April 24, 2018 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
Note B of Ada Lovelace - Part 4
Note B of Ada Lovelace - Part 4
Tonight we shall continue with the Note B
of Ada Lovelace wherein she is describing how the engine would perform or carry
out calculation with a specific function axn, with the values of the
three variables a, n and x having been defined last night.
The instruction to the machine will be
programmed much earlier by human apes in the punched cards which in turn will command
the vertical columns how to move and rotate in order for the function to be
worked out by the engine.
She, of course, does not go into the
intricate mechanical details of it, for the engine then (and even today) was
only at its conceptual stage.
“We may now combine these symbols in a
variety of ways, so as to form any required function or functions of them, and
we may then inscribe each such functions below brackets, every bracket uniting
together these quantities (and those only) which enter into the function
inscribed below it.
We must also, when we have decided on the
particular function whose numerical value we desire to calculate, assign
another column to the right-hand for receiving the results, and must inscribe
the function in the square below this column.
In the above instance we might have any one
of the following functions:-
axn, xan, a . n . x,
(a/n)x, a + n + x, etc.
Let us select the first.
It would stand as follows, previous to
calculation:-
The data being given, we must now put into
the engine the cards proper for directing the operations in the case of the
particular function chosen.
These operations would in this instance be
–
First, six multiplication in order to get xn
(= 987 for the above particular data)
Secondly, one multiplication in order then
to get a.xn
(= 5.987)
In all, seven multiplications to complete
the whole process.
We may thus represent them:-
(x, x, x, x, x, x, x), or 7(x)
The multiplications would, however, at
successive stages in the solution of the problem, operate on pairs of numbers,
derived from different columns.
In other words, the same operation would be
performed on different subjects of operation.”
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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