May 25, 2018 Friday
Bedtime Story
Recap of Notes
Some I had to go back and re-read my own
bedtime stories on Ada Lovelace Notes because of its extreme difficult nature
and recurrent use of tables which are essentially algorithm in the language of
the Engine.
I have realized after reading my own
bedtime stories on the Notes how difficult it must have been for the readers to
get a broad sense what Ada Lovelace was writing about, specially to the
uninitiated and the uninterested.
So let me try to sum it all up in a more
bedtime story-like fashion though yet again I must make it clear that in spite
of my attempt the subject is inherently difficult and there is a limit to how
much one can simplify certain technical facts.
To begin with, we saw Ada comparing the
Analytical Engine with the Difference Engine and clearly describing the former
to be superior to the later.
While the Difference Engine is capable of
computing values of 6th degree polynomial, the Analytical Engine can
carry sequence of operations.
Moreover she considers the Analytical
Engine as the “material and mechanical representative of analysis” which at
that time no mechanical calculating devise could claim for itself.
This is a supreme kind of attribution that
Ada devotes to a machine, something that no other mechanical machine previous
to it had ever deserved.
She then explains how this marvel would
carry out its analysis; using the punched cards as its data feeding mechanism.
Just look how eloquently she describes the
punched card mechanism: “the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just
as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.”
From then on, she becomes less poetic and
more technical taking examples of specific type of computations and how they
will be carried out using Operation-cards which would determine the operations
to be performed and Variable-card which define where the intermediary and final
values would be located.
She speaks of “cycles” and “cycles of
cycles” which Mon Ami in today’s parlance would recognize them as loops and
nested loops.
We saw earlier how she even provided us
with mathematical notation for this idea with the equations (6), (7) and (8) of
the Note E.
| (6.) |  |
where p stands for the variable; (+ 1)p for the function of the variable, that is, for Φp; and the limits are from 1 to p, or from 0 to p-1, each increment being equal to unity. Similarly, (4.) would be,—
| (7.) |  |
the limits of n being from 1 to n, or from 0 to n-1,
| (8.) | or  |
This indeed is very modern and was very
far-sighted of this young mathematician.
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.
Advertisements
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:
No comments:
Post a Comment