The Science of Photography -- Part Two

In my first installment of “The Science of Photography,” I described photography as a fine art rooted in science and technology. I promised to explain in great depth and detail that technology, starting with exposure control. Exposure control is how you manage the amount of light entering your camera. I previously described exposure control having three variables, the sensitivity of the film or sensor, the shutter speed and the aperture control or f/stop. In part two below, I begin a detailed  explanation. We start with an analogy.


Water Bucket Analogy

A good analogy for exposure is to compare it to filling a bucket with water. Since a bucket is fixed in size, it needs a certain amount of water to fill it. You can compare that with film or a digital sensor which has a particular sensitivity measured as the ISO number, and, therefore, requires a certain amount of light to capture the image optimally. Too little light and we call it underexposed and shadows are not filled in. Too much light and we say it is overexposed and all the bright areas are washed out. Similarly, not enough water and the bucket is not filled. Too much water and the bucket overflows.

We can compare the size of the bucket to the sensitivity of the film or sensor. Consider a small bucket like a very sensitive sensor, a high ISO number. It is a small bucket because it doesn’t take much water (or light) to fill it. A low sensitivity sensor would be like a big bucket that requires more water (or light) to fill.

To continue the bucket analogy, you can pour a large stream of water for a short time or a small stream of water for a long time to fill the bucket. In both cases, you get the same amount of water. In a camera, the size of the stream of water is analogous to the f/stop and the length of time you “pour” is the shutter speed.

Notice that, with the bucket being filled, it doesn’t matter whether you have the large stream for a short time or the small stream for a longer time. It doesn’t matter as long as the same amount of water is put into the bucket.

There are differences when you are photographing something in motion, but in terms of exposure it doesn’t matter -- it is identical to the bucket analogy. The film or sensor is basically indifferent to the combination of time and the f/stop as long as it is the correct amount of light to obtain a proper exposure. So you can control the exposure, for a given sensitivity of film or sensor, with combinations of shutter speed (how long you pour the water) and the f/stop (the size of the stream).

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed is the easier of the two variables to explain, so it is a good place to start. On modern cameras, both film and digital, both exposure adjustments typically double or halve the amount of light with each click of the dial or change of the settings to the next value. Compare this to the channel selector on your TV. Each click of the remote, either up or down, changes the amount of light by 50% or 200%.

This may seem, at first, like a rather course amount of change, but it is usually enough fine control for picture taking. There is a very, very large variation of the amount of light in the wide, wide world that you will photograph, and the half/double per “click” of the exposure controls is actually a very fine adjustment amount. Therefore, both exposure controls run through a sequence of settings which involve doubling and halving the amount of light reaching the film.

Shutter speeds are measured in seconds and fractions of a second since it is the amount of time the shutter is open. So the math seems pretty simple. One-eight of a second is twice one-sixteenth and half of one-quarter of a second. One second is twice as long as half a second and half as long as two seconds. Check the shutter speeds on your camera and you will see similar numbers.

On my old Pentax K10000, for instance, the shutter speed sequence is:

8 seconds    4 seconds    2 seconds    1 second    1/2 second

1/4    1/8    1/15    1/30    1/60    1/125    1/250    1/500    1/1000

In general, each of these settings is half or double the length of time of its immediate neighbor. There are some jumps, such as from 1/8 to 1/15 and 1/60 to 1/125. Those values came from older cameras that didn’t have as many shutter speeds and speeds such as 1/60 and 1/125 are very common throughout photographic history. Also, half of 1/15 would not be a simple integer fraction on the lower end, and 1/1000 was typically the fastest shutter in 35 mm film cameras.

My theory is that early cameras had shutter speeds around 1/60. That seems like a good "time" number since there are 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute. When faster shutters were developed, the decimal number 1/1000 probably took hold. If you think about it in our modern, digital age, we are used to the series 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, and 1024. But, considering the accuracy of shutter speed, there really isn't a difference between 1/16 and 1/15 nor between 1/1000 and 1/1024. So the series of shutter speeds can be considered as a series of values X2 or X1/2 even with the small difference in denominator values.

If you check out your modern digital camera, you will see that they’ve obtained much faster shutter speeds. My newest Nikon goes up to 1/8000 of a second on the high end and, on the low end, I think it goes down to somethings around two weeks for the slow shutter speed. I just made that last part up! :-)

(If your current point-and-shoot camera doesn’t allow control of shutter speed or f/stop, then this article isn’t really for you. Or you could go buy a new camera that does allow control of shutter speed and aperture -- just sayin'. Of course, even a point-and-shot camera does control these exposure adjustments, it is just all done automatically and “under the covers.”)

So this simple double or halving is all there is for the the shutter speed control. In the next installment of this article, we will look at the aperture control and f/stops. So, until then, TTFN.


http://mickey-cheatham.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-scienced-of-photography-part-three.html

The Science of Photography — Part One

People tend to draw a line between “art” and “science.” They think there is some kind of fence between the two subjects that trap people in either one of the other arena. I hear a lot about “left-brain” and “right-brain” as if that was a physiological explanation of the separation. Just as some people are right-handed or left-handed, they will often describe themselves as right-brained or left-brained.

Broad generalizations are often made in popular psychology about one side or the other having characteristic labels such as "logical" vs. "creative," ”analytical” vs. “intuitive,” “number” vs. “rhythm,” or “sequence” vs. “synthesis.” However, these labels need to be treated carefully. Although a lateral dominance is measurable, these characteristics are in fact existent in both sides, and experimental evidence provides little support for correlating the structural differences between the sides of the brain with functional differences. There is a lot more “excuse” than “science” to people who self limit themselves with such explanations.

Certainly I’ve dedicated most of my life, my career, and my education to “science.” And I really doubt I have much of a talent for art, although one must confirm definitions before making such limiting statements. I would likely fail that famous drawing test from the “Match Box School of Art,” although I suspect everyone who draws the pirate, even as a stick figure, gets accepted into the school as long as they can pay the tuition.

