The Life of the Automobile by Steven Parissenien (2014, Thomas Dunne Books) presents a panorama of automotive invention and innovation over the past 150 years. There have been many hits, for example, Ford’s Model T, Mustang and Taurus; GM’s ’55 Chevy, GTO, and Escalade; VW’s Beetle and Golf, and Citroen’s 2CV and DS. The number […]
I have been thinking about the extent to which ideas are fleeting but institutions are sustaining. Certainly ideas can be cumulative in the sense that electricity led to communications then computing and eventually networking via digital devices and social media. This took roughly 150 years, but that is just a blip in the 6,000 years […]
Today, I am 75 years old. My first engineering job was 55 years ago. I earned my PhD from MIT five decades ago. I was a tenured full professor at the University of Illinois over four decades ago. I was elected to the National Academy over three decades ago. I have been on the faculties […]
A recent issue of Technology Review (October 2021) features an article, “The problem to end all problems,” by Siobhan Roberts. This article addresses the treasured problem of “P versus NP,” the holy grail of theoretical computer science and mathematics. Can particular problems by solved in polynomial time (nx) or non-polynomial time (en), where n is […]
