IS SEEING STILL BELIEVING? 

First, there were rough stick pictures sketched on the walls of caves in Lascaux, France and Altamira, Spain. Then a cross drawn in the sand. Later came the alphabet from far off Arabia to be studied and mastered by scribes in lonely secluded monasteries. A steady job in those days was copying the Bible for a very small but elite clientele ... not a simple task when every word had to be written laboriously by hand every time. Knots tied in string also carried knowledge, kept records and managed kingdoms in the days of the Aztecs and Incas.

A mere 536 years ago, during the first half of the 15th century, Gutenberg became the first European to produce a printed copy of the Bible. Fifty years earlier, an unknown Korean innovator came up with the first moveable type. These developments at opposite ends of the earth, allowed us to record history, knowledge and wisdom ... vast benefit for the following generations. With a method to record what was witnessed, came the first scientific observational maxim: record experimental data. This allowed others to read, absorb and attempt similar experiments, in the field and in the laboratory. It also let others improve, disprove and record results. As knowledge developed, mathematical formulae provided sound methods to reconstruct experiments and physical laws and to duplicate chemical, metallic and other mixtures.

As the universe continues to unfold according to plan or in constructive chaos, another new dimension is about to appear. The first still drawings of the world enabled us to see, learn, and to understand. Then photographs, clear accurate replications of what we saw, could be depicted permanently through the magic of paper and silver iodide; the phrase "A picture is better than a thousand words", became common. Then bakelite and vinyl recordings, magnetic audio and video tape, and then optical storage. Now: visualization.

Some were always able to see "in the mind's eye" pictures, real or in fantasy, of what they wanted. Whether for amusement or for such practical purposes as erecting a fence or building. But then we started to study the macro and micro worlds and the mysteries contained therein. Telescopes revealed the heavens; microscopes revealed the many worlds in a drop of water. The gathering, depiction and absorption such vast amounts of knowledge led to where we are today: ready for a unbelievable world of computer-generated visualization.

The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is currently constructing a series of earth-observing satellites. These extended eyes of man will be observing, recording and relaying 1,000 times more information than currently resides in the U.S. Library of Congress. Each day two trillion bits of data about our planet and everything connected with it will pour down into computer data banks for scientists and others to collate, study and interpret. Old ways of depicting data will not work when critical mass totals far more than people have been able to handle in the past. New methods of allowing mankind to rapidly assimilate information must be developed.

Fortunately, advances in that field are also merging at this point in time and space. From the cave paintings of Altamira, to photographs to today's human imagination, based on all the vast and different inputs of the last two or three decades now residing in five billion human brains, comes computer-generated visualization: pictures like nothing ever seen before of microbes at work, DNA helix structures, single molecules attaching themselves together, single atoms building an operational switch. Simulations of such macro movements as the evolution of the universe, ozone holes and rain forests, and micro changes at the atomic level of chemical reactions all in image form depicting mathematical equations too sophisticated to comprehend in mere words or numbers. Now all this will be merged into "movies" that present a story of how it is all possible, probable or at least plausible.

The most amazing thing about all this is that it is not restricted to isolated laboratories and some small coterie of experts, but that the programs and methods to create such visualizations are available to anyone with a computer and a bit of new age knowledge.

This knowledge will push those who seek its rewards into an intellectual dynasty greater than anything imagined in the past.

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