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Steve Rosenbaum  Data Through the Ages  Posted: 10/21/11 06:35
PM ET  At first blush, DATA seems like a relatively recent idea.
But after spending time at the THINK exhibit at Lincoln Center,
you begin to understand that data isn't something that is
created by computers. Rather, it's information made more useful
by computers.  The journey into the history of data is eye-
opening and amazingly immersive.  The story is told in five
chapters: Seeing, Mapping, Understanding, Believing, and Acting.
Seeing begins with the basic five human senses. And then we
began to build measurement tools like clocks, and calendars, and
microscopes and telescopes. Thought of in that context, you can
see how the emergence of cell phones and computer-connected
sensors are on a logical continuum of tools that make our world
more manageable and digital.  Throughout time, the tools we've
had at our disposal to view the world provide the raw data. That
data ends up being prese