Computers as Imaging Devices

Philosophers ask the question, ``What is knowledge?'' As technologists, our answer is that there is a real world and there is also an image of it in our minds. Knowledge means that the two are similar. To help form images we use imaging devices, such as microscopes, telescopes, cameras, television, etc. In this book, computers are imaging devices for seismic echo soundings.

As an imaging device, a computer is in many ways ideal. A telescope is limited by the quality of its components. The image created by a computer is limited more by our understanding of mathematics, physics, and statistics than by limitations inherent in the computer. For imaging radar or ultrasonics, computer capacity would be a real problem. It happens that the information content (bandwidth) of seismic echo soundings is about matched by today's computers.