- published: 22 Jun 2009
- views: 2087172
In science and engineering, a black box is a device, system or object which can be viewed solely in terms of its input, output and transfer characteristics without any knowledge of its internal workings, that is, its implementation is "opaque" (black). Almost anything might be referred to as a black box: a transistor, an algorithm, or the human mind.
The opposite of a black box is a system where the inner components or logic are available for inspection, which is sometimes known as a white box, a glass box, or a clear box.
The modern term "black box" seems to have entered the English language around 1945. The process of network synthesis from the transfer functions of black boxes can be traced to Wilhelm Cauer who published his ideas in their most developed form in 1941. Although Cauer did not himself use the term, others who followed him certainly did describe the method as black-box analysis.Vitold Belevitch puts the concept of black-boxes even earlier, attributing the explicit use of two-port networks as black boxes to Franz Breisig in 1921 and argues that 2-terminal components were implicitly treated as black-boxes before that.
Sending out a mayday
We're going down
Nothing we could have done
Would have turned it around
Everything we had scattered everywhere
Searching through the wreckage of a love affair...
You got something to say
Say it to me
Not everyone else
You say that I'm to blame
My words are in vain
Don't go fooling yourself...
There's a little black box here
Somewhere in the ocean
Holding all the truth about us (yeah)
There's a little black box
A record of emotions
Everything that ever was (yeah)...
You may deny it
But when I find it
I'm gonna play it out loud to the world
There's a little black box, yeah
There's a little black box, yeah...
There's a lot of pressure when you get deep
You left me on my own at six hundred feet
I was looking 'round for a little help
But everyone was looking out for themselves...
You got something to say
Say it to me
Not everyone else
You say that I'm to blame
My words are in vain
Don't go fooling yourself (oh)...
There's a little black box here
Somewhere in the ocean
Holding all the truth about us (yeah)
There's a little black box
A record of emotions
Everything that ever was (yeah)...
You may deny it
But when I find it
I'm gonna play it out loud to the world
There's a little black box, yeah
There's a little black box, yeah...
You can't stop a true survivor
You'll discover that out on your own
'cause I'm a true survivor
And I'll be here after you're gone
Long after you're gone
Long after you're gone...
There's a little black box here
Somewhere in the ocean
Holding all the truth about us (yeah)
There's a little black box
A record of emotions
Everything that ever was (yeah)...
You may deny it
But when I find it
I'm gonna play it out loud to the world
There's a little black box, yeah