analog: Something that resembles, stands in for, or is similar to another thing.
array: A broad and organized group of objects. Sometimes they are instruments placed in a systematic fashion to collect information in a coordinated way. Other times, an array can refer to things that are laid out or displayed in a way that can make a broad range of related things, such as colors, visible at once. The term can even apply to a range of options or choices.
artificial intelligence: A type of knowledge-based decision-making exhibited by machines or computers. The term also refers to the field of study in which scientists try to create machines or computer software capable of intelligent behavior.
Dark Ages: A roughly 900-year-long period in European history — from the 400s to 1300s — that roughly runs between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance. It took its name from the fact that during this time, few advances in emerged science or art. Some scholars even claimed that this period had been characterized by a “death” of culture.
data: Facts and/or statistics collected together for analysis but not necessarily organized in a way that gives them meaning. For digital information (the type stored by computers), those data typically are numbers stored in a binary code, portrayed as strings of zeros and ones.
data center: A facility that holds computing hardware, such as servers, routers, switches and firewalls. It also will house equipment to support that hardware, including air conditioning and backup power supplies. Such a center ranges in size from part of a room to one or more dedicated buildings. These centers can house what it takes to make a “cloud” that makes possible cloud computing.
develop: To emerge or to make come into being, either naturally or through human intervention, such as by manufacturing.
digital: (in computer science and engineering) An adjective indicating that something has been developed numerically on a computer or on some other electronic device, based on a binary system (where all numbers are displayed using a series of only zeros and ones).
diode: An electronic part that works like a one-way valve for electric current.
electricity: A flow of charge, usually from the movement of negatively charged particles, called electrons.
electron: A negatively charged particle, usually found orbiting the outer regions of an atom; also, the carrier of electricity within solids.
electronics: Devices that are powered by electricity but whose properties are controlled by the semiconductors or other circuitry that channel or gate the movement of electric charges.
engineer: A person who uses science and math to solve problems. As a verb, to engineer means to design a device, material or process that will solve some problem or unmet need.
environment: The sum of all of the things that exist around some organism or the process and the condition those things create. Environment may refer to the weather and ecosystem in which some animal lives, or, perhaps, the temperature and humidity (or even the placement of things in the vicinity of an item of interest).
filter: (n.) Something that allows some materials to pass through but not others, based on their size or some other feature. (v.) The process of screening some things out on the basis of traits such as size, density, electric charge. (in physics) A screen, plate or layer of a substance that absorbs light or other radiation or selectively prevents the transmission of some of its components.
force: Some outside influence that can change the motion of an object, hold objects close to one another, or produce motion or stress in a stationary object.
gut: An informal term for the gastrointestinal tract, especially the intestines.
hybrid: An organism produced by interbreeding of two animals or plants of different species or of genetically distinct populations within a species. Such offspring often possess genes passed on by each parent, yielding a combination of traits not known in previous generations. The term is also used in reference to any object, process or idea that is a mix of two or more things.
LEDs: (short for light emitting diodes) Electronic components that, as their name suggests, emit light when electricity flows through them. LEDs are very energy-efficient and often can be very bright. They have lately been replacing conventional lights for home and commercial lamps.
lens: (in optics) A curved piece of transparent material (such as glass) that bends incoming light in such a way as to focus it at a particular point in space. Or something, such as gravity, that can mimic some of the light bending attributes of a physical lens.
machine learning: A technique in computer science that allows computers to learn from examples or experience. Machine learning is the basis of some forms of artificial intelligence (AI). For instance, a machine-learning system might compare X-rays of lung tissue in people with cancer and then compare these to whether and how long a patient survived after being given a particular treatment. In the future, that AI system might be able to look at a new patient’s lung scans and predict how well they will respond to a treatment.
magnet: A material that usually contains iron and whose atoms are arranged so they attract certain metals.
magnetic field: An area of influence created by certain materials, called magnets, or by the movement of electric charges.
materials scientist: A researcher who studies how the atomic and molecular structure of a material is related to its overall properties. Materials scientists can design new materials or analyze existing ones. Their analyses of a material’s overall properties (such as density, strength and melting point) can help engineers and other researchers select materials that are best suited to a new application.
model: A simulation of a real-world event (usually using a computer) that has been developed to predict one or more likely outcomes. Or an individual that is meant to display how something would work in or look on others.
morph: Short for metamorphose, it means to change or transform from one form to another (such as from a caterpillar to a butterfly) or from one shape to another. (in non-living systems) It refers to some thing, policy or activity that has undergone change, becoming something that looks or seems new and different.
optics: (adj. optical) Having to do with vision or what can be seen. (in physics) A field of research involving the control and movement of light.
photon: A particle representing the smallest possible amount of light or other type of electromagnetic radiation.
pixel: Short for picture element. A tiny area of illumination on a computer screen, or a dot on a printed page, usually placed in an array to form a digital image. Photographs are made of thousands of pixels, each of different brightness and color, and each too small to be seen unless the image is magnified.
processor: (in computing) Also called a central processing unit, or CPU, it’s a part of the computer that performs numerical calculations or other types of data manipulation. It can also be a type of software, or programming, that translates some other program into a form that can be understood by the computer running it.
programmable: A device or system that contains a computer, which allows the functions to change in a prescribed way, usually as determined by the user or manufacturer.
programming: (in computing) To use a computer language to write or revise a set of instructions that makes a computer do something. The set of instructions that does this is known as a computer program. The term is also used, in an analogy to computer programming, to describe the way something — such as cells — have been designed to function. A person who writes or revises software is a known as a programmer.
quantum computing: A special way to manipulate and store information based on the properties of very small stuff, such as individual atoms.
sensor: A device that picks up information on physical or chemical conditions — such as temperature, barometric pressure, salinity, humidity, pH, light intensity or radiation — and stores or broadcasts that information. Scientists and engineers often rely on sensors to inform them of conditions that may change over time or that exist far from where a researcher can measure them directly.
silicon: A nonmetal, semiconducting element used in making electronic circuits. Pure silicon exists in a shiny, dark-gray crystalline form and as a shapeless powder.
system: A network of parts that together work to achieve some function. For instance, the blood, vessels and heart are primary components of the human body’s circulatory system. Similarly, trains, platforms, tracks, roadway signals and overpasses are among the potential components of a nation’s railway system. System can even be applied to the processes or ideas that are part of some method or ordered set of procedures for getting a task done.
technology: The application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry — or the devices, processes and systems that result from those efforts.
theory: (in science) A description of some aspect of the natural world based on extensive observations, tests and reason. A theory can also be a way of organizing a broad body of knowledge that applies in a broad range of circumstances to explain what will happen. Unlike the common definition of theory, a theory in science is not just a hunch. Ideas or conclusions that are based on a theory — and not yet on firm data or observations — are referred to as theoretical. Scientists who use mathematics and/or existing data to project what might happen in new situations are known as theorists.
transistor: A device that can act like a switch for electrical signals.
virtual: Being almost like something. An object or concept that is virtually real would be almost true or real — but not quite. The term often is used to refer to something that has been modeled by (or accomplished by) a computer using numbers, not by using real-world parts. (in computing) Things that are performed in or through digital processing and/or the internet. For instance, a virtual conference may be where people attended by watching it over the internet.