Engineering and fabrication

How can electronic devices help make complex decisions?

1. How can electronic devices help make complex decisions? 2. Why do you need to express a question mathematically? 3. How can a complex gate be created to handle several inputs?

Public Comments

1. Programmed logic and data analysis can be very useful in making complex decisions only when humans understand the system to a great enough level of detail and when the human decision making process (the decision making process used by real experts) can be expressed in numbers. Computers, whether they are digital or analog, can not reason, do not have common sense, do not benefit from experience, and can only deal with the data that is provided. Computers calculate. They can evaluate many inputs in a very short time and use those inputs to do calculations very rapidly, way faster than humans can. If the electronic device can provide the information to the human faster that the human can gather the information without the electronic device, that may help. The other part of this is that the device must display the information in a format that the human can easily understand. When the appropriate information is available to the human, the human (one with the "right" experience and understanding) should be able to make good decisions. There is a saying that all mathematical models are wrong, some mathematical models are useful. One example, there are planes (some of the stealth fighters and bombers) that fly today which could not be flown without a computer. The aerodyanmics of these planes is very complex and humans (even highly trained and experienced expert pilots) do not have the capability to control everything that needs to be controlled to keep them flying.

   As far as a complex gate to handle several inputs, you need to get help from a computer engineer. If the several inputs interact in a way that can be expressed mathematically, then a single value (figure of merit) can be calculated.



2. logic gates made out of semi conductor transisters basically allow a binary pulse (a pulse of electric current) to enter or not.