Time Shared Computers in Some Solid State Physics Research Applications: Data Reduction, Smoothing, and Plotting

Abstract

This paper reports several research applications of time shared computers. It has often been claimed that time shared computers cannot be used effectively in research. It is found that, for a large range of experiments in physics, the time shared computer is ideal. Use of a time shared system is less expensive, more interactive, more versatile, and much faster than on-line computer systems. Use of time shared systems is more interactive than batch processing computer facilities. Experimental results are described from a wide range of experiments. The experiments concern plasma waves in solids, color centers in the ultraviolet, and electron tunneling measurements of ir impurity bands in insulators. The results reported demonstrate the wide versatility of the computer experiment system in such areas as data reduction, data smoothing, graphing, and plotting.