asked:




The Central Processing Unit, or CPU

The CPU of a computer is the main lynchpin of the computer system. Without it, nothing happens. It is a small slab of silicone about 10mm (3/8ths of an inch) square and about 2mm thick, which has been etched and doped microscopically to form circuits, switches, transistors and other electronic components: hundreds of millions of these components are embedded in this tiny space. The rest of the physical size of the CPU is taken up by little connecting wires from these circuits to the 100 plus pins on the underside of the CPU chip, a couple of external components, and with heat transfer fins and fans which are needed to cool that little slab of silicone, which is doing 2800 million operations per second! (That’s for an average off the shelf 2.8GHz computer)

The CPU is mainly a calculating unit, and can do complex arithmetic functions. But the CPU is actually made up of a number of distinct modules with different functions, like ultrafast short term storage called cache, traffic control to control the data flows, like a traffic light, and arithmetic units to do the sums.

Anyanacho Michael asked:




SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Staring at this fourteen inch size screen in front of me, I was smiling sheepishly and at the same time unusually amused, it is not my first time, nor second or even going to be the last time I will use a video cam, but today’s case is a different issue, maybe is it because of the picture quality it portrayed or the coverage it gave? I was goaded to dismantle the tool so as to see what it was composed of, which I did and to my amazement I saw only chips all connected to a panel and this increased my curiosity as I wondered more what could be responsible for the effective functioning of this device, capturing an image and displaying on a screen exactly as it is.

Sounds awkward? Actually I have really been having serious and diverted thought about this, right since beyond the scope of science and technology. In this our age of science and technology, one would see it as a state of ignorance and naivety to find that someone is still actually thinking towards this line of thought, doubting the existence of machines, functions of computers, cell phones, radio sets, TV sets, wireless devices like the Bluetooth and the WLAN which is commonly known as the Wireless Local Area Network, and also not forgetting to mention the widely used wireless society, The Internet. But in case you still want to castigate this write up I still ask that you actually complete the remaining part of this article and put it into thought.

So I am still staring at the chips in the camcorder, my thoughts wondered as I scrutinized every inch and component of the microchip one could easily observe the bewilderment visibly expressed on my face.

Now many thoughts were racing through my mind, how did this little component sum up to a device that can capture my image perfectly or let’s say a little or less perfectly and transfer to a screen? I seem to be asking myself that question alone as I looked round me to realize no one was actually there to give me the answer. At first it looked absurd then when I had started to check if really I was seeing myself or just an image programmed on the cam. but alas what a thought, as I was really quick in condemning that line of thought as I recalled several times I have stood in front of the mirror, and moreover there were up to 6Billion people in the world and I imagined the producers of this device must have considered that and so I wondered how the hell were the chances that they could actually programmed the cam to display a variety of 6Billion different faces at different locations and tell the cam to know when and how to display any at the right time.

Now I stared at the screen itself, a 14inch built box, with an LCD display. How the hell was it able to show my picture? It stared at me, although can’t recognize if I was actually looking at it or at the image in the screen. I started to recall that this device is in the category of device that are called computers and are used to perform many meta-physical (I call them meta-physical because I doubt their physical function) operations and command. Now my thoughts were starting to deviate, the Internet! Recall several occasions when I have sat in front of this system and browsed the internet, sending messages, pictures, multimedia files across to people miles away from me and funnily enough they receive I, chatting with different persons in chat rooms, and now am really beginning to doubt if they are all real. So how were these messages sent to the receivers, how were the operations performed? That is where my major ambiguity lay. Just by pressing a remote, you tell a television set to power on and off, change to a different channel. Just by pressing a remote you tell the engine of a car to start, just by tapping some keys on a keyboard you send messages across to many people living miles and very long distances in different geographical locations, Now my most confusing wonder arises, “are there no messenger who actually carry out this messages?” that I typed a “Z” button here and someone in USA sees it and replies me, I pick up my phone and dial a number and someone somewhere claiming to possess a device identified by that number picks up and we start talking, transferring voices over a little device, being aided by a card they call a micro sim card claiming it’s a microchip, or a radio device?. Is it just like that? Well we were made to believe that this mechanism are the effect of the wireless communication, well this is just a term they use to define it, but I believe there is more to that than the just “Wireless Communication”.

I wouldn’t want to go further, this is just an ambiguity troubling the mind of a young chap who really want to find answers, I thought presenting this question to other individuals and people who possibly could have more experience and knowledge than I so maybe help could actually come, because I still believe that sometimes two heads could actually be better than one.