Cell Phones

Question: How would you explain something like skype to a person who barely comprehends a computers or cell phones?

(Posted by: foryeshua on 2010-07-24 15:33:41)

Imagine Rip Van Winkle goes to sleep in the early 1950s, and wakes up today. He sees someone talking on a Skype phone. How can I possible explain all the technologies that went into that?

Posted by: Chip on 2010-07-24, 15:38:47

Well they had TV in the 50's, so I would probably just call it a two-way television and not go into any specifics.

Posted by: Mr. Bull on 2010-07-24, 15:42:37

A 1950's Rip Van Winkle would know about radio, telephones, and "Dick Tracy ". The easiest explanation is it's just like the "Dick Tracy " wrist radio. Most people today don't know all the tech but they know how to use it. The fact that it's a digitally encoded signal packet switched protocol transmitted on a digitally encoded analogue radio network at 800MHz (or whatever your carrier is using) GSM or CDMA doesn't matter.

Posted by: Tacetus on 2010-07-24, 16:09:43

Well first off we have to describe the invention of the computer... here goes. Machines called computers have been invented which fire tiny electrical pulses to create messages in a way similar to Morse Code (in fact by 1950 the first computers had already been created). When one considers that the human brain itself works in a similar way, one can see that such an idea has immense potential. Computers can transfer messages at enormous speeds, so they can send and receive messages which are so long and complicated that they can describe an entire picture or sound in less than a second. They can store these code messages using tiny imprints or magnets like the grooves on a phonograph record, and the interaction of all these messages within the machine allows it to manipulate them in complex ways. These machines have become widespread and most of them are connected by an immense network of cables which allows them all to send messages to one another, often using the telephone lines. Computers can be given instructions by immensely complex sets of pre-written messages, called software. The software is so complex that it itself can be given instructions by a human. All of this technology has become so advanced that we no are no longer aware of the underlying 'code' messages, and interact with computers by pressing buttons and viewing the results on a television-like screen. Software can be anything from a simple calculator to a 3-dimensional space in which models can be built and displayed as pictures by the computer. When one imagines the amount of precise instructions which would be required in order to describe a 3-dimensional object precisely to another human being such that they could draw it from any possible angle at a moment's notice, one can appreciate the immense scale and speed of the messages which are handled by a computer. "Skype " is a piece of software which utilises the immense network connecting the world's computers to transfer the sound of a person's voice from one computer to another, in the same way that a telephone transfers the sound down a telephone line. However, a computer does it by listening to the sound and then describing it via a complex message to another computer which then re-creates the sound based on the description it receives; whereas a telephone simply transfers the vibration (i.e. the sound itself) directly down the telephone line. The computer's seemingly more complicated approach allows us to do many advantageous things. For example, the sound can be described less precisely to allow the message to be sent more quickly. Well that was fun... ever so slightly simplistic, but it might do the trick?