Brief

The Internet can seem like “spooky action at a distance.” People may not realize that the “cloud”, indeed, all the “sciences of the artificial” (Simon, 1968) (and the virtual) have many layers of physicality to them. Why talk about green computing if everything is becoming “virtual”? Some of these questions are explored in Revised 639J (Seeing the Internet) but a discussion about a possible broader, 100-level course has been started. What might it look like?

Collaborator(s)

Dennis Frezzo, Kate Izsak, Donal Heidenblad

Initial Investigation

639J “Seeing the Internet” was the starting point of this idea. However, in 346 we touch upon binary file representation and storage, and the physical reality of bits and their grouping into frames, packets, segments, and overall data to be transferred on networks. Also, we discuss how computing, storage, and now networking are all capable of being moved to the cloud.

On campus, the following courses seem relevant: