...History of Computer Science Name: Kamyll Dawn Cocon Course, Yr. & Sec.: BSMT 1-D REACTION PAPER The topic of the video which is about the history of computer was kind of interesting since it high lightened our mind about where the computer had really came from. Not only have that, it also made us understand how the computers of today became very wonderful and powerful. Before, computers only existed in the imagination of humans and were believed that creating such monstrous device was impossible. It was a huge leap in the field of computer during the 19th century when Charles Babbage developed the 1st modern computer called the difference machine. The most advantageous feature of this machine is that it reflected Babbage’s attitude of being a perfectionist. Although his work was not finished, the detailed text that was written by Ada was significant in modifying his versions and for documentary purposes of his work. The rapid increase of the American population, on the other hand, triggered the development of a machine that will help the census tabulate such population very fast. Hermin Horrith’s occupation was very helpful to the development of this machine since he used business to gain money to revise his machine which had later evolved into the international business machine. Although war causes devastation to the environment as well as the people involved, it also had contributed to the development of computers, which is the birth of ENIAC, the first large-scale...
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...vA Very Brief History of Computer Science Written by Jeffrey Shallit for CS 134 at the University of Waterloo in the summer of 1995. This little web page was hastily stitched together in a few days. Perhaps eventually I will get around to doing a really good job. Suggestions are always welcome. A translation of this web page into French has been prepared by Anne Dicky at the University of Bordeaux. Before 1900 People have been using mechanical devices to aid calculation for thousands of years. For example, the abacus probably existed in Babylonia (present-day Iraq) about 3000 B.C.E. The ancient Greeks developed some very sophisticated analog computers. In 1901, an ancient Greek shipwreck was discovered off the island of Antikythera. Inside was a salt-encrusted device (now called the Antikythera mechanism) that consisted of rusted metal gears and pointers. When this c. 80 B.C.E. device was reconstructed, it produced a mechanism for predicting the motions of the stars and planets. (More Antikythera info here.) John Napier (1550-1617), the Scottish inventor of logarithms, invented Napier's rods (sometimes called "Napier's bones") c. 1610 to simplify the task of multiplication. In 1641 the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) built a mechanical adding machine. Similar work was done by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). Leibniz also advocated use of the binary system for doing calculations. Recently it was discovered that Wilhelm Schickard (1592-1635)...
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...INTRODUCTION Computers and computation have been around for a long time and were developed over many years with immense contributions from inventors, engineers, physicists, philosophers, mathematicians, technicians, scholars, and visionaries. Right from ancient times, when man used his fingers to count and keep record and straight to the era of ancient civilisations, computation had been paramount in almost everyday life. The Babylonians used base 60 to calculate and tell hours of the day a format which is still used up to this day, the ancient Egyptians needed math for practical problems: measuring time, flooding of the Nile, cooking and baking, book keeping and accounting, taxes. They also made the first math textbook, which contained the first trigonometry including sine, cosine, tangent, and cotangent (sin = o/h, cos = a/h. tan = o/a, cot = a/o), which has been one of the basis of mathematical calculations till date. The Greeks brought the Pythagorean theory; the Romans brought the Roman Numerals and even the Islam brought the “al jabr” which is known today as “Algebra”. The Chinese brought the remainder theorem and the Indians developed the decimal system, zero and negative numbers, and did early trigonometric work on the sine and cosine. The first computers were calculating machines and over time evolved into the digital computers, as we know them today. It has taken over 180 years for the computer to develop from an idea in Charles Babbage head into an actual computer developed...
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...A Cultural History Of Modern Science In China. Benjamin A. Elman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. Pp xiii. 336. Benjamin Elman’s book is a complex history of interactions between the European West and Imperial China involving the transmission of scientific, medical, and technological knowledge over a period of roughly three-hundred years, lasting through the Qing dynasty. Previous to the sixteenth century, China was ripe with science and technological innovation; however, the history of modern science has been viewed with a Eurocentric account, consequently dismissing and undervaluing China’s role in modern science’s development. Elman explains this phenomenon throughout his book as the “failure narrative”; why did China not develop modern science and technology at the rate of its Western counterparts? Elman believes that cultural and historical factors resulted more often than not in an inconsistent and turbulent transmission of scientific, medical, and technological information from the West to China, resulting in a miscommunication of fundamental theories from both sides. Elman’s book focuses on two groups, Jesuit advisers and Protestant missionaries, whom he recognizes as the primary transmitters of modern scientific knowledge from Europe to China prior to the start of the twentieth century. In the early seventeenth century, Jesuits made their way to China and collaborated with literati and the imperial court with their knowledge of astronomy and cartography...
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...Nine Billion Names of God”. This is a science fictive short story where we meet a group of lamas who wants to write the nine billion names of God. Atypically, the lamas will not use the ‘normal’ alphabet; but their own alphabet where they have invented and written in their holy books. In over three centuries they have been typing these names down, and it would take another fifteen thousand years for them to complete the chore. Therefore, they purchase a special computer, Mark V, from a company, which can calculate and write all the letters down. Compared to the fifteen thousand years the computer will do the job in a hundred days. Later on we are following two engineers named George and Chuck. They have been hired to complete the project. However, one day Sam Jaffe tells Chuck the real purpose of this task. The real purpose is to find all the names and when that is been done, God’s intention with the mankind will be achieved and the universe will cease to exist. Of course, the scientists think that it is pure nonsense and they begin to plan their home travel at the same time, as the computer would be done printing out the names. They are afraid of the monks’ reactions when their task will fail, because of course it will fail. Unfortunately, on their way to the plane, they look up and suddenly without a fuss, the stars are going out. It is clear that the dialogue in the start is a very special one. To me, I think it is the very classic “science vs. religion” when the two men are...
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...Today’s generation use these formulas as theories and tries to develop them to solve problems. Observation, experiment and invention existed as early as middle ages but in the mid-15th century the belief about the physical universe was questioned. Curiosity among talented people around the world intensified. This ultimately led to development of science. In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus published the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres. His model of the Universe was alternative to Claudius Ptolemy’s geocentric system which was widely accepted since ancient times. It is believed that Copernicus’s theory of Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres lit the torch in scientific revolution. In 1576, Tycho Brahe set up Uranilborgh observatory. It was a huge step in astronomy. The mystery of the physical universe had begun to reveal. Soon after, Johannes Kepler in 1609 followed up with the Astronomia Nova which included his decade long research of the motion of mars. Galileo Galilei published Starry Messenger in 1610 which was a method of observing our galaxy with a telescope. In 1610, Francis Bacon published introduced the new instruments of science. Finally, Sir Isaac Newton, a...
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...Marilynne Robinsons “Freedom of thought” essay tackles modern science along with sacredness of religion. Robinson shatters the ideas that science and religion struggle for the same piece of turf. She writes about early scientific endeavors and the modern tendency to see religion as a universal part of human nature that is part of our rational thoughts. Robinson writes “Be that as it may, the effect of this idea, which is very broadly assumed to be true, is again to reinforce the notion that science and religion are struggling for possession of a single piece of turf, and science holds the high ground and gets to choose the weapons”. She opposes these statements and believes religion and science are not in conflict with each other but it is merely an assumption made by the modern society that is America. The bold statement stiffens the notion that religion and science are involved in a cold war environment. Today many are intrigued by the idea of science and how the world came to existence and with more discoveries about the world the more people are going to choose a side whether that is fact (science) or fiction (religion). Robinson can try to break the idea of religion vs. science but in the modern world its either you’re an atheist or u pick a religion. Think about the times when science books were being burned by Christians on account of the books going against God and made man seem as if he found how life was truly created. While on the opposing side scientists...
