VCCI Dayori No.63

EMC on the Internet (No.2)

An astronomical number and a small number

Nobuhiko Tsunefuka

---

As science and technology improve, people tend to think only the range of numbers that are used in science and technology at the time. Contrarily, in the ancient India, people were thinking about numbers up to 10 to the 68th power that is named Muryo Taisu. Ten to the 52nd power is called Gogasha named after the total number of sands along with the Ganges. A bestseller and the first arithmetic in Japan, Jinkoki, of year 1634 version gives name to every 104 of numbers for a large number and every 10-1 for a small number. Many names are derived from Sanskrit. Modern Indians inherited the good mathematical sense and prolific imagination from ancient Indians and advanced the status of the country as one of the best software producing country. If you have any knowledge about Japanese comic story telling (Rakugo), you might know one of the famous stories, Jugemu. In Jugemu, there is a famous line, "Jugemu, Jugemu Go Kou no Surikire". "Kou" means the length of time that a rock will be totally eroded by being lightly rubbed with the celestial raiment of an angel. It is equivalent to 5 billion years.

•Information about names of large numbers and small numbers and Jinkoki, the first Japanese arithmetic, will be found in the following websites:

http://www.sutv.zaq.ne.jp/yuba/kusa/011p.htm

http://www.shigaku.or.jp/wasan/jinkoki.htm

•Information about Rakugo, "Jugemu" and "Kou":

http://www.amy.hi-ho.ne.jp/oaa-web/onko/zui02.htm

Let me take a look at the area of Astrology. Astrology uses a unit, light-year, that is 9,460 trillion meters, about 10¹⁶ meters. The distance to the Galaxy is 1 billion light-years that are about 10²⁵ meters. Although it is so astronomic, Muryo Taisu is far greater. By observing the movement of the Galaxy, Edwin P. Hubble who is a lawyer-turned-astrologist had discovered the Hubble's Law. The law says all clusters are moving away from us and the more distant clusters are receding proportionately faster. It means that universe is expanding. Hubble's Space Telescope (HST) named after Hubble is an observatory in space that is floating 600 kilometers above in the air. It was launched by a Space Shuttle in 1990. Since then, spacemen have been providing maintenance of HST, for example, installing a secondary mirror to a primary mirror and exchanging parts with problem such as the gyro. Currently HST is in order and still used for observation.

•Hubble's law:
http://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~sirokaze/space3.html

•Edwin P. Hubble:
http://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Hubble.html

•The latest image sent by HST:
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/latest.html

Now, I would like to talk about the numbers in the area of semiconductor. The number of transistors packed on a chip is several hundred thousands for system LSI and 150 million for 128M DRAM. By 2005, it is expected to have the advent of LSI with more than 500 million transistors packed on a chip. The technology to develop fine-pitch LSI is not entering the world of number that is smaller than 100 nanometers (10^-7 m) yet. To produce Micro-electromechanical Systems (MEMS), processed and formed mechanical parts, actuator and sensor are mounted on a silicon board with semiconductor micro-structurization technology. The research of Nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS) has already started to support the micro-structurization technology.

•Technology roadmap for nanoelectronics:
http://www.cordis.lu/esprit/src/melna-rm.htm

In the area of Intelligent Transport System (ITS) whose development has been accelerated for practical use, radio waves of many frequency ranges are used. Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system is a two-way communication system. A tollhouse sends data with 5.795 GHz or 5.805 GHz of a radio wave while a car uses 5.835 GHz or 5.845 GHz for its transmission. A collision-warning device uses a vehicle-mounted millimeter-wave radar of 76 GHz band to alarm when two vehicles approach too close. As the word indicates, "millimeter-wave" is a radio wave of a wavelength from 1 millimeter to 10 millimeters.

•ITS System:
http://www.iijnet.or.jp/vertis/j-frame.html
http://www.hokkaido-bt.go.jp/E/ITS/its.htm

A radio wave watch that automatically updates correct time receiving time signal carried by a long wave has become a hit in a market. It is even impressive to see so many clocks are showing exactly the same time without a difference in seconds at a clock section of a store. This long wave time signal is sent from Ohtakadoya-yama Standard Time and Frequency Station (40 kHz) in Fukushima prefecture and Hagane-yama Standard Time and Frequency Station (60 kHz) that is located in Saga prefecture close to the boarder to Fukuoka prefecture. The radio wave clock corrects the time utilizing time codes sent by these stations. The wavelength of the standard radio wave of 40 kHz is 7.5 kilometer that is 7.5 x 10³ meters.

•oshinori Ueji?iJP2WGS?j's website on radio watch:
http://ueji.org/radio_watch/

In this way, as IT revolution develops, EMC has to deal with radio wave with more extensive range of wavelengths from millimeter wave (wavelength of 10^-3 meters) to long wave (wavelength of 103 meter). Radio wave will be utilized in wider application in the future.

Nobuhiko Tsunefuka 1943 Born in Tokyo 1968 Graduated form Department of Engineering Science, Osaka University -1984 Worked on developing Information Technology Device at Taga Works, Hitachi, ltd. 1991- Engaged in education on EMC related matters at Hitachi Institute of Technology 1999- Planning Manager,