April 18, 2018 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
Note A of Ada Lovelace - Part 11
Tonight we are continuing with the Note A
of Ada Lovelace wherein quite atypically, she is castigating, almost rebuking
the laity of their ignorance or perhaps misconception about the origins and the
workings of the two engines.
It comes as no surprise to me as I myself
have realized how despicably unenlightened I am about the working and the
historical development of devices that I use almost all the time every day.
At least the Victorians could be pardoned
since most of them never got to use hands-on any of the engines since one of
them still does not exists and the other came into reality quite later; hence
they should be forgiven for lacking the knowledge of the fact that Analytical
Engine is conceptually and fundamentally world apart from the Difference Engine.
“We think this of importance, because we
know that there exists considerable vagueness and inaccuracy in the mind of
persons in general on the subject.
There is a misty notion amongst most of
those who have attended at all to it, that two “calculating machines” have been
successively invented by the same person within the last few years; while
others again have never heard but of the one original “calculating machine”,
and are not aware of there being any extension upon this.
For either of these two classes of persons
the above considerations are appropriate.
While the latter require a knowledge of the
fact that there are two such inventions, the former are not less in want of
accurate and well-defined information on the subject.
No very clear or correct ideas prevail as
to the characteristics of each engine, or their respective advantages and
disadvantages; and in meeting with those incidental allusions, of a more or
less direct kind, which occur in so many publications of the day, to these
machines, it must frequently be matter of doubt which “calculating machine” is
referred to, or whether both are included in the general allusion.
We are desirous likewise of removing two
misapprehensions which we know obtain, to so extent, respecting these engines.
In the first place it is very generally
supposed that the Difference Engine, after it had been completed up to a
certain point, suggested the idea of the Analytical Engine; and that the second
is in fact the improved offspring of the first, and grew out of the existence
of its predecessor, through some natural or else accidental combination of
ideas suggested by this one.
Such a supposition is in this instance
contrary to the facts; although it seems to an obvious inference, wherever two
inventions, similar in their nature and objects, succeed each other closely in
order of time, and strikingly in order of value; more especially when the same
individual is the author of both.
Nevertheless the ideas which led to the
Analytical Engine occurred in a manner wholly independent of any that were
connected with the Difference Engine.
These ideas are indeed in their own
intrinsic nature independent of the latter engine, and might equally have
occurred had it never existed nor been even thought of at all.”
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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