Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

498 results found

cybernetics

(Encyclopedia)cybernetics [Gr.,=steersman], term coined by American mathematician Norbert Wiener to refer to the general analysis of control systems and communication systems in living organisms and machines. In cy...

expert system

(Encyclopedia)expert system, a computer system or program that uses artificial intelligence techniques to solve problems that ordinarily require a knowledgeable human. The method used to construct such systems, kno...

personal digital assistant

(Encyclopedia)personal digital assistant (PDA), lightweight, hand-held computer designed for use as a personal organizer with communications capabilities; also called a handheld. A typical PDA has no keyboard, rely...

programming language

(Encyclopedia)programming language, syntax, grammar, and symbols or words used to give instructions to a computer. Once the program is written and has had any errors repaired (a process called debugging), it may ...

Ithaca, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)Ithaca ĭthˈəkə [key], city (2020 pop. 32,108), seat of Tompkins co., S central N.Y., at t...

optical sensing

(Encyclopedia)optical sensing, in general, any method by which information that occurs as variations in the intensity, or some other property, of light is translated into an electric signal. This is usually accompl...

ASCII

(Encyclopedia)ASCII or American Standard Code for Information Interchange, a set of codes used to represent letters, numbers, a few symbols, and control characters. Originally designed for teletype operations, it h...

Eve, in genetics

(Encyclopedia)Eve, in genetics, popular term for a theoretical female ancestor of all living people, also known as Mitochondrial Eve. In 1987 biochemist Allan C. Wilson proposed that all living human beings had inh...

data communications

(Encyclopedia)data communications, application of telecommunications technology to the problem of transmitting data, especially to, from, or between computers. In popular usage, it is said that data communications ...

CAD

(Encyclopedia)CAD: see computer-aided design. ...