Besides, science has plenty of visualization and perspective and creativity. Much modern art is very scientific and well engineered buildings and bridges can be beautiful works of art.

I was brought up in a home where music was always being played and performed, and I’ve enjoyed music all my life as I’ve attempted to create some. I found my skills and talents were more in the area of capturing and recording music, but that has not slacked my appreciation and enjoyment nor my own personal playing.

There are several other artistic endeavors I’ve engaged in, including the art of writing which I’m attempting before your very eyes. I’ve recorded music and video, I’ve produced music and video, and I’ve created music and video. But I think the closest joining of art and science is in still photography. Photographs can be hung on the wall like any fine art and they seem to link the present with artists from long ago.

But, on the other hand — or side of the brain — photography and cameras are scientific instruments, and even the greatest artist must obtain knowledge and skill to use the instrument well. So it is a marriage of art and science, a beautiful marriage indeed.

I think photography is the closest, high-technology implemented “fine art” that I perform. After all, a photograph is very akin to a painting, and expressionism or other schools of art can be implemented in a photograph too. But, as you gentle readers know, my largest pool of skill and knowledge is in the scientific realm. So, with that introduction, let me start what I expect will be a very ambitious project where I tell you everything there is to know about camera science.

I suggest you get a comfortable chair. Possibly put on some soothing music. Now settle back for a long read as I describe the scientific principles behind photography. These are the principles that apply to both film and digital photography as I explain the basic rules of physics and how they apply to the photographic art.

Focus and Exposure

There are two primary attributes that must be manipulated and controlled in the production of any photograph, be it on film, or digital, or any other type of image capture using optics (lenses).

The first is focus. That is a function of the lens or set of lenses as they bend light and produce an image on the image sensor and the distance to the object being photographed. The sensor may be a light sensitive chemical coated on what we call “film” or a light sensitive sensor in what we refer to as “digital photography.”

Exposure describes the amount of light gathered relative to the sensitivity of the recording medium, either film or a sensor.

Controlling exposure is a combination of lens function (aperture) plus shutter function (speed) combined with the sensitivity of the sensor (ISO). Interestingly, exposure control can also affect focus. So lets start with exposure control and how lenses are designed and adjusted to effect the amount of light focused on the sensor.

Of course, the amount of light focused by the lens also depends on the amount of light on the subject, the thing — person, scene, flower, etc. — being photographed. And that opens another whole area of art and science such as the light from the sun vs. light from a lamp vs. flash, etc. And there are other scientific areas that photography involves such as the science of color and reflection and many other areas a fine artist attempts to control and capture when taking a photograph.

Both film and digital sensors can have varying degrees of sensitivity to light. In the case of film it depended on the chemical process and was described as a number standardized by the International Standards Organization called the “ISO Number.” (Older photographers will recall the ASA and DIN measurements which have been combined in the modern ISO standard in 1974.) With digital sensors it can be controlled electronically by adjusting amplifier gain and is also described with an ISO number.

But first, I want to focus (no pun intended) on the control of exposure. After all, a good photographer must know how to control exposure in order to correctly capture the great variation of light that may exist. In my personal opinion, everything starts with exposure control.

What a photographers must do is to set their exposure using a combination of shutter speeds and f/stops to get the correct amount of light on the film or sensor. The shutter speed regulates how long the sensor or film is exposed to light coming through the lens. The f/stop regulates how much light is allowed through the lens by varying the area of the hole the light comes through.

For any given film speed (ISO) and lighting combination there is one correct amount of light to properly expose the film. This amount of light can be achieved with many different combinations of f/stops and shutter speeds.

Despite being one of the exposure controls in photography, the f/stop remains a source of confusion and mystery to many photographers, even to some who use it all the time.  Although I take pride in being terse and laconic, I think what is needed here is a long-winded discussion of f/stop where I tell you everything there is to know about the topic. So lean back in that comfortable chair, here it comes.

(See part 2 for a continuation of the discussion.)

http://mickey-cheatham.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-science-of-photography-part-two.html

What's Under the Hood

Folks who know me know I love to look under the hood. I want to know what’s powering that thing, whether it is an LS9 engine from a top model of Corvette or the microprocessor running the latest electronic gear. In both the case of automobile engines and computer processors, the beauty is in the balance between performance and weight / size / economy.

Modern mobile devices such as smartphones demand a compromise between battery  life, performance, heat, power, and cost. So when Apple launched its latest iPhone, I immediately asked, “What’s under the hood?” In some cases, Apple isn’t talking. They simply identify the new processor as the A6 -- successor to the iPhone 4s installed A5.

We know this new processor is more powerful, yet Apple is claiming better battery life ... even with the power hungry 4G LTE technology added to the "swiss army knife" Qualcomm communications chip able to talk all sorts of technical languages in world-wide settings. Although this single chip provides support for all the US cell phone carrier's technology, 2G, 3G, and 4G, plus technologies used overseas, putting all that in a single chip increases battery drain.

A little research found the analysts at Nomura Equity Research opinion that the A6 processor inside Apple's iPhone 5 is a dual-core Cortex-A15 manufactured for Apple by Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. in its 32-nm HKMG (High-K Metal Gate) manufacturing process.

(The term high-K dielectric refers to a material with a high dielectric constant, “κ,” as compared to silicon dioxide used in most semiconductor manufacturing processes. The high-κ metal gate replaces the silicon dioxide gate dielectric. The implementation of high-κ metal gate is one of several strategies developed to allow further miniaturization of microelectronic components. See: http://www.electroiq.com/articles/sst/2010/03/integrating-high-k.html)

This would mean Apple is one of the first companies to introduce a Cortex-A15-based processor. Cortex-A15 is the highest performance processor core from intellectual property licensor ARM Holdings.

Samsung started sampling the industry's first dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 processor late in 2011, the Exynos 5250, made with its 32-nm HKMG process and intended for volume shipment in summer 2012. Its 2-GHz clock frequency is claimed to double the performance of the previous 1.5-GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 based Exynos, which fits with Apple’s performance claims for the new phone.

