A world of black boxes

26th January 2007.

Walking back from school at 1530h.

Feeling slightly better after a run at the gym. As I was about to turn into Evelyn Gardens at the junction where the chapel is, I was reminded of the snow that occurred 2 days ago. I took a few photos then.

For some reason, I found myself asking the question, "How does a digital camera works?"

Reason led me to identify electromagnetic wave and electronics as the 2 areas in which I will find my answer. So I started out with the most simple scenario of a light ray travelling from a single point of the object, of which the image I want to capture, to my digital camera. The light passes through the lens of the digital camera which focuses the light on some sort of photo-chip. The chip probably contains a very large number of circuit components resembling a photodiode. The photodiode upon coming into contact with light of varying intensities and frequencies will generate a current of varying strengths. The coordinates of the particular photodiode and the corresponding current strength pertinent to that particular picture being taken is then stored in a memory unit which functions on the basis of an ultra-small, ultra-efficient capacitor or magnet.

That sounds pretty much it doesn't it? It has to be.

Personally, I don't know at all. (I certainly don't fancy taking my digital camera to find out! Even if I did, I probably won't learn much since I can't tell part A from part B)

Realistically, the answer is a VERY probable, no.

First of all, from my attempt at explaining the workings of a digital camera above, you can tell that there are several "gaps" that needs to be filled in. How does the trigger circuit work? Such that the memory unit know when to store the required data. How does the memory unit work? Such that it can store the data in a "meaningful" way to be extracted and synthesised into an image on screen.
How does the power circuit work? Such that on top of supplying power to allow the camera to function it can also charge up the capacitor for the flash light. The questions are numerous.

Of course it is not necessary to include all such details when giving an explanation of how a digital camera work. It is only necessary to give a description of the core system and the concept behind it. I am just allowing my mind to run wild and continue with this regression. If I had continued to list the "gaps" I would eventually arrive at the question of the origin of elementary particles like baryons, mesons, etc. Not only that, if such a regression is allowed in any explanation, ALL explanations of ANY phenomena or object would arrive at the question of origin of elementary particles.

Secondly, I may well be totally wrong with my explanations. Semiconductors of some kind may be used instead of capacitors or diode or any other electronic parts. Perhaps the image isn't captured by individual diodes but by some sort of chip which can record all the changes in colour and shades on one single canvas. That's why I say, I don't know.

All I can do is speculate. Or if I am really interested, maybe I will search the internet or library for information. In a more extreme case, if I am absolutely fascinated, I may devote my life's work into the digital camera.

Now, how many people would actually go to such lengths? It'd be quite amazing if a countable proportion of global population actually get to the first stage of going online to research about it, to me at least. I guess it is very safe to say that the majority of the people would just carry on and happily snap away with their high tech cameras. (I'm one of them! Haha!) Many of them would just say, "why do I need to know? As long as something goes in at point A and the thing that comes out at point B is what I want, that's all I need to know." This mode of thinking is functioning under a model normally called the model of black boxes. It means that a user does not have to know what happens within a standard part of the whole process. All he needs to know is the general structure of how things are going. Drawing an organisational tree diagram of any process under such a model would present a tree of black boxes where an input gets from point A to point B without any apparent cause.

I am not saying that everyone has to know everything. I guess it is very safe to say that this is pretty impossible too. Sometimes all we need to know is that this amazing black box gets us from point A to point B and achieves our objectives. There's no need to burden ourselves with superfluous explanations of trivial stuff. That I cannot deny. Afterall, science would not have progressed if every scientists starts worrying how exactly does a CRO work or how EXACTLY does the parts of the laser come together to generate this focused beam of electromagnetic wave, all the time. That is why we have specialists. Specialists in lasers, in CROs, etc.

But are we always happy with this black box? Can we be always happy with this black box? As everyday users of consumer electronics, do we need to know more? Or at least know SLIGHTLY more?

If you are reading this blog, then I suppose that you have a computer in front of you. Take a good look at it. Now, recall the first computer that you have ever seen in your life. Do they resemble each other? On the exterior, maybe. But what goes on inside is totally different. 10 years ago in the days of Pentium I or II, "breakneck" speeds were in the order of hundreds of megahertz. Nowadays, it is EASILY in the range of gigahertz. (Dual core even) Did you understand the computer you had 10 years ago? Do you understand the computer you had 10 years ago now? Do you think you can understand the computer sitting in front of you now? To some, the computer holds no mystery at all. But I have to say that such people are few and far between. To many, the computer is a series of black boxes like the graphics card, processor, etc. To some (I hesitate to give an estimate of numbers), the computer is just one big freakin' black box on its own.

Knowledge is advanced by one generation taking over the work of the previous generation and pushing on. In order to progress, we have to take what we know works for sure and use it to our advantage. How it works is secondary if we want to know about what we don't know. Strange isn't it? To know what we don't know, we push what we know into the realm of what we don't know. I'm not saying this about scientists or engineers or other specialists, it's just how the general pubic responds to the advancement of knowledge. (Please correct me if I am wrong) The impression I have so far is that as far as the specialists are concerned, they know their stuff. Taking a look at the camera itself. The first forms of the camera just consists of a pinhole and a chemical coated surface to record the image. The physics may be complex and not well-understood but the mechanism of the camera itself is rather simple. Look at the camera now. Digital SLRs, image stabilisation, auto focus, flash, LCD screens, memory card storage, the list goes on. How simple do you think that is? Hundreds of years of evolution and human development and technological triumph has gone into that 10cmX3cmX7cm black box of yours.

If the pace of advancement gets increasingly fast and people have no time to look back and care about the fundamentals, what will happen? What if we lost all our knowledge and technology and are only left with things developed prior to the point when our most basic black boxes were invented? What are we left with? Nothing.

Our everyday lives are crowded with black boxes. I sit in my room typing this blog, I see my iPod, my laptop, my radio, my external hard disk and the fire detection alarm attached to my ceiling. I see five black boxes. These are by no means basic black boxes. Within each black box is numerous other black boxes. If for each black box we have, we plot a black point on the world map, the world would be a very dark place indeed. It would be a world of black boxes.

I guess the question at the end of the day is whether you are contented to be taken from point A to point B as if being miraculously teleported. No doubt we cannot know everything. In fact it is frustrating and futile to try to know everything. Sometimes the fact that we don't know makes life interesting or drives us on to find out more. What I am saying is, in a world more and more filled by black boxes, it is not that everyone WILL know more or SHOULD know more. We need to know more.