Monthly Archives: April 2012

Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Can computers be as ‘smart’ as Humans? Computers certainly are becoming powerful and these days can be programmed to access the answer to any question in almost impossibly small amounts of time.

‘Watson’ the supercomputer triumphs on Jeopardy

The real question is, is knowing the answer the same as intgelligence. Alan Turing, the famous British mathematician and computer scientist devised a set of criteria that could establish weather a machine had achieved intelligence. This is known as a Turing test.

Recently, a supercomputer named Watson cleaned up on the American game show Jeopardy which pits the finest brains around against each other. It’s fun to watch Jeopardy and scream incorrect answers at the TV screen. I think anyone who says ‘I knew that’ once they hear an answer (question) should be penalized!

Apr17

Benjamin Franklin

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Dr Molecule

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Listen to Malcolm and I discuss benjamin Franklin and his discoveries:

[audio http://www.brookes.ac.uk/lifesci/runions/DrMolecule/20120417 – Artificial intelligence and Ben Franklin.mp3]

Benjamin Franklin – Born Jan 17th 1706 – died April 17th 1790

Franklin really was an intrepid scientist as well as being an elder stateasman and one of the American Founding Fathers. He dabbled in scientific areas including ocean currents, electricity, the wave theory of light, meteorology, and temperature to name but a few.

In 1750, Franklin proposed the idea of flying a kite in a thunderstorm to demonstrate that lightening was electricity. He acknowledged the dangers that might be associated with so doing and so it is generally believed that he didn’t do the experiment himself.

Is this really how electricity was discovered?