Computer circuits less than one-seventh blood cell width
(Continued from page l)
ENIAC, 10,000 times more reliable,
which runs on the power of a lightbulb
while the ENIAC consumed about the
power of a steam engine, l/30,000th the
volume of the ENIAC in size, which costs
l/10,000th as much to buy and you can
order it by mail."
In response to his own question —
"What kind of information is going to be
processed by all these computers?" —
Robinson illustrated the growth of the
information base in science by noting that
in 1750, 10 scientific journals were
published in the United States. By 1830
there were 300 and by 1970 the number
was 5,000.
"Now," Robinson said, "there are more
than 300 journals published in the United
States in science that do nothing but
abstract other journals, and almost all by
computers."
Bubbling with facts
Noting the "steady growth toward
miniaturization," Robinson said silicon
chips for storing information are
designed today with up to a million
transistors on a square inch, requiring X-
ray lithographic techniques to draw the
circuits which are less than a micron wide.
The human blood cell, he noted, is seven
and a half microns wide and the human
hair is about 40 microns wide.
MATHEMATICIAN, COMPUTER EXPERT Dr. Louis Robinson of IBM
uses a newspaper to illustrate a story of how a computer was accused
and then finally cleared in a misappropriation of checks in Los Angeles.
Robinson addressed a dinner meeting of the Duke Management Club.
(Photo by John BectonI
Brumley, Creasman, Hammond promoted
Three physicians here have been
promoted to full professor, according to
Dr. Frederic N. Cleaveland, university
provost.
They are Dr. George W. Brumley of the
Department of Pediatrics, and Drs.
William T. Creasman and Charles B.
Hammond of the Department of
Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Brumley is a
native of Lake
City, Fla., who
earned his B.S.
and M.D. degrees
at Duke in 1956
and 1960. After
completing an
internship in
pediatrics at
Duke Hospital,
he served a resi
dency at Children's Hospital Medical
Center in Boston and fellowships at The
Johns Hopkins Hospital and Duke.
He joined the medical center faculty in
1967 as a research associate, and has been
co-director of the division of Perinatal
Medicine since 1972.
Brumley's research has focused on the
respiratory problems of newborn infants.
He is currently studying lung metabolism
as it relates to deficiencies of surfactant,
the fatty material that lines air sacs and
passages in the lungs.
DR. CREASMAN
DR. BRUMLEY
Born in Miami,
Ariz., Creasman
received his un
dergraduate and
medical degrees
from Baylor Uni
versity in 1956
and 1960. He
served an intern
ship at Jefferson
Davis Hospital in
Houston and a
residency in obstetrics and gynecology at
the University of Rochester Medical
Center.
Before being named assistant professor
at Duke and director of his department's
Division of Oncology in 1970, Creasman
was assistant professor of surgery at the
University of Texas M.D. Anderson
Hospital in Houston.
His research has been directed toward
finding better ways.of diagnosing and
treating cancer of the cervix, uterus and
ovaries.
IHl. HAMMOND
Hammond, a
native of Ft. Leav
enworth, Kan.,
studied at The
Citadel and earned
B.S. and M.D.
degrees at Duke
in 1960 and 1961.
He also completed
his internship in
surgery and his
residency in ob
stetrics and gynecology at Duke, and
joined the faculty as an associate in 1968.
The physician founded the
Southeastern Regional Center for
Trophoblastic Disease at the medical
center in 1966, and he is currently
director of Obstetrics and Gynecology's
Division of Endocrinology.
His scientific work has been aimed at
infertility, tumors associated with
pregnancy and the relationship between
hormones and cancer.
He also referred to "bubble
technology," explaining that fields of
magnetism, which under a microscope
look like bubbles, "move around in a
regular kind of way so they can serve as
memory sources and each bubble can
remember a single’ fact."
If the bubbles are small enough, and
compacted together sufficiently, they can
provide a mammoth memory field.
"Already there are bubble memories so
compact," Robinson said, "that on a chip
one-quarter inch on a side, you could put
all the information in the Manhattan
telephone directory."
Computers in our futures
Robinson also told his management-
oriented audience that a recent report
projecting data processing into 1980-85
predicts that by then "30 per cent of the
entire labor force will have to have some
knowledge of how computers work in
order to do their jobs."
Meanwhile, as you've been reading
this, the picoseconds have been ticking
away, if tick they do.
A picosecond, Robinson explained, is a
trillionth of a second. In other terms, he
said a picosecond is to a second what a
second is to 30,000 years.
And he added: "There are circuits today
that can do logical things in a picosecond."
^ f
sUf -
7*1 ' j
A LARGE BAG FOR A SMALL NEWCOMER—
Cathy Mitchell, assistant administrator for
patient services, opens one of the gifts she
received at a farewell party-baby shower given
by the Surgical Units Support Services just
before she resigned her administrative duties
to take those of motherhood. Appointed in
1975, she has been responsible for Holmes,
Nott, Strudwick and Welch wards and the
Neurosurgical Unit. (Photo by ha Fried)
Advisory board close-up
He sees industry^ hospital problems as similar
Intercom
is published weekly by the Office of Public
Relations, Duke University Medical
Center, Box 3354, Durham, N.C. 27710.
Joe Sigler
Director
John Becton
Editor
Primary contributors: William Erwin,
Comprehensive Cancer Center medical
writer; Ina Fried, staff writer; Parker
Herring, public relations assistant; Edith
Roberts, staff writer; David Willfamson,
medical writer.
Circulation: Ann Kittrell.
By Parker Herring
(The fifth in a series.)
Virgil Hager draws extensively from
his experiences as an executive at
American Tobacco Co. for his position on
the Durham Advisory Board to the
hospital.
"Problems in a hospital are similar to
that, in industry," Hager said. "Just as a
manufacturing plant must do certain
things in management, so must a
hospital.
"We always tried to adapt the latest
methods and machinery that were known
at the time," he said. "We also tried to
eliminate unnecessary work, eliminate
safety hazards and do things in general
that improved the welfare of the
employees."
DUKE
DURHAM
Hager said he
thinks all of these
management ob
jectives are ex
tremely important
for hospitals.
Hager retired
in 1969 from
American where
he was an execu
tive vice presi
dent. He received HAGER
a BS degree in chemical engineering from
Purdue in 1927.
"I'm no stranger to Durham," he said. "I
know the local people, their mannerisms.
I've handled a lot of people during my
career."
Suggest the little things
Hager believes that one of the advisory
board's functions is to suggest a lot of the
little things that can help improve patient
and visitor relations.
"Patients are naturally nervous when
they come to the hospital," he said. "They
are under a strain . . . Anything that the
hospital can do to give them some peace of
mind is good.
"Duke North will solve a lot of the
problems now felt by patients," Hager
said. "The new hospital will be a modern
facility with all of the up-to-date
equipment."
Looking north
Hager said he hopes Duke North will
eliminate the "heavy crisscrossing of
traffic" that is now evident at Duke
Hospital.
"Of course, you're always going to have
a large amount of traffic at Duke because
it is a teaching institution," he said. "But
the new hospital should ehminate some of
the traffic problems. (
"Duke is a wonderful place," he said. "A
lot of people love Duke . . . it's a
contagious thing."
Hager is married and has two children
and five grandchildren.