Mirror worlds

Picture a computer screen that shows the world as it actually is: a live model of your city with its traffic flowing across the map, or a view of a company's condition at the present moment. Computer scientist David Gelernter calls these views Mirror Worlds and predicts that ordinary people will soon have access to them. Touching one of these models means acting on the real thing it represents, a bit like working a figure that stands in for a person. Gelernter argues that such systems will change computers from simple instruments into devices that let us perceive the world more sharply and understand it more thoroughly.

The book surveys the computing technology likely to arrive in the near future. Gelernter maintains that Mirror Worlds will let people investigate distant places and complex systems in far greater detail, all from their own homes. He does more than predict how such software might be used. He explains how it could be constructed, laying out the steps for building a Mirror World with tools that already exist.