Motorola M500 Manuel d'utilisateur télécharger pdf (Page 19)

M500 180 Page 17

In 1958 he was back in MIT, and on his unicycle, made more perilous

now because he insisted on juggling as he proceeded. He also worked on a

motorised pogo stick and a computer program called THROBAC-1, which

calculated in Roman numerals. Another of his interests was a mechanical

mouse that he developed. This was trapped in a maze and had copper

whiskers that rang a bell when the mouse reached its goal of an electrical

terminal he called cheese. He was able to teach the mouse to learn and it

thus became an early example of AI.

Though he worked alone he was known as a sympathetic listener to

anyone who had a problem, and he had the ability to grasp any argument

without the need of lengthy explanations. But on the other hand he was

less than patient with anyone who couldn’t keep up with him—hence he was

known as a genius, but irascible (like Babbage). He was awarded laurels

from all over the world and it is said he modiﬁed a dry cleaning rack to

hang his gowns on.

He abandoned his invention of a two-seater unicycle when no one would

ride on it with him, but later modiﬁed his conventional one by making the

hub oﬀ-centre, so he bobbed up and down like a duck. He also worked in

cryptography and devised the method of adding extra bits to a message

as an error correction device. His name was attached to many ideas he

developed: the Shannon Capacity, for instance, and the Shannon Limit. In

1993 his Collected Papers came out, running to a thousand pages.

His design for a rocket-powered frisbee remains unpublished.

What do they mean?

Jeremy Humphries

BBC news again (R4 7/3/2001). ‘The number of nurses struck oﬀ has gone

up by half. The number of complaints against nurses has gone up by 16 per

cent.’

This sort of stuﬀ is very irritating. Do they mean that in Queen Victo-

ria’s time two nurses were struck oﬀ, and now they have been joined by a

third one? Or 1000 nurses were struck oﬀ yesterday and 1500 were struck

oﬀ today? Or what?

The BBC sometimes tell me that a certain stock, or index, has fallen or

risen by so many pence, or points; which information on its own is mean-

ingless. They tell me that the number of deaths from some cause or other

has gone up. Wow! Somebody died of something. Hold the front page! Oc-

casionally they tell me that the number of deaths from some cause or other

has gone down. I am consequently afraid to go near my local churchyard,

lest I meet any of the people whose deaths have been cancelled climbing out

of their graves.

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Motorola M500 Manuel d'utilisateur Page 19