Royal Institution Christmas Lectures 2008 – Lecture 3 – The Ghost in the Machine(A quest new year week special)

Professor Chris Bishop examines how software affects nearly every aspect of our lives

Computers represent one of the most versatile machines ever invented with the same piece of hardware being used for a huge range of different purposes.  However it is the software that brings the machine to life, turning it into a phone, a music player, a game or any other number of possibilities.

In the third of his lectures, Chris Bishop delves into the fascinating world of computer science to reveal how software is solving real world problems.

Find out how powerful new computers running sophisticated software are able to run thousands of tasks at once, and why a quantum computer may one day be able to do more calculations at the same time than there are atoms in the universe.