Friday, June 29, 2007

Languages

Languages that exist only in the spoken form, such as those of many of the Native American Indian tribes, require the use of audio recording campaign such as a digital audio recorder or a tape recorder, augmented by explanatory text written in other languages, for preservation. Recently, efforts have been made to create symbol sets and grammars for such languages to avoid further losses of historically valuable information. Conversely, there are numerous extinct languages which persist only in their printed form. In some cases, experts can only guess at what their spoken form really sounded like. To prevent further losses of this nature, modern linguists have developed supersets of symbols for the purpose of correctly recording the authentic sounds of known languages.

While the superset symbols, which normally encode phonemes and their allophones, could record continuous discussion with nearly flawless accuracy, it would be tedious and unnecessary to record huge volumes of speech in this manner. That said there is a practical application for it, fine tuning of the programming for text-to-speech synthesizers to give computers a voice that sounds extremely human. Where a synthesizer stumbles on a given word, an entry can be added to an omission dictionary, wherein its definition consists of the word respelled in phonemes and allophones.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Voltage

Voltage is the difference of electrical potential between two points of an electrical or electronic circuit, uttered in volts. It measures the potential energy of an electric field to source an electric current in an electrical conductor. Depending on the difference of electrical potential it is called extra low voltage, low voltage, high voltage or extra high voltage.

Between two points in an electric field, such as exists in an electrical circuit, the distinction in their electrical potentials is known as the electrical potential difference. This difference is proportional to the electrostatic force that tends to drive electrons or other charge-carriers from one point to the other. Potential difference, electrical potential, and electromotive force are measured in volts, leading to the commonly used term voltage. Voltage is usually represented in equations by the symbols V, U, or E.

Electrical potential difference can be thought of as the capacity to move electrical charge through a resistance. At a time in physics when the word force was used loosely, the potential difference was named the electromotive force or EMF—a term which is still used in confident contexts.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Computation

Computation is a common term for any type of information processing that can be represent mathematically. This includes phenomenon ranging from simple calculations to human idea. In a more narrow meaning, computation is a process following a well distinct model that is understood and can be expressed in an algorithm, protocol, network topology, etc.

These hypothetical computing equipment can be viewed as idealised analog computers which operate on real numbers and are differential, whereas digital computers are partial to computable numbers and are algebraic. Depending on the model select, this may enable real computers to solve problems that are inextricable on digital computers.