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...INTRODUCTION Is science a religion? This topic has been debated by many creationists and scientists alike. The philosophy of science makes no claims to knowledge about the supernatural or metaphysical and, by not so doing, is left with an enterprise that although hugely successful is also permanently on trial (Manne, 2010). The only thing scientists can agree upon is the empirical nature of science, but the steps from observations to theory are not without philosophical problems. DISCUSSION Thomas Kuhn thinks that scientific paradigms are essentially pictures of the world that are consistent with observations and logically coherent. But such pictures are necessarily always incomplete, at least until such time as we know everything, and our minds seem to struggle to accept this; it seems like there is an aesthetic compulsion to create harmonious images, even if that means filling in the spaces with metaphysical constructs. Andrew Brown states that the dictionary is wrong; science can be a religion too. He explains that if you strictly use the dictionary definition of science then it cannot be considered a religion, but if you look at science objectively you can see how it could be considered one. He makes a strong argument that religion has too many definitions for science to not be considered one. Richard Dawkins believes the opposite. He states that science is based upon verifiable evidence. Religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its main...
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...Raj Maheshwari BIO 11 Lab Professor Lauren Larin Queens College Spring 2016 Plato to Darwin to DNA – A Brief History Dr. Esther I. Muehlbauer This book has been molded to be a breakdown of how various fields in science have progressed over centuries as mankind has advanced. The book starts off introducing the idea that the telling of natural history has changed numerous times as humans have evolved. We also learn to agree that our knowledge has been shaped by the tools available and the perceptions of its users. In the earliest stages of life, Muehlbauer states “…observers of the natural world had only their senses to work with, and were limited to visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory descriptions perceived by the unaided human body” (pg. 1, Muehlbauer). Something as simple as the “scientific process”, which is similar to the scientific method we learned in our first week of lecture, is proof of how we have outgrown earlier and more primitive attempts to differentiate between the true story. Humankind has progressed from an era in which religion used to be the ultimate answer to all of mankind’s questions. The skies would rumble when God was mad and crops would go bad due to curses by a higher power. The fight for knowledge through science has helped us as a species progress through this uphill battle to debunk the primitive explanations as to why the world exists in the way it does. From the invention of the wheel to the proof of evolution, we have come a long...
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...Part 1 -- The History of China Before we discuss individual technological developments, you should read the following three essays that will give you a historic context for these developments. Concise Political History of China, an online article by Paul Halsall compiled from Compton's Living Encyclopedia on America Online, http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/texts/chinhist.html Chinese Periodization in Light of Economic Developments by Paul Halsall, http://www.mastep.sjsu.edu/history_of_tech/chinese_chronology.htm China, Technology and Change, an article by Lynda Shaffer, from the World History Bulletin, Fall/Winter, 1986/87, http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/texts/shaffer.html China's Gifts to the West by Professor Derk Bodde, for the Committee on Asiatic Studies in American Education Reprinted with permission in China: A Teaching Workbook, Asia for Educators, Columbia University, http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/song/readings/inventions_gifts.htm Part 2 - Science and Technology in China Science in China has a long history and developed quite independently of Western science. Needham (1993) has researched widely on the development of science and technologies in China, the effect of culture, and the transference of these principles, unacknowledged, to the West. The Chinese contribution to Western science is particularly interesting because it serves...
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...Religion and Science: The relationship between science and religion up until the 6th century were one in the same. Philosophers believed that natural occurrences were due to a divine power. Earthquakes and thunderstorms were merely upset gods showing their wrath. Individuals sought to learn the language of the gods to comprehend these phenomena. After the 6th century, new ideas formed that excluded the gods. These philosophers did not personify nature. They believed the world to be orderly and predictable. This brought on a renaissance of thought. By examining everything up to this point in history, the distinction between science and religion became clear. This rift spawned modern thought and science as we know it. Primitive science originated from man’s desire to speak to the gods and learn about natural phenomena in the world. Almost all of the ancient civilizations (Egyptians, Babylonians, etc.) had myths and beliefs about the origin of the human race and the formation of major topographical features. Up until about the 6th century, people believed in demon possessions, ghosts, and a variety of other invisible ailment-causing entities. They also believed that magic rituals allowed one to control these anomalies. Such individuals were generally held in esteem amongst the community. The reason why such myths were taken as fact for so long is attributed to the notion of “oral tradition.” Oral tradition was a method of keeping culture alive before there was a written record...
