Big Data, Big Data
Wanna analyze it soonah, rather than latah
At the midpoint of the 20th century, scientists at Los Alamos confronted a new challenge: Although the equations governing nuclear explosions were relatively simple to write down, they were immensely difficult and time consuming to solve. This led to the invention and use of first mechanical and then electronic computers, and the dawning of the age of computational science, which advances understanding through simulations made by solving equations in fields ranging from biology to physics to hydrodynamics.
The arrival of big data science in the last two decades constitutes another scientific revolution.
An engineering group invested inordinate sums of time, labor, materials, and money not to create a facetted eximer laser mirror that would drill hundreds of 5-micron diameter holes through a 500-micron thick acrylic contact lens. Uncle Al was not partaking of a catered lunch/week when each new analysis was not reduced to practice. The problem was solved with some glass wool and aqueous NH4HF2 – though it did make 100 such lenses at once rather than a single lens. Curiously, the data gluttons were not glad to see the problem solved.
A flat response surface has no maxima to be discovered, though paradoxically it is riddled with sulci when you try.