February 14, 2018 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
Note G of Ada Lovelace - 1
It is at this point of attributing
intelligence to a mechanical machine that Ada Lovelace jumps in to elaborate
and explain through her Note G.
Note G is the final portion of her Notes
which I think is not merely the most impressive one but more importantly, as we
will see, contains the algorithm for computing the Bernoulli Numbers.
It is this which makes many in the field to
consider Ada Lovelace as the first software programmer though you must bear in
mind that during her times neither did the word software exist as the hardware
never actually came to force and neither were there any formal programming
languages as we now do.
So let us read through the fascinating Note
G which will perhaps help us understand why Ada Lovelace occupies such a prominent
position in the history of the analytical engine in particular and computer
science in general.
“It is desirable to guard against the
possibility of exaggerated ideas that might arise as to the powers of the
Analytical Engine.
In considering any new subject, there is
frequently a tendency, first, to overrate what we find to be already
interesting or remarkable; and, secondly, by a sort of natural reaction, to
undervalue the true state of the case, when we do discover that our notions
have surpassed those that were really tenable.
The Analytical Engine has no pretensions
whatever to originate anything.
It can do whatever we know how to order it
to perform.
It can follow analysis; but it has no power
of anticipating any analytical relations or truth.
Its province is to assist us in making
available what we are already acquainted with.
This it is calculated to effect primarily
and chiefly of course, through its executive faculties; but it is likely to
exert an indirect and reciprocal influence on science itself in another manner.
For, in so distributing and combining the
truths and the formulae of analysis, that they may become most easily and
rapidly amenable to the mechanical combinations of the engine, the relations
and nature of many subjects in that science are necessarily thrown into new
lights, and more profoundly investigated.
This is a decidedly indirect, and a
somewhat speculative, consequence of such an invention.
It is however pretty evident, on general
principles, that in devising for mathematical truths a new form in which to
record and throw themselves out for actual use, views are likely to be induced,
which should again react on the more theoretical phase of the subject.
There are in all extensions of human power,
or additions to human knowledge, various collateral influences, besides the
main and primary object attained.
To return to the executive faculties of the
engine: the question must arise in every mind, are they really even able to
follow analysis in its whole extent?”
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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