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...History of Women in Science Women have continually played a part in scientific endeavor, even prior to invention of the term ‘scientist’. Nevertheless, in Western culture, science and femininity lacked unity and the masculine painting of science revealed not only that more males did science, but that science itself was seen as an integrally masculine venture. The notion that mathematics and science were unsuitable or ‘hard’ for women, and even ‘at odds’ with real femininity, can be trailed back to the beginning of modern science and the commencement of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century. Then ‘femininity’ became the exact opposite of the new, masculine, experimental science of Newton and his colleagues who needed to break from the passive, reflective analytical style of outdated ‘natural philosophy’, the former word for science. (Schiebinger, 1996). This divide that detached women from the new experimental science, was made a lot wider by the Nature’s tradition being embodied in female form only. The masculine scientists made ‘mother nature’ their goal of research, and branded her as a female muse who could trick them, but if trained would also permit them to ‘enter her secrets’. This entire trap cast femininity as the inactive, topic of investigation and the male as the virile, enthusiastic investigator; a dualism that just increased the difference between science and femininity (Jordanova, 1991). Regardless of this, there existed women scientists— botanists, mathematicians...
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...Computer science From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Computer science or computing science (abbreviated CS) is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems.[1][2] Computer scientists invent algorithmic processes that create, describe, and transform information and formulate suitable abstractions to model complex systems. Computer science has many sub-fields; some, such as computational complexity theory, study the fundamental properties of computational problems, while others, such as computer graphics, emphasize the computation of specific results. Still others focus on the challenges in implementing computations. For example, programming language theory studies approaches to describe computations, while computer programming applies specific programming languages to solve specific computational problems, and human-computer interaction focuses on the challenges in making computers and computations useful, usable, and universally accessible to humans. The general public sometimes confuses computer science with careers that deal with computers (such as information technology), or think that it relates to their own experience of computers, which typically involves activities such as gaming, web-browsing, and word-processing. However, the focus of computer science is more on understanding the properties of the programs used to implement...
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...Academic assistance is the defined as an activity for teaching available for students in all subjects including science, mathematics, management, business studies, business and law and information technology. In the academic assistance, all subject related helps is being provided to the students to meet specific subject related queries. It is defined as a tutoring practice, which provides support to the students in solving particular subject related queries. Apart from this, this makes the learning process easy for the students through providing ready to learn or tailor made notes and helps in solving specific subject problems. Basically, academic assistance is the new method of tutoring by a large number of institutions to facilitate the students in their studies. Academic assistance encompasses all types of subjects from English to Management. In the academic content development, a number of subjects such as business studies, marketing, accounting and financial management, operations management, qualitative techniques, history, science, statistics, dissertation and its proposal development, human resources and organizational behaviour are covered. In pertinent to the given subjects, academic assistance is a kind of help provided to the students in developing particular topic related subjects content. Academic assistance is not only limited to provide a notes specific to subjects, but also it covers a full helps in completing the project steps such as authentic data collection...
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...The History of Information Technology March 2010 Draft version to appear in the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, Vol. 45, 2011 Thomas Haigh thaigh@computer.org University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Thomas Haigh The History of Information Technology – ARIST Draft 2 In many scholarly fields the new entrant must work carefully to discover a gap in the existing literature. When writing a doctoral dissertation on the novels of Nabokov or the plays of Sophocles, clearing intellectual space for new construction can be as difficult as finding space to erect a new building in central London. A search ensues for an untapped archive, an unrecognized nuance, or a theoretical framework able to demolish a sufficiently large body of existing work. The history of information technology is not such a field. From the viewpoint of historians it is more like Chicago in the mid-nineteenth century (Cronon, 1991). Building space is plentiful. Natural resources are plentiful. Capital, infrastructure, and manpower are not. Boosters argue for its “natural advantages” and promise that one day a mighty settlement will rise there. Speculative development is proceeding rapidly and unevenly. But right now the settlers seem a little eccentric and the humble structures they have erected lack the scale and elegance of those in better developed regions. Development is uneven and streets fail to connect. The native inhabitants have their ideas about how things should be done, which sometimes...
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