The Silent Arms Race: The Role of the Supercomputer During the Cold War, 1947-1963

One of the central features of the Cold War is the Arms Race. The United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist republics vied for supremacy over the globe for a fifty-year period in which there were several arms races; atomic weapons, thermonuclear weapons and various kinds of conventional weapons. However, there is another arms race that goes unsung during this period of history and that is in the area of supercomputing. The other types of arms races are taken for granted by historians and others, but the technological competition between the superpowers would have been impossible without the historically silent arms race in the area of supercomputers. The construction of missiles, jets as well as the testing of nuclear weapons had serious implications for international relations. Often perception is more important than fact. Perceived power maintained a deterrent effect on the two superpowers. If one superpower suspected that they, in fact, had an advantage over the other then the balance of power would be upset and more aggressive measures might have been taken in various fronts of the conflict, perhaps leading to war. Due to this, it was necessary to maintain a balance of power not only in weapons but in supercomputing as well. Considering the role that the computers played, it is time for closer historical scrutiny

Effective Technology Integration: A Plan for Professional Development

Is educational technology effective in increasing student learning? If technology is an effective tool in the classroom, how can teachers best be trained to use it appropriately? An experiment was conducted to determine the effectiveness of a constructivist math class utilizing computer technology as well as other tools. The study occurred in a Christian school in Northern Kentucky using fifty-one sixth grade students. One class comprised the control group, with math instruction that differed little from the traditional background of the school. The other class was the experimental group, which used the Internet, spread sheets, word processors, and measuring devices to learn in a hands-on environment. Two math units were used in the six-week study. A one-way ANOVA test showed no significant difference in the first unit scores. The one-way ANOVA test of the second unit showed a significant difference in favor of the control group. Despite these results, the researcher was not discouraged, primarily because chi-square tests of a survey given to students in the experimental group overwhelmingly showed positive motivation in math during the study

The ingenuity of common workmen: and the invention of the computer

Since World War II, state support for scientific research has been assumed crucial to technological and economic progress. Governments accordingly spent tremendous sums to that end. Nothing epitomizes the alleged fruits of that involvement better than the electronic digital computer. The first such computer has been widely reputed to be the ENIAC, financed by the U.S. Army for the war but finished afterwards. Vastly improved computers followed, initially paid for in good share by the Federal Government of the United States, but with the private sector then dominating, both in development and use, and computers are of major significance.;Despite the supposed success of public-supported science, evidence is that computers would have evolved much the same without it but at less expense. Indeed, the foundations of modern computer theory and technology were articulated before World War II, both as a tool of applied mathematics and for information processing, and the computer was itself on the cusp of reality. Contrary to popular understanding, the ENIAC actually represented a movement backwards and a dead end.;Rather, modern computation derived more directly, for example, from the prewar work of John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry, a physics professor and graduate student, respectively, at Iowa State College (now University) in Ames, Iowa. They built the Atanasoff Berry Computer (ABC), which, although special purpose and inexpensive, heralded the efficient and elegant design of modern computers. Moreover, while no one foresaw commercialization of computers based on the ungainly and costly ENIAC, the commercial possibilities of the ABC were immediately evident, although unrealized due to war. Evidence indicates, furthermore, that the private sector was willing and able to develop computers beyond the ABC and could have done so more effectively than government, to the most sophisticated machines.;A full and inclusive history of computers suggests that Adam Smith, the eighteenth century Scottish philosopher, had it right. He believed that minimal and aloof government best served society, and that the inherent genius of citizens was itself enough to ensure the general prosperity

Florida State vs Clemson (10/23/1999)

Florida State vs Clemson (10/23/1999)https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/fball_prgms/1261/thumbnail.jp

War Stories--Defense Spending and the Growth of the Massachusetts Economy

The defense industry has been an integral part of the Massachusetts economy since colonial days, and the Watertown Arsenal and Springfield rifle are virtually synonymous with the capital-intensive arms business of the nineteenth century. But after World War II, here as elsewhere, defense production became far more deeply embedded in the state \u27s division of labor, with the result that today it is hard to tell what is of military origin and what is not: the minicomputer and software industries, in their entirety, are properly viewed as a spin-off from the Cold War and the space race, for example. The region\u27s unique claim on these downstream effects of military spending stems partly from Yankee ingenuity, mostly from a highly developed educational establishment and an influential political delegation to Congress. These institutional matrices are also the chief strongholds of Massachusetts\u27s traditional antimilitary liberalism, an arrangement which gives rise to many paradoxes, but wisdom begins with an appreciation of just how intricate and powerful and resistant to challenge is the military industrial complex itself

North Carolina vs Clemson (10/2/1999)

North Carolina vs Clemson (10/2/1999)https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/fball_prgms/1260/thumbnail.jp

Effective Technology Integration: A Plan for Professional Development

Is educational technology effective in increasing student learning? If technology is an effective tool in the classroom, how can teachers best be trained to use it appropriately? An experiment was conducted to determine the effectiveness of a constructivist math class utilizing computer technology as well as other tools. The study occurred in a Christian school in Northern Kentucky using fifty-one sixth grade students. One class comprised the control group, with math instruction that differed little from the traditional background of the school. The other class was the experimental group, which used the Internet, spread sheets, word processors, and measuring devices to learn in a hands-on environment. Two math units were used in the six-week study. A one-way ANOVA test showed no significant difference in the first unit scores. The one-way ANOVA test of the second unit showed a significant difference in favor of the control group. Despite these results, the researcher was not discouraged, primarily because chi-square tests of a survey given to students in the experimental group overwhelmingly showed positive motivation in math during the study

Furman vs Clemson (9/7/1996)

Furman vs Clemson (9/7/1996)https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/fball_prgms/1240/thumbnail.jp

Maryland vs Clemson (11/2/1996)

Maryland vs Clemson (11/2/1996)https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/fball_prgms/1243/thumbnail.jp

Maryland vs Clemson (10/30/1993)

Maryland vs Clemson (10/30/1993)https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/fball_prgms/1226/thumbnail.jp