It is not surprising that Apple has turned to Samsung, the competitor that it has sued for copyright infringement in their own smartphones. At IBM we were well aware of the modern technical culture where a company is your competitor on one hand, and business partner on the other. After all, IBM had the world’s largest Windows consulting service at the same time we were strongly pushing Linux as the best office OS solution. Never mind “if you can’t beat them, join them.” Our strategy was to do both. I suspect Apple is doing the same.

The A6 is a very interesting design and is part of the movement from 32-nm processor design to the ultra-small 22-nm process. IBM partner GlobalFoundries, current source for both 32-nm and 28-nm processes, demonstrated its first 22nm equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) in a high-k metal gate (HKMG) transistor capable of scaling down to the 22-nm node while maintaining low leakage, low voltages, and superior charge carrier mobility. Such technology will enable continued VLSI semiconductor scaling to the 22-nm process, and likely beyond.

The triumph here comes from maintaining the transistor’s precision when the EOT in a high-k oxide layer is reduced sufficiently for 22nm features. If reduced too much, it results in an increased leakage current, which robs the 22-nm node of any power saving benefits.

GlobalFoundries and IBM were able to overcome this limitation by maintaining an appropriate EOT at the level necessary for 22-nm and beyond, one which maintains the necessary combination of leakage, threshold voltages, and carrier mobility.

On the other hand, although Apple choses the very highest technology for the processor design, they continue to use hand assembly. The design of the iPhone is enhanced by stacking components in what is called a 3-D architecture and using ten-layer printed circuit boards with drilled vias to reduce size.

These extremely compact designs require hand assembly since they are beyond the capability to be assembled by machines. The competition’s smartphones will continue to be a little thicker, a little larger, and often with smaller batteries because they are designed to allow easy assembly by machines. The iPhone, on the other hand, uses small screws and manual assembly techniques that make them more like fine watches than computers produced by robots. This more expensive assembly is possible with Apple’s premium price structure, while allowing Apple to produce the thinest and lightest mobile devices around.

If Samsung is the sole supplier of the A6 processor – as indicated by Nomura analysts – this squares with recent predictions that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, the world's largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry, is working on pulling in its 20-nm process and working to supply Apple in the second-half of 2013 using that process.This comes shortly after TSMC denied both Apple and Qualcomm’s bids to become equity partners and provide exclusive access to these advanced designs. So the technology is there for anyone who can incorporate them in their products. So far Apple maintains a lead over its competitors in this regard; even the competitor which it uses to source the high technology parts.

This new phone comes out at a time when I’m upgrading the disk drives in my home system. I’m replacing all my 500 giga-byte drives with the four-times larger, 2 tera-byte storage. There continues to be no end in sight, either with the small scale of processor design, nor the large size of disk drives. At this rate, semiconductors will be designed using only one atom per gate, while disk storage will hit femto-bytes. Is it any wonder I get excited looking under the hood.

They'll Never See the Likes of Us Again

A professor of mine once defined poetry as “what we all have oft felt, but ne’er so well expressed.” This is actually a quote describing criticism from the great English writer Alexander Pope back in the early 1700’s. But I agree it is a great definition of poetry. We still have poets amongst us today, but most add music melody and rhythm to their works.

The beginning of technology ... truly the start of our modern age ... began with steam. Water power and mills too, but steam was portable, and brought the first great revolution in speed. Before the time of steam, the fastest one could travel was a galloping horse or perhaps a ship under full sail. But with steam came the train. These magnificent engines traveled faster than a horse and were able to move across land. But they did require a road of steel. The building of those steel roads during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century brought commerce and travel to the far reaches of nations.

Here are two poems that celebrate these great efforts and the men who gave their backs, their sweat, and their blood and very lives to build these modern modes of transportation. This was still the age of pick and shovel, and the work was hard and dangerous. Many lives were lost for each mile finished.

Sit back and enjoy these two poems and relive these tales of yesteryear and the accomplishments of our fore-bearers as talented songwriters tell of the railroad in England and Canada. What song would you suggest to represent the railroad builders who connected the East and West coasts of the U.S. ?

In the early 1800s, large groups of mainly unskilled labourers built England’s railways. the cost in human terms alone was very high... They’ll never see the likes of us again.

For Canada, the struggle was even greater as the majestic Rockies were climbed and conquered and vast forests were traversed. And many are the dead men too silent to be real.

Driving the Last Spike

by Michael Rutherford, Phil Collins, and Tony Banks.

Leaving my family behind me
Not knowing what lay ahead
Waving goodbye, as I left them in tears
Remembering all we’d said

I looked to the sky, I offered my prayers
I asked him for guidance and strength
But the simple beliefs of a simple man
Lay in his hands, and on my head

I gave everything that they wanted
But still they wanted more
We sweat and we toiled
Good men lost their lives
I don’t think they knew what for

I sold them my heart
I sold them my soul
I gave everything I had
Ah but they couldn’t break my spirit
My dignity fought back,

Can you hear me
Can you see
Don’t you hear me
Don’t you see

We worked in gangs for all we were worth
The young boys pulling the wagons
We were digging the tunnel, shifting the earth
It was then that it happened.

No-one knew how the cracks appeared
But as it fell they all disappeared
Stone fell like rain

Can you hear me,
Can you see
Don’t you hear me
Can you breathe

The smoke cleared, the dust it settled
No one knew how many had died
All around there were broken men
They’d said it was safe, they’d lied
You could hear the cries, you could smell the fear
But good fortune that day was mine
And it occurred to me the heart of a good man
It seems is hard to find.

