I
t seems like sometimes people collect the strangest things. Even official museums have been devoted to collections of everything from toilets to dog collars. Anyway, in context, going to the Arithmeum today with its thousands of calculating machines wasn't really all that extreme. For being an exhibition of calculators from abaci to microchip processors, it was actually really fascinating! Normally I don't even try to understand how machines work- I'm not one of those mechanically inclined people. However, some of the devices were amazingly intricate and works of art themselves. It's incredible to me that inventors like Pascal and Leibniz were able to connect the concepts of mathematics, which seem so abstract and intangible, with physical mechanics and constructs.
I've heard people say that the perfect machine will be one that does what we want it to, not actually what we tell it to. Basically, operator error counts for a lot of the frustration involved in working with computational devices. However, some of these calculator
s had pretty convoluted instructions as far as setting up the numbers you wanted and being sure to crank and then clear all the gears or levers or components of whatever system you were working with. I think I would actually make more mistakes using them than working it out on paper!
There were also some really old copies of the earliest math textbooks, including several hand-copied versions. It's funny to see ideas from Descartes recorded back when he was more-or-less a contemporary, and not just a mathematician who lived almost half a millennium ago. Anyway, that's all for this week. (Less than twenty-four hours until the flight to Spain!!!)
t seems like sometimes people collect the strangest things. Even official museums have been devoted to collections of everything from toilets to dog collars. Anyway, in context, going to the Arithmeum today with its thousands of calculating machines wasn't really all that extreme. For being an exhibition of calculators from abaci to microchip processors, it was actually really fascinating! Normally I don't even try to understand how machines work- I'm not one of those mechanically inclined people. However, some of the devices were amazingly intricate and works of art themselves. It's incredible to me that inventors like Pascal and Leibniz were able to connect the concepts of mathematics, which seem so abstract and intangible, with physical mechanics and constructs.I've heard people say that the perfect machine will be one that does what we want it to, not actually what we tell it to. Basically, operator error counts for a lot of the frustration involved in working with computational devices. However, some of these calculator
s had pretty convoluted instructions as far as setting up the numbers you wanted and being sure to crank and then clear all the gears or levers or components of whatever system you were working with. I think I would actually make more mistakes using them than working it out on paper!There were also some really old copies of the earliest math textbooks, including several hand-copied versions. It's funny to see ideas from Descartes recorded back when he was more-or-less a contemporary, and not just a mathematician who lived almost half a millennium ago. Anyway, that's all for this week. (Less than twenty-four hours until the flight to Spain!!!)
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