Logo
Prev
Bookmark
Rotate
Print
Next
Contents
All Pages
Related Articles
Browse Issues
Help
Search
Home
'
National Geographic : 1982 Oct
Contents
At the University of Pittsburgh, computer scientist Harry Pople and internal-medicine specialist Jack D. Myers have created Cadu ceus, a program that catalogs more diseases than a doctor could possibly remember and that enables a computer to combine facts and judgment and make a multiple diagno sis. "Like your brain, it can shift gears from disease to disease," Dr. Myers told me. "I'll show you." Beyond silicon, and into the realm of molecules-that is where scientists like Dr. ForrestCarterof the Naval Research Laboratoryin Washington, D. C. (above), expect to find the ultimate switching devices. Othersfeel synthetic proteins may even provide a framework for a "biochip." At KirtlandAir ForceBase in New Mexico, planes are tested undera simulator for their vulnerabilityto EMP.An electromagneticpulse emitted by a nuclearexplosion could crippleelectronics systems over a large area. Into a computer went details about an elderly man rushed one night to the univer sity hospital. He'd awakened panicky and short of breath. Heart attack? "My first guess," said Dr. Myers. Considering the case-no chest pain, an earlier heart attack, blood pressure nor mal, a history of diabetes-the computer weighed and momentarily set aside more than a dozen diseases before flashing a mes sage about a prime suspect. PURSUING: DIA BETES MELLITUS. The computer asked about the man's blood-sugar level. Quite high. It asked other questions to clinch matters, then announced CONCLUDE: DIABETES MELLITUS. More questions probed breathing sounds, heart murmurs, chest X rays.... In min utes the computer also judged the patient a heart-attack victim. His doctor had taken several days to decide as much, with doubts. In complex or unusual cases, Caduceus makes a sounder diagnosis than general practitioners, says Dr. Myers, and almost always agrees with the specialist who has time to study a patient's every symptom. Af ter more testing, Caduceus could become a common doctor's adviser, and may even lower medical costs as physicians prescribe fewer but more suitable tests to answer a computer's questions about patients. Also in Pittsburgh, Nobelist Herbert A. Simon teaches computers sweet reason with a program that seeks orderly patterns in ir regular data and thereby hits on predictable laws of nature. This approximates the intu itive thinking of human scientists. Named for Elizabethan philosopher and scientist Sir Francis Bacon, the program has independently rediscovered laws of plane tary motion and electrical resistance, as well as the concept of atomic weight. Could Bacon discover an unknown natural law? "Maybe, but the main goal is learning how the mind works," Dr. Simon told me at Carnegie-Mellon University. "I grew up in a computerless world," he said, "amid vague ideas about thought and the brain. Comput ers, when you try to program them to act like us, shed great light on such things." And could a computer, I asked, win a No bel prize? "The Nobel Committee may yet have to think about that." Wherever the discussion turns to thinking NationalGeographic, October 1982 446
Links
Archive
1982 Nov
1982 Sep
Navigation
Previous Page
Next Page