Computers and the Big Bang?

Stephanson, Neal. "In the Beginning was the Command Line" . 1999. Web. February 2010.
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The article,"In The Beginning Was The Command Line" by Neal Stephenson, was written in 2000 from the point of view of a man who, not only used, but also programmed Macintoshes, Window machines, Linux boxes, and the BeOS. In referring to the evolution of computer operating systems, Stephenson asks,"What is going on here? Does the operating systems business have a future or only a past?" He proceeds to give a history of the various operating systems, describing their features, similarities and differences. He makes the point that the business is very unstable and power can shift from one company to another quickly. He also demonstrates the romantic power of " image" by pointing out that, even though Linux and other software products are free, people's brains are programmed to want the Microsoft products. Stephenson's implied answer to his question, "Does the operating system business have a future or only a past?", is that, while the dominance of companies may change, the development of operating systems constantly becomes more complex and provides more and more features for the users. Computer operating systems are here to stay.

To support his conclusion that the principles behind computer operating systems are here to stay, Stephenson refers to a book by Lee Smolin called The Life of the Cosmos. Smolin talks about how the universe came into being. According to him, computational principles were involved in the very origin of the universe. All of the numbers had to line up perfectly in order for a universe to form that could support life. "If these values had been only slightly different, the universe would have been a vast ocean of tepid gas or a hot knot of plasma, or some other uninteresting thing...a dud." Smolin claims that there had to be an outside force that calculated the numbers and pressed the "Enter" button to cause the Big Bang and bring everything into being. He says it is evident that "the Cosmic operating system uses a command-line interface". Neal Stephenson's reference to Lee Smolin's book about the beginning of the universe and its relationship with computational principles explains the title of his article, "In The Beginning Was the Command Line."