April 16, 2018 Monday
Bedtime Story
Note A of Ada Lovelace - Part 9
Tonight we are continuing with the Note A
of Ada Lovelace wherein Lovelace points another crucial distinction which
confers on Analytical Engine a major advantage over the Difference Engine (the
original one being the application of punched cards programming which confers
upon the Engine the “analytical power”).
You would notice that Ada Lovelace keeping
referring to both these engines as powerful mathematical devices, and this was
how in general, the computers were perceived for a very long time, more
precisely till 1973.
So what did happen in 1973?
Well, on March 1, 1973 Palo Alto Research Center
Incorporated, under the guidance and supervision of brilliant minds such as
Butler Lampson, Douglas Engelbart, Charles Thacker, Alan Kay, Robert Taylor, Charles
Simonyi and many other began to role out Xerox Alto – the first computer that
was intentionally designed to support an operating system that was based on a
graphical user interface – much like the modern desktop computer.
But that is for later; For now it is the
Note A.
“In enabling mechanism to combine together
general symbols in successions of unlimited variety and extent, a uniting link
is established between the operations of the matter and the abstract mental
processes of the most abstract branch of the mathematical science.
A new, a vast, and a powerful language is
developed for the future use of the analysis, in which to wield its truths so
that these may become of more speedy and accurate practical application for the
purposes of mankind that the means hitherto in our possession have rendered
possible.
Thus not only the mental and the material,
but the theoretical and the practical in the mathematical world, are brought
into more intimate and effective connection with each other.
We are not aware of its being on record
that anything partaking in the nature of what is so well designated the
Analytical Engine has been hitherto proposed, or even thought of, as a
practical possibility, any more than the idea of a thinking or of a reasoning
machine.
We will touch on another point which
constitutes an important distinction in the modes of operating of the
Difference and Analytical Engines.
In order to enable the former to do its
businesses, it is necessary to put into its columns the series of numbers
constituting the first terms of the several orders of differences for whatever is
the particular table under consideration.
The machine then works upon these as its
data.
But these data must themselves have been
already computed through a series of calculations by a human head.
Therefore than engine can only produce
results depending on data which have been arrived at the explicit and actual
working out of processes that are in their nature different from any that come
within the sphere of its own powers.
In other words, an analyzing process must
have been gone through by a human mind in order to obtain the data upon which
the engine then synthetically binds its results.
The Difference Engine is in its character
exclusively synthetical, while the Analytical Engine is equally capable of
analysis or synthesis.”
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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