Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (also known as machine intelligence and often abbreviated as AI) is intelligence exhibited by any contrived (i.e. artificial) system. The term is often applied to common purpose computers and also in the field of scientific investigation into the theory and practical application of AI. "AI" the name is often used in works of science fiction to refer to that which exhibits artificial intelligence as well, as in "the AI" referring to a singular discrete or distributed mechanism. Modern AI research is disturbed with producing useful machines to automate human tasks requiring intelligent behavior. Examples include: scheduling resources such as military units, answering questions about products for customers, thoughtful and transcribing speech, and recognizing faces in CCTV cameras.
As such, it has become an engineering control, focused on providing solutions to practical problems. AI methods were used to plan units in the first Gulf War, and the costs saved by this efficiency have repaid the US government's entire investment in AI research since the 1950s. AI systems are now in routine use in many businesses, hospitals and military units approximately the world, as well as being built into many common home computer software applications and video games. (See Raj Reddy's AAAI paper for a complete review of real-world AI systems in deployment today.) AI methods are often employed in cognitive science research, which openly tries to model subsystems of human cognition.
camera A camera is a mechanism used to take pictures, either singly or in sequence, with or without sound, such as with video cameras. The name is derivative from camera obscura, Latin for "dark chamber", an early mechanism for projecting images in which an entire room functioned much as the interior workings of a modern photographic camera, except there was no way at this time to record the image short of manually tracing it. Cameras may work with the visual range or other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Every camera consists of some type of enclosed chamber, with an opening or space at one end for light to enter, and a recording or viewing surface for capturing the light at the other end. This distance of the aperture is often controlled by an diaphragm mechanism, but some cameras have a fixed-size aperture.
Axiomatic geometry
A method of computing certain out-of-the-way distances or heights based on similarity of geometric figures and attributed to Thales presaged more conceptual approach to geometry taken by Euclid in his Elements, one of the most influential books ever written. Euclid introduced certain axioms or postulates, expressing primary or self-evident properties of points, lines, and planes. He proceeded to rigorously deduce other properties by mathematical reasoning. The typical feature of Euclid's approach to geometry was its rigour. In the twentieth century, David Hilbert employed obvious reasoning in his attempt to update Euclid and provide modern foundations of geometry.
What is geometry? Recorded growth of geometry spans more than two millennia. It is hardly astonishing that perceptions of what constituted geometry evolved throughout the ages. The geometric paradigms offered below should be viewed as 'Pictures at an exhibition' of a sort: they do not weaken the subject of geometry but rather reflect some of its defining themes.
Practical geometry:
There is small doubt that geometry originated as a practical science, concerned with surveying, measurements, areas, and volumes. Among the distinguished accomplishments one finds formulas for lengths, areas and volumes, such as Pythagorean theorem, circumference and area of a circle, area of a triangle, volume of a cylinder, sphere, and a pyramid. Development of astronomy led to appearance of trigonometry and spherical trigonometry, together with the attendant computational techniques.
