May 24, 2018 Thursday
Bedtime Story
How Ada was Reintroduced
I shall not go much into Alan Turing or his
work right now as he will follow us later but the point that has to be stressed
is that of the few people on this planet then who were aware of the works of
Babbage and Lovelace, Turing was definitely one of them.
Just an example to show you how Turing
related humans to machines, I find nothing better than this simple quote of his
from the paper ‘Intelligent Machinery: A Report by A. M. Turing’ (Summer 1948)
– “A man provided with paper, pencil and rubber, and subject to strict
discipline, is in effect a universal machine.”
Yet, even as decades rolled by from 50s, to
60s and to 70s, both Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage remained little known and
largely unrecognized,
It was only in the 1980 when a team led by
Jean Ichbiah (It is a French name and the guy was a French computer scientist)
and the French company Groupe Bull under a contract with the United States
Department of Defense developed a structured, statically typed, imperative,
wide-spectrum, and object-oriented high-level computer programming language and
named it Ada that Lovelace finally began to be recognized as a pioneering
figure in the field of computer science.
The language was named Ada very
specifically after Augusta Ada, Countess of Lovelace or more commonly as is
known to us as simply Ada Lovelace.
I am not an expert in computer programming
languages and I do not know why Ada did not become very popular as a
programming language even though for its safety-critical support features it is
still being used for military applications, avionics and air traffics.
So even though the language itself did not itself
become very widespread it certainly enhanced the awareness of both Ada Lovelace
and Babbage in the consciousness of the masses.
Suddenly their names began to appear on the
popular media and even their biographies began to be read.
With their popularity, arose both interest
and curiosity in the Difference Engine, so much so, that some computer
scientists began to question that if the real Difference Engine were to be
invented, would it really work?
A serious project was initiated which in
the year of 2002 led to the construction of a full-fledged Difference Engine that
was based on the exact same plan as devised by Babbage but for one alteration.
What was that one alteration I have no
knowledge but to surprise of many, this Difference Engine indeed did work!
What came as even a bigger amazement or
perhaps a coincidence that the cost of building the Difference Engine in this
century turned out to be almost the same as requested by Babbage to the British
Crown back in 1823, adjusted for inflation of course.
As for the Analytical Engine, it still
remains elusive physically though conceptually perhaps it is alive and working
in almost every home of a modern family even those struggling for their basic necessities
in third-world countries.
It would shock both Charles Babbage (and
Ada Lovelace too) that the money for the Engine that he was refused by the Crown
today is accessible to even those families who cannot afford their own homes or
even clean water.
Now, isn’t that something insanely and bigotedly
astounding if you care to think of it with a broader historic perspective!
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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