The Computer as a Telescope/Microscope: Tools of the Trade

While contemporary attention is currently focused largely on the role of computing in the "information revolution" and its accompanying social and commercial significance, computing has always had and continues to have an additional (and, in the long run, perhaps even more important) significance:

Computing makes possible observations and analyses, inquiries into the unknown, which were previously either technically infeasable or literally impossible.

At Bryn Mawr College, the research programs of a number of faculty members reflect this characterization of computing as a revolutionary research tool. A partial list of such faculty members and descriptions of their use of computers is provided here. This page provides information about the "tools of the trade" used by Bryn Mawr faculty, advanced software that supports and makes possible their research. By providing brief descriptions of the kinds of things each software package makes possible and names of faculty members using it, we hope to contribute to a informed discussion of the role computing in the life of the College, and to make it easier for others in the community to consider the potential relevance of computing as a tool for their own research.

Caris	Geographical imformation systems, for handling/displaying large information sets spatially	Weecha Crawford, Juliet Crider
CodeWarrior	C++ and Java programming environments	Deepak Kumar
Director	Interactive multimedia programming, suitable for creating virtual activities and environments	Tricia Clark
Igor	"Powerful and extensible graphing, data analysis, and programming tool"	Peter Brodfuehrer
Mathematica Tutorial	"The world's only fully integrated technical computing system"	Michelle Francl, Victor Donnay
MatLab	"An integrated technical computing environment that combines numeric computation, advanced graphics and visualization, and a high-level programming language"	Al Albano
QuickTime	Integrated digital video/audio, virtual environments	Marc Boots-Ebenfield
Stella	Model building and simulation software	Weecha Crawford, Juliet Crider
SPSS	Statistical and "data mining" software	Tom Vartanian
StarLogo and StarLogoT2000	Programmable modelling environments for exploring distributed and multilevel systems	Paul Grobstein
SuperScope	Data acquisition and analysis	Peter Brodfuehrer