Can you hear me,
Can you see
Don’t you hear me
Don’t you see

We worked, how we worked like
The devil for our pay
Through the wind, through the snow,
And through the rain

Blasting and cutting through gods country like a knife
Sweat stinging my eyes, there has to be a better life

Ah but I can hear my children’s cry
I can see the tears in their eyes
Memories of those Ive left behind
Still ringing in my ears
Will I ever go back again
Will I ever see her face again
Ill never forget that night
As they waved goodbye to their fathers

We came from the north,
And we came from the south
With picks and with spades
And a new kind of order
Showing no fear of what lies up ahead
They’ll never see the likes of us again

Driving the last spike,
Lifting and laying the track
With blistering hands,
The sun burning your back

Oh but I can hear my children’s cry
I can see the tears in their eyes
Memories of those Ive left behind
Still ringing in my ears
Well Ill always remember that night,
As they waved goodbye to their fathers

We followed the rail, we slept under the stars
Digging in darkness, and living with danger
Showing no fear of what lies up ahead
They’ll never see the likes of us again

Can you hear me
Can you see
Don’t you hear me
Don’t you see

Canadian Railroad Trilogy

by Gordon Lightfoot

There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run
When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun
Long before the white man and long before the wheel
When the green dark forest was too silent to be real
But time has no beginnings and hist'ry has no bounds
As to this verdant country they came from all around
They sailed upon her waterways and they walked the forests tall
And they built the mines the mills and the factories for the good of us all

And when the young man's fancy was turnin' to the spring
The railroad men grew restless for to hear the hammers ring
Their minds were overflowing with the visions of their day
And many a fortune lost and won and many a debt to pay

For they looked in the future and what did they see
They saw an iron road runnin' from sea to the sea
Bringin' the goods to a young growin' land
All up through the seaports and into their hands

Look away said they across this mighty land
From the eastern shore to the western strand
Bring in the workers and bring up the rails
We gotta lay down the tracks and tear up the trails
Open 'er heart let the life blood flow
Gotta get on our way 'cause we're movin' too slow

Bring in the workers and bring up the rails
We're gonna lay down the tracks and tear up the trails
Open 'er heart let the life blood flow
Gotta get on our way 'cause we're movin' too slow
Get on our way 'cause we're movin' too slow

Behind the blue Rockies the sun is declinin'
The stars, they come stealin' at the close of the day
Across the wide prairie our loved ones lie sleeping
Beyond the dark oceans in a place far away

We are the navvies who work upon the railway
Swingin' our hammers in the bright blazin' sun
Livin' on stew and drinkin' bad whiskey
Bendin' our old backs 'til the long days are done

We are the navvies who work upon the railway
Swingin' our hammers in the bright blazin' sun
Layin' down track and buildin' the bridges
Bendin' our old backs 'til the railroad is done

So over the mountains and over the plains
Into the muskeg and into the rain
Up the St. Lawrence all the way to Gaspe
Swingin' our hammers and drawin' our pay
Drivin' 'em in and tyin' 'em down
Away to the bunkhouse and into the town
A dollar a day and a place for my head
A drink to the livin' and a toast to the dead

Oh the song of the future has been sung
All the battles have been won
O'er the mountain tops we stand
All the world at our command
We have opened up the soil
With our teardrops and our toil

For there was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run
When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun
Long before the white man and long before the wheel
When the green dark forest was too silent to be real
When the green dark forest was too silent to be real
And many are the dead men too silent to be real

Winchester Cathederal

This tale may be true, or it just may be fiction or a wild dream of mine. Who knows? After all, they say those that can remember the 60’s weren't even there.

This British band had been around since the early sixties and had several hits. They had recently lost their backup vocalist and guitar player to America, and their management wanted to update their sound. They hired two girl backup singers, a three piece horn section, and me — on keyboards.

So I flew to London and started playing with the band around town. We were at the the Marquee Club on Wardour Street, and had finished a late show on Tuesday night, Wednesday morning. We were off for two days, so I borrowed a mate’s Austin and planned to see the sunrise from the southern coast or possibly from Stonehenge. I had scored a couple of buttons of peyote from one of the roadies, and thought that would add a little technicolor to the sunrise.

I got a little lost, and ended up in St. John’s Wood near the Marylebone Cricket Club or “Lord’s Cricket Ground” as the locals referred to it. It was four o’clock in the morning, I feel pretty good. So I dropped into the luxury of the Lords and took the buttons. I was wandering around the grounds enjoying the gargoyles and medieval statues. Fighting dragons and crossing swords with the people against the hordes who came to conquer.

An hour later I’m motoring down the M3 and I arrive at Winchester Cathedral. The Peyote is really starting to kick in, so I park the car and start to tour the grounds awaiting the sunrise. Six o'clock in the morning here it comes. I taste the warming. Really starting to hallucinate. I'm so amazed I'm here today, seeing things so clear this way, in the car and on my way to Stonehenge.

I see the church and walk towards it. I come up to the door and step inside. By now I’m really getting high. You know how some people hallucinate and think they can fly? Some even jump off tall buildings to their death. Well that was what was happening to me. Maybe I couldn’t fly. Maybe it was all going on inside my head, although anyone who has read “Don Juan, a Yaqui Way of Knowledge” would have some doubts. Maybe I could really fly. Who can say?

So there I am,  flying in Winchester cathedral. Sunlight pouring through the break of day. I stumbled through the door and into the chamber. There's a lady setting flowers on a table covered lace, and a cleaner in the distance finds a cobweb on a face. It is so unreal. A feeling deep inside of me tells me this can't be the place.

I wandering around inside thinking about churches and religion. I’m strong on belief, but rather cynical on religion. Seems it is often just man’s attempt to understand God, and you know how screwed up we humans can make things. Yet, all religion has to have its day.

I wandered into one of the little alcoves along the side and was looking at the statues. I found this statue of Jesus on the cross and looked up at his face. The expressions on the face of the Savior made me say, "I can't stay."

Suddenly I felt claustrophobic and weighted down. A paranoid voice was screaming in my skull to just get out of there. I shouted, "Open up the gates of the church and let me out of here." I thought that too many people have lied in the name of Christ for anyone to heed the call. So many people have died in the name of Christ that I can't believe it all.

I search for the door, but end up in another little alcove with carving on the floor. Now I'm standing on the grave of a soldier that died in 1799 ...  And the day he died it was a birthday ... And I noticed it was mine... And my head didn't know just who I was ... And I went spinning back in time.

