Word: trend
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...JUST OVER thirty-two hours the future of computer development may have moved from strategic blueprints on the desks of high-tech executives to a nationwide trend mapped in stone. A sixty-nine digit number--the last in a century-old list of seemingly unfactorable numbers composed by a famous French mathematician--was broken down by a Cray supercomputer. The implications of this are revolutionary. While the breakdown of the number, more simply known as 2251-1, utilized only a sleek algorithm and no revolutionary advances, it signaled the ever-growing importance of ultra-sophisticated computers...
Critics fear the new trend will culminate in the development of an all encompassing brain, and such worries may not be pure speculation. Nobel lauireate Herbert Simon, professor of computer science and psychology at Carnegie-Mellon, sees no restrictions on the science and believes that human intelligence will one day be recreated. Yet if an understanding is what onlookers seek, they had best concentrate on the reeasoning that spawned such efforts rather than on the possible realization of science fiction folklore...
...even be underway. In a fascinating chapter, he discusses the growing use of precision guided munitions (PGM), "small accurate missiles with non-nuclear warheads, mainly designed to kill tanks or airplanes." These small but effective weapons, now widely deployed in Europe and the Middle East, indicate, says Dyson, a trend towards smaller and more accurate armaments. He likens their effectiveness and size to that of a David against a tank-sized Goliath...
...national debate over world armaments and arms control. The publication of Living with Nuclear Weapons at the behest of President Bok and the city-wide referendum last fall on a nuclear weapons testing and production ban are but two of the more prominent and commendable manifestations of this trend. The debate has its darker side, however, and nothing illustrate this better than recent local controversy over a global problem--chemical and biological warfare...
...such policies will be the stifling of creativity and the gradual growth of a government unaccountable to its people. As the traditional bastions of free and uninhibited debate in society, universities can not even give the appearance of accepting restrictions on their research. Instead they must fight the trend--loudly and openly. If universities begin to cave in on the principle, other institutions in society surely cannot be far behind...