December 15, 2017 Friday
Bedtime Story
The Protagonists of Analytical Engine Story
In spite of that, Babbage’s diagrams and
elaborate sketches of the mechanical parts, cogs, wheels and levers are legendary and a site to behold.
A thing that stands out in these diagrams
are his own unique mechanical notations in form of tiny squiggles that even
today are hard to understand by modern computer scientists.
The story of analytical engine is
fascinating for many reasons.
One is that, even though it is claimed to
be the first ever true general purpose computer, to this day it has never been
built.
It is stupendously complex and the design
of Babbage is a cryptography in itself that even today stumps the best minds!
The other reason why the analytical engine
makes for a great bedtime storytelling is that it involves multiple
personalities, the most colorful of them obviously being Babbage.
The other characters that are interwoven in
this story are the French weaver and merchant Joseph Marie Jacquard and an
English countess by the name of Ada, Countess of Lovelace.
Now we need to get the general historical
perspective right as once again we are dealing with multiple personalities that
cross both time and geographical barriers.
The work on Analytical engine was started
in earnest somewhere around 1833 by Babbage who was then turning 42.
Jacquard died in the year of 1834 at the
ripe age of 82 and his machine which will feature in our story, that special
loom of his, had already been invented way back in 1804.
That famous loom of his had almost nothing
to do with mathematics or computing numbers in any direct manner.
Lady Ada was the last to arrive on the scene
among the three in 1815 and she was just 18 years old when the work on
analytical engine was being started.
Most of who are living in the current world
run by electricity need to understand that we are discussing an era where coal
and steam powered the mighty Empire.
Faraday would discover electromagnetic
induction just about that time (1831) and it would be some decades before the
power of electromagnetism would start being fully exploited by human apes.
So analytical engine was purely mechanical
stuff and if it all it would have been built, steam power would have been its
source of energy.
But let us rewind a little bit and see what
a French weaver is doing in our story.
Joseph Jacquard was born in Lyon way back
in 1752 which is the third largest city of modern France.
His father was a master weaver who owned
house, the loom and a workshop and reproduced prolifically with 9 children.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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