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A Computer

A computer is an electronic device that can store, process, and display digital information. It can perform numerical calculations and general purpose information processing by encoding all data numerically. Computers have limitations in their ability to solve certain logical problems, recognize some spatial patterns, and fully understand natural language interactions due to lacking human common knowledge and context.

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31 views2 pages

A Computer

A computer is an electronic device that can store, process, and display digital information. It can perform numerical calculations and general purpose information processing by encoding all data numerically. Computers have limitations in their ability to solve certain logical problems, recognize some spatial patterns, and fully understand natural language interactions due to lacking human common knowledge and context.

Uploaded by

aleenamushtaq64
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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A computer

A computer is an electronic device that manipulates information, or data. It has the ability to store,
retrieve, and process data. You may already know that you can use a computer to type documents, send
email, play games, and browse the Web. computer, device for processing, storing, and displaying
information.

Computer once meant a person who did computations, but now the term almost universally refers to
automated electronic machinery. The first section of this article focuses on modern digital electronic
computers and their design, constituent parts, and applications. The second section covers the history of
computing. For details on computer architecture, software, and theory, see computer science.

Computing basics

The first computers were used p rimarily for numerical calculations. However, as any information can be
numerically encoded, people soon realized that computers are capable of general-purpose information
processing. Their capacity to handle large amounts of data has extended the range and accuracy of
weather forecasting. Their speed has allowed them to make decisions about routing telephone
connections through a network and to control mechanical systems such as automobiles, nuclear
reactors, and robotic surgical tools. They are also cheap enough to be embedded in everyday appliances
and to make clothes dryers and rice cookers “smart.” Computers have allowed us to pose and answer
questions that could not be pursued before. These questions might be about DNA sequences in genes,
patterns of activity in a consumer market, or all the uses of a word in texts that have been stored in a
database. Increasingly, computers can also learn and adapt as they operate.

Computers also have limitations, some of which are theoretical. For example, there are undecidable
propositions whose truth cannot be determined within a given set of rules, such as the logical structure
of a computer. Because no universal algorithmic method can exist to identify such propositions, a
computer asked to obtain the truth of such a proposition will (unless forcibly interrupted) continue
indefinitely—a condition known as the “halting problem.” (See Turing machine.) Other limitations reflect
current technology. Human minds are skilled at recognizing spatial patterns—easily distinguishing
among human faces, for instance—but this is a difficult task for computers, which must process
information sequentially, rather than grasping details overall at a glance. Another problematic area for
computers involves natural language interactions. Because so much common knowledge and contextual
information is assumed in ordinary human communication, researchers have yet to solve the problem of
providing relevant information to general-purpose natural language programs.

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