Maybe I just thought I did, but it seemed I flew up over the altar and toward the great glass wall above. And I am high upon the altar ... High upon the altar, ... high. I'm flying in Winchester cathedral. It's hard enough to drink the wine. The air inside just hangs in delusion. But given time, I'll be fine.

Open up the gates of the church and let me out of here. Too many people have lied in the name of Christ for anyone to heed the call. Too many people have died in the name of Christ that I can't believe it all.

I finally found myself outside in the sunlight. The effects of the hallucinogen were starting to wear off, or else the sleepless night was starting to take its due. I got in the car and headed back to my hotel. Never did get to see Stonehenge.

Three Degrees of Knowledge

This essay was originally written on Wednesday, February 29, 2012 at 4:07pm, and posted as a Facebook Note. I'm moving many of these FB Notes here to Blogspot to share with a wider audience. This is a highly biographical sketch, but also addresses issues of STEM as well as Art, Design, Cooking, House Painting, or any other career that one may pursue and the path to that career.

Our pastor and my good friend Tom retires at the end of this month. Last Sunday he spoke about when he was eight years old and some friends asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said “a minister,” but then he quickly covered himself and said “or a garbage truck driver.” Those that know his life story understand how that single idea stayed with him, resulting in his ultimate graduation from Denver Seminary and leadership of Grace Evangelical Free Church here in Longmont.

It is a lucky thing when young people know from the start what they want to be in life. Even with that destination in mind, the journey can have twists and turns. My son, Mark, has always been interested in food and cooking, and he’s worked in food service for half his life so far. But he’s also worked in technology as a printer starting his apprenticeship under his Uncle Chuck in Alaska and working for several printing businesses in Boulder and Denver. He worked in digital printing at IBM and Lexmark and currently works at my old company, Ricoh Production Printing in Boulder. (IBM Printing Systems was sold to Ricoh and was called InfoPrint Solutions before becoming a division of Ricoh.) With printing paying the bills, he is currently in college studying nutrition and pursuing that life-long goal.

My son, Mike, got a degree in auto mechanics, but worked most of his life as a house painter. Recently he’s branched out into other areas of construction and even handyman jobs like shoveling snow and trimming tree branches. Now he is considering taxidermy. He is still working on his goals.

I always knew what I wanted to do from about eight years old on: I wanted to be a scientist. The exact technical area changed over time, but the basic concept remained.

At first I wanted to be an Astronomer or a physicist (Einstein’s theories enthralled me), then an electronics … something. At one point my parents gave me a record recorder. It had a microphone and blank records and some attachments you added to the turntable and you could cut records. I was 8 or 10 at the time. Instead of recording music, I recorded a lecture on why a rocket could not exceed the speed of light. It included an explanation of Einstein’s theory of mass increase as velocity approached light speed, and I sure wish I had that recording now!

After that, I decided I would become a Geologist. A professor from Stanford University spent the summer at our motel and later sent me a college geology text book which bent my path for a time. I dabbled in chemistry and biology, creating a laboratory in my basement bedroom, and my dad bought me an expensive microscope from Edmunds Scientific. I built electronic projects, owned a couple of short wave radios, and did amateur radio experiments, all before high school.

I got a little sidetracked during high school with my involvement in motorcycles and wine, women, and song — although not necessarily in that order. I played around with music, but the talent was lacking. I even went to the School of Mines in Butte, Montana, after high school — a flash-back to the geology book from the  Stanford professor. That was a mistake. I played a lot of music and drank a lot of beer in my one year at Mines, and then it was into the labor market.

I worked on a rock drilling rig prospecting for gold in the nearby mountains, for the Bureau of Land Management fighting forest fires, worked at two different lumber mills in White Sulphur Springs and Libby, Montana, worked for Anaconda Copper company in their smelter at Great Falls, Montana, and continued to pursue musical interests until Uncle Sam invited me to join his yacht club. (That one sentence made a pretty respectable paragraph, don’t you think?)

I got back on track in the Navy, electronics training there, and worked as a technician after I got out. Got my First Class FCC Commercial license, worked in radio and TV, worked as a designer at an aero space company, and taught electronics at a technical school in Denver. I got the engineering degree that was my ultimate goal from Metropolitan State College. (The “at Denver” was added to the name later.)

After seven years of attending Metro at night, I still had some VA benefits left, so I changed track and studied math and physics at CU earning a Master’s degree. Continuing the electronics engineering direction would have been logical, but I wanted more of the “why” after learning so much of the “how.” Electronics still interested me, but I wanted to go deeper into the understanding of things. Math and physics served that purpose. I taught night classes at Metro during those years, and was hired on by IBM as an electronics engineer.

I had a friend and mentor at the time named Joe Clark. He was the technical director at the electronics school I taught at. He pursued a degree in distributed studies, which meant basically three minors: math, physics, and philosophy. We had many long discussions about the intersection of those three disciplines, and I had a deep interest in topics such as the history of technology and epistemology, which is the study of how we learn and what is the composition of knowledge.

I only took one philosophy class in college, although I enjoyed the class very much and the instructor was very special. I was voted by the class "outstanding philosophy student." Always a great honor to be recognized by your peers. I’m a voracious reader, and I’ve read thousands of books in my lifetime. I read about philosophy, and I expanded my knowledge of history and literature through self-study. I also encountered several schools of philosophy in my deep math studies. The theories of knowledge and education interested me both philosophically and from a practical perspective. As a teacher, I was most interested in theories of knowledge and how to train, teach, and impart practical and theoretical knowledge, as well as how to measure success of that teaching.

I did accomplish my childhood goal when IBM gave me the title of “Associate Engineer/Scientist.” I can’t say for sure if that was due to my math and physics studies or it was just a general title that IBM gave some of their technical staff. I primarily worked as an engineer designing test systems and developing digital recording products. I worked as a manufacturing engineer supporting the development and production of diskette drives and magnetic recording heads. I did some programming as part of that job and also some statistical analysis.

