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Essays Inspired by Microsoft’s Jim Gray, Who Saw Science Paradigm Shift
Dr. Wing has argued that ideas like recursion, parallelism and abstraction taken from computer science will redefine modern science. Implicit in the idea of a fourth paradigm is the ability, and the need, to share data. In sciences like physics and astronomy, the instruments are so expensive that data must be shared. Now the data explosion and the falling cost of computing and communications are creating pressure to share all scientific data.
There's a bit in here about the Worldwide Telescope and Google Sky, as well, along with discussion of Pan-STARRS and other new surveys.
The challenge for observational astrophysics may be more approchable than that for simulation-based astrophysics. A single simulation can generate terabytes of data, but the mechanisms for reducing and providing that data are still being developed -- although the Virtual Observatory folks have been taking this challenge head-on. Perhaps it's my own myopia, but when I look at different sets of simulation data, I see not only the astrophysical phenomena, but the different physics modules and the different methods for simulating them; when I look at the sky I see a coordinate system overlaid on top of a rich backdrop of astrophysical phenomena. The de facto organizational scheme presents itself.
Anyway, it's all a very interesting problem, but I think for now I will place my trust in the clever fellows with the organizational foresight, and I'll go back to making data that can be filed away nicely some day.
(Also, I think this might be the first time I've been interested in buying a book by Microsoft Press.)
