation is used to treat tumors. The electromagnetic energy strips electrons off atoms killing the structure of molecules.
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- Sports medicine relies heavily on Newtonian mechanics. Holding a bowling ball of 15 pounds puts a force on your biceps muscles of 150 pounds. A person jumping 18 inches downward lands with a force of 1.5 tons. Bending the knees and cushioning the landing puts 300 pounds on the feet. That is 300 pounds is tolerable.
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- Doctors and Therapists must learn physics to do their best treatments. Computers are now playing a major role in the diagnostics and treatments. If you can’t keep up take notes. Medicine and computers are moving fast. An announcement will be made shortly , stay tuned.
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- Note (1): Request any of the Reviews by number to learn more.
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- # 1943 - super computers in the hands of engineers
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- #1847 - computer evolution, where will it lead.
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- #1373 - how computers will get faster compared to the human brain.
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- #--------- and several more reviews
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--- Some reviews are at: -------------- http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
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- to: ------- jamesdetrick@comcast.net ------ “Jim Detrick” -----------
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----- 707-536-3272 ---------------- Thursday, March 23, 2017 -----
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