I continued teaching, working on a project for IBM where I taught the use of personal computers (Apple II) to a local school district and teaching the use of personal computers (IBM PC) to employees in Boulder. That eventually led to a full-time job with IBM Education and Training, and I spent fourteen years traveling all over the U.S. and even outside the country teaching basic and advanced programming techniques, testing, and project management.

Although my childhood goal had been to be a scientist, I think my gifts and skills led me to teach. In some sense, all the technical topics I learned were just subjects for me to teach. IBM sent me off to various colleges for short courses on teaching, and I attended classes at Colorado State, Vanderbilt, and Harvard. I taught myself how to publish documents and books electronically, and wrote two text books that IBM used in their classes with thousands of students.

So here I was teaching programming and software engineering, yet my degrees were in electronics engineering, math, and physics. I attended a special IBM training program called the University Level Computer Science Curriculum which consisted of 25, one-week long classes taught in IBM classrooms by university faculty. So I did have formal programmer education to go with my self-taught skills, but no software degree.

Eventually I left IBM Education and started working for the IBM Printing Systems Division. Now that I wasn’t traveling all the time,I could go back to school. It had always been my goal to obtain a Ph.D. and garner the title of “Doctor.”

I considered various Ph.D. programs from EE to Education, but couldn’t decide. My job had morphed from hardware to teaching to software, and so I decided to get a second Master’s in Computer Science. I was teaching and leading software engineers; I had the title Senior Software Engineer title, but I didn't really think I was an Software Engineer since I lacked the specific degree. So, it was back to school. I couldn't get a Ph.D. in Software Engineering since I didn’t have the basic credentials.  Four years later, spending evenings and weekends, I got my Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Denver, and now I’m ready for that Ph.D. I’m currently enrolled in a couple of online courses at Stanford University (strange return to the source — remember the geology text book), but they are just supplemental to what I already know, and not part of a degree program. I don’t know if I’ll ever get that Ph.D. That is a decision I’ll defer to another time.

Engineering, Science, and Software

After this lengthy introduction, I want to talk about a perspective of science I’ve gained by having three degrees: 1) engineering, 2) science, and 3) software, as well the philosophical perspective of knowledge I’ve gained from these various viewpoints. There are many similarities and differences between these three areas of study. There is considerable overlap and synergy, but there are also big differences in approach and the body of knowledge of the three disciplines.

Engineering  is all about the rules … and they are very specific and … well … specified. Engineering is a discipline based on science, so it can never violate the laws of nature — self consistency exists at nearly all scales. The scientific areas of math and physics are similar regarding rules and formulas. (There might be some inconsistency in the domain of sub-atomic particles and quantum theory … not so sure about that!) My study of physics and math just took me deeper into these rules, and I even learned about where the rules did not apply.

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states a fundamental limit on the accuracy with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle, such as position and momentum, can be simultaneously known. In layman's terms, the more precisely one property is measured, the less precisely the other can be controlled, determined, or known.

In math, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems establish inherent limitations on all but the most trivial axiomatic systems capable of doing arithmetic. The theorems, proven by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the philosophy of mathematics. He proved that, in any self-consistent, mathematical system, there will be “truths” that can’t be expressed without going outside the system into what is called a meta-system. Basically he proved that there are limits to even the beautiful thought structures that make up pure mathematics.

From my earliest Navy training (actually the Calibration School training at Lowry Air Force Base, Denver), I had learned of the limitations of electronic instruments. There were issues of accuracy and circuit loading. Heisenberg demonstrated that, regardless of the perfection of the measuring instruments, God actually hides some level of detail, and that hidden portion has led to some very interesting suppositions and a hope of power sources from the very fabric of the universe. Mathematics, on the other hand, seems to be crafted from pure thought stuff, and it was supposed before Gödel that there were no limitations other than the power of human imaginations to plumb the depths — no fenced off area that trespassing was forbidden.

Heisenberg showed limits to physical science and Gödel showed limits to mathematical science. Philosophy is obviously limited, and we all know there is no consistency to economics or political science or any of the other modern disciplines that have added “engineering” to their names without actually adding rigor and fundamental principles.

Religion claims an absolute, yet there are hundreds of faiths. Even within the Christian religion, there is no exact interpretation, but rather a lot of discourse and disagreement among denominations.

But let’s return to the three disciplines I’ve described, engineering, math, and computer science. The question to examine: is computer science an engineering discipline? Is it really Software Engineering?

Think about how the term “engineering” has expanded in common use. Some of it represents the respect that modern society has for engineering, although there have been a few spectacular failures from the unsinkable Titanic to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge failure. In general, however, engineering has gained a respect in the twentieth century that the name has been added to less technical occupations from custodial engineer for janitor to Wall Street’s financial engineering that gave us great products such as financial derivatives and high speed, automated trading that triggered our current economic and political malaise.

Consider that software engineering is inherently an information-based discipline, so the laws of imagination are much more applicable and laws of nature much more flexible. That sets Computer Science apart from most other sciences and begs the question “is Software Engineering no more a true engineering discipline than financial engineering?”

In 1948, Claude Shannon wrote an epic paper on communication theory called “A Mathematical Theory of Communications” which was published in the Bell Systems Technical Journal. He codified what the ancient philosophers had struggled to understand about information content and the limitations of that information.

Shannon’s work applied equally to electronics communications and digital circuit design.

Software developers and programmers have a right to laugh at those that think that by merely adding the word “engineering” to their tasks, they can somehow elevate them to something infallible. What they miss is that the art of programming and software development is a lot more human communication than it is engineering. And, regardless of Shannon’s discovery, communication is still something that has to do more with human nature than with mathematical rules and formulas.

I’m reminded of the famous relationship: "data —> information —> knowledge —> wisdom." Some map the decades of computer advancements from data processing in the ‘50s to knowledge engineering in the ‘90s (there’s that adding the “E” word again). But from what comes wisdom? For that, we must return to philosophy and religion.

