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I can't think of someone else right now who could come up with such an easy way to understand computers. "Playboy: Maybe we should pause and get your definitio
by pptr1 12y ago
I can't think of someone else right now who could come up with such an easy way to understand computers.
"Playboy: Maybe we should pause and get your definition of what a computer is. How do they work?
Jobs: Computers are actually pretty simple. We’re sitting here on a bench in this café [for this part of the Interview]. Let’s assume that you understood only the most rudimentary of directions and you asked how to find the rest room. I would have to describe it to you in very specific and precise instructions. I might say, “Scoot sideways two meters off the bench. Stand erect. Lift left foot. Bend left knee until it is horizontal. Extend left foot and shift weight 300 centimeters forward…” and on and on. If you could interpret all those instructions 100 times faster than any other person in this café, you would appear to be a magician: You could run over and grab a milk shake and bring it back and set it on the table and snap your fingers, and I’d think you made the milk shake appear, because it was so fast relative to my perception. That’s exactly what a computer does. It takes these very, very simple-minded instructions—“Go fetch a number, add it to this number, put the result there, perceive if it’s greater than this other number”—but executes them at a rate of, let’s say, 1,000,000 per second. At 1,000,000 per second, the results appear to be magic.
That’s a simple explanation, and the point is that people really don’t have to understand how computers work. Most people have no concept of how an automatic transmission works, yet they know how to drive a car. You don’t have to study physics to understand the laws of motion to drive a car. You don’t have to understand any of this stuff to use Macintosh—but you asked. [laughs]"
- robg 12y agoIt's a great answer but, a minor quibble, we have thousands of hours studying physics and the laws of motion before we ever drive a car. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_physics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_physics
- eruditely 12y agoNo this is not the same thing.
- Diamons 12y agoYou completely missed his point
- robg 12y agoNot in physics, I didn't. Infants start testing gravity. They watch how objects move and collide. Physics is built-in. We do understand it. A decade and half later that "understanding" is exactly what's necessary for driving a car. The problem isn't that I missed his point. It's that he makes the wrong one. We understand physics just fine. But I bet most folks have little understanding of how a combustion engine works, but they drive the car just fine. That's the analogy he's going for.
- graeme 12y agoYour error is that people don't study physics to get their understanding of physical laws. We learn, from trial and error. Jobs was clearly talking about studying theoretical physics from a textbook.
- robg 12y agoThere's a theory of epistemology that's tied to naive physics. We're built to study physics. The same is not true of computer science except in the vaguest possible uses of "language".
- graeme 12y agoIn context, Jobs was clearly using this definition of study: Study: 1. the devotion of time and attention to acquiring knowledge on an academic subject, esp. by means of books You're willfully ignoring that. You're making a point that would be valid if Jobs had said something dumber. That's called a strawman argument.
- robg 12y agoNo, I'm not ignoring anything. It was a poor analogy based on the science. Naive physics means we understand pretty deep points about how objects move even if we can't express the formalisms. Exactly because we know deeply how objects move we can drive a car pretty darn well. And by the way, infants in the crib do study and experiment to understand physics. He wasn't making that point about computer science. We need know nothing about how computers work to use them. A decent, correct analogy to driving is combustion engines.
- amiramir 12y agoI am pleasantly surprised to hear that him speaking in terms of the metric system.
- inputdev 12y agoIncorrectly, though. 300 cm is a long way for a human to shift his weight.
- sceadu 12y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKWGGDXe5MA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKWGGDXe5MA