Getting back to my education theme: Software Engineering is perplexing because it exists at the intersection of physics, mathematics, and information — the first two, hard sciences with their own laws. Physics is central to software because electricity, the movement of electrons — drives on or off switching of bits and signaling from one part of the system to another a device’s status or condition. Mathematics is central to software because the meaning of bit-patterns must remain static and unchanging. The bit-pattern for lower case “a” and all other characters haven't changed since ASCII code was invented, nor have they changed for most of the average computer’s primitive instruction sets.

We always expect that a known cause has a known effect. If causality fails at this level, there’s no reason to trust computers to do anything consistently. There have been disastrous computer failures to match the physical failures I mentioned before. There was the Therac-25 software bug in a radiation treatment device that actually killed people back in the ‘80s and the more recent software failures of European Ariane rocket in the late ‘90s that destroyed the rocket just 37 seconds after launch. But, when the cause of the problems were found, it was a mistake in the code, not a failure of cause-effect that created the problems — more human error than violation of physical laws.

In the early days of computers, back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, it was not uncommon to run a problem through a computer several times, and get several different answers. If you got the same answer twice, that increased confidence. Modern computers have solved those engineering problems and are extremely consistent and, typically, give the same answer every time you run the program. However, even today, there can be bugs.

You may recall the issue with the Intel Pentium processor’s floating-point-divide error that caused all the concern and embarrassment to Intel back in 1994. That embarrassment shows how society has built up an expectation that computers are accurate, they don’t fail in such a basic way. Of course, people know there are bugs, but they really expect super accuracy from the computers regardless.

Most of us don’t even look at our bank statements, and we assume the calculators don’t make math errors — and they typically don’t!

Computers and Information

Ultimately, information is central to software because humans designed it that way. Information in software has two roles: actions (instructions) and data (meaning). Niklaus Wirth, the creator of the programming language Pascal, wrote a book called “Algorithms plus Data Structures Equals Programs.” That is the great “binary” in computer science: actions (algorithms) and data.

Each computer instruction or “op code” in an instruction set does one thing only. For example, if we want to copy the contents from address A to address B, we expect to find the address content  to be the same after the instruction is executed. That is, the data in address A has been perfectly transferred to address B. This is information in its most primitive form. There is nothing ambiguous, emotional, lyrical, romantic, or uncertain about what instruction sets do. they manipulate zeros and ones. An instruction set for computers is information as action and the instructions implement the algorithms.

But information’s other role — as data — is where software escapes our grasp. As data or symbol, information must be meaningful to be useful to humans. Shannon’s 1948 paper was explicit about this: his theory describes the changed state of bits communicated between two points, where the bits are meaningless and irrelevant to the engineering problem under consideration. For humans, data or symbols that lack meaning simply aren’t information.

If there are any laws of meaning, all the historians, philosophers, logicians, mathematicians, philologists, linguists, physicists, chemists, biologist, economist, and story tellers of the world have yet to reveal them. Many have tried, from Aristotle to Plato and Paul of Tarsus (yes the biblical Paul), from Renee Descartes to Confucius to Thomas Aquinas to Avicenna, from Zeno to Epicurus to John Locke. The modern Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, although they made great strides, did not codify knowledge. You can learn more about knowledge from Shakespeare than Kant and from George Bernard Shaw and Neil Simon (or Lennon and McCartney) than from Edmund Gettier. Not that these great thinkers and communicators didn’t have ideas worth learning, but it is not wrapped up in a concise set of formulas and relationships like math and physics. So how can it be engineered?

At the physics and mathematical level, software engineering is constrained by natural laws. Humans designed computers to work with absolute fixed states, “on” or “off,” zero or one, as Turing machines demand. These states are always certain and deterministic.

Yet humans also imposed meaning on these on-off bits. But imposing ambiguous, arbitrary, and paradoxical meaning onto something that’s inherently certain and deterministic doesn’t make the latter the former. Our freedom to impose meaning doesn’t compel the underlying physics and mathematics to accept our impositions, nor does our freedom to form nonsense phrases and symbols free us from natural laws.

Perhaps this is the sentient / non-sentient divide. Artificial intelligence substitutes probability for determinism, yet still misses the mark of true knowledge. It is said that we live in the “information age.” Certainly we live like the Venetians, surrounded by an ocean of information flowing right by our front door. But the pure volume of the sea of information makes knowledge difficult to distill from the information, and computers have yet to solve that problem with an appropriate algorithm.

From my perspective after spending a life studying these topics, subjects, and disciplines, software engineering will never attain the status of scientific method required of engineering for two reasons.

First, the meaning of the information that we impose on our systems is arbitrary — the “I say potato, you say potahto” problem. Second, as Kurt Gödel so aptly identified, the irreconcilables of software engineering can’t be resolved within the discipline itself. If we want to find a solution to this paradox, we must look outside the software engineering box.

Conclusion

So that leaves me with a quandary. I’ve done engineering, math, and physics. I’ve studied the science of computers and algorithms. Where do I go for wisdom? There is an answer, non-scientific, yet an answer that is true. This then is the quest, the quest for wisdom, the quest for truth. It isn’t engineering at all, and Dorothy was right, “we’re not in Kansas any more.” That other eight year old didn’t end up driving garbage trucks. He sought knowledge and wisdom that is eternal. God bless you Tom.

Lest We Forget

“Those that cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” In this age of video, cable TV, and computers, there are wonderful presentations on history. You don’t have to learn it out of stuffy old books at stuffy old libraries. The Internet and television networks are alive with history. Yet I don’t know if many are engaged in that particular knowledge pursuit.

Let me start by asking you, gentle reader, if you recognize the quotation? That quotation comes from Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, better known as George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952). He was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. A lifelong Spanish citizen, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States and identified himself as an American, although he always kept a validated Spanish passport. He wrote in English and is generally considered an American author, although he left his teaching position at Harvard in 1911, never to return to the US. He lived the last of his life in Spain and was buried in the Spanish Pantheon of the Cimitero Monumentale del Verano in Rome per his final wishes.

I’m most intrigued by twentieth century history. After all, I was here for over half of it, and my parents and grandparents have told me many tales of the part of the century that I didn’t experience personally. I was born shortly after the end of World War Two. That great struggle by the “greatest generation” is a very significant part of our history, shaping our nation during my tenure here on this terrestrial globe.

The roots of WWII are many, starting with the terms of the Armistice at the end of the Great War, now known as World War One. That and the great depression led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and his cronies. Through hook and crook he got himself named Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and the die was cast. Ignoring the personal milestones of Hitler’s rise to power such as his imprisonment for the Beer Hall Putsch (or Hitlerputsch), the Reichstag Fire, or the Night of Broken  Glass (Kristallnacht), there were several steps on the world stage that foreshadowed the actual start of the war when Hitler attacked Poland on September 1, 1939.

Adolf Hitler wanted more land, especially in the east, to expand Germany according to the Nazi policy of lebensraum (literally "living-space"). Hitler used the harsh limitations that were set against Germany in the Versailles Treaty as a pretext for Germany's right to acquire land where German-speaking people lived. Germany successfully used this reasoning to envelop two entire countries without starting a war.

First to fall was Austria on March 13, 1938. After all, since Hitler was born in Austria and preached the superiority of the German race, he needed to make his homeland part of the “Fatherland.” At the Munich Conference of September 28 and 29, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the French agreed to hand over a large portion of Czechoslovakia in order to quench the thirst of the German madman. Hitler then took over the rest of Czechoslovakia by March of 1939, proving that a taste only increases the appetite of tyrants, and serving as a historical proof of the impossibility of tolerating aggression and trying for a peaceful settlement of what should not have been in dispute at all.

Many people have wondered why Germany was allowed to take over both Austria and Czechoslovakia without a fight. The simple reason is that Great Britain and France did not want to repeat the bloodshed of WWI. Upon his return from the conference, Chamberlain announced, “"I feel it is in my duty to strain every nerve to avoid repetition of the First World War." The Spanish civil war had shown how the technology and weaponry had improved and was made more deadly. The fears of a war where no one is safe, where the enemies can bomb the cities killing hundreds every night was the stuff of nightmares and was to be avoided at all costs. It is important to recall that not only England and France shared this goal of avoiding war at all costs, but they were joined by Italy, Belgium, and many other countries at that time in a desire for peace.

They believed, wrongly as it turned out, they could avoid another world war by appeasing Hitler with a few concessions (such as Austria and Czechoslovakia). At this time, Great Britain and France did not understand that Hitler's goal of land acquisition was much, much larger than any one country.

After having gained both Austria and Czechoslovakia, Hitler was confident that he could again move east, this time acquiring Poland without having to fight Britain or France. (To eliminate the possibility of the Soviet Union fighting if Poland were attacked, Hitler made a pact with the Soviet Union – the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact.)

So that Germany did not officially seem the aggressor (which it was), Hitler needed an excuse for attacking Poland. It was Heinrich Himmler who came up with the idea; thus the plan was code-named Operation Himmler. On the night of August 31, 1939, Nazis took an unknown prisoner from one of their concentration camps, dressed him in a Polish uniform, took him to the town of Gleiwitz (on the border of Poland and Germany), and then shot him. The staged scene with the dead prisoner dressed in a Polish uniform was supposed to appear as a Polish attack against a German radio station.

Hitler used this imaginary attack as the excuse to invade Poland. At 4:45 on the morning of September 1, 1939 (the morning following the staged attack), German troops entered Poland. The sudden, immense attack by the Germans was called a Blitzkrieg ("lightening war").

The German air attack hit so quickly that most of Poland's air force was destroyed while still on the ground. To hinder Polish mobilization, the Germans bombed bridges and roads. Groups of marching soldiers were machine-gunned from the air. But the Germans did not just aim for soldiers, they also shot at civilians. Groups of fleeing civilians often found themselves under attack. The more confusion and chaos the Germans could create, the slower Poland could mobilize its forces.

On September 1, 1939, the beginning of the German attack, Great Britain and France sent Hitler an ultimatum – either withdraw German forces from Poland or Great Britain and France would go to war against Germany. On September 3, with Germany's forces penetrating deeper into Poland, Great Britain and France both declared war on Germany.

On this day, September 3, 2012, when we in the U.S. are celebrating a national holiday dedicated to workers, we should not forget that this is also the anniversary of the start of the last world war. On this date officially began six long years of World War II. Lest we forget, over 60 million people died in that struggle, which was over 2.5% of the world population. Thankfully the end of this war did not repeat the mistakes of the earlier armistice, and the U.S. and allied countries actively worked to restore the defeated countries from their ruin. The result of that enlightened policy include our current allies, both Germany and Japan, and the United Nations which is often tasked with peace-keeping or actively involved in later wars. We still suffer from wars, but not since 1945 has the entire world been engulfed in a struggle of the magnitude of the last great war.

The proper way to deal with aggression and aggressors is always from a position of power. I appreciate the appeal for peace, but I’ve always felt that a strong military is the best way to deal with aggression. Sadly, it seems that most of the wars fought by the U.S. since WWII were intended, or at least sold to the public as intended to stop aggression and not repeat the error of the Munich Agreement. In hindsight, it is hard to see how they have actually accomplished that, although we will never know how the world would be shaped today if not for the Korean War, the Viet Nam War, and dozens of other skirmishes we’ve been involved in since then including the two current wars in the Middle East and Asia. I don’t know the answer to that philosophical question, but I continue to seek that answer in the knowledge of history.

Real answers require real knowledge. Not sound bites and fuzzy rhetoric about American power and wisdom. Wisdom only comes from knowledge … in a democracy, that means the knowledge of the electorate. With history classes being shunned by the “Internet Generation” and school budgets cutting classes, I wonder who will realize what is in a true “basic education.” Reading and writing and arithmetic are key, but so are history and music and art and design. The Greeks had some thoughts on a well-rounded education, I hope we haven’t forgotten those lessons.