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Riffing on an Algorithm
The estimable Thom Levenson author of the excellent Newton and the Counterfeiter, has a piece at The Inverse Square Blog on what he sees as the decline of the Atlantic Monthly; not a subject that would...
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Is the question ‘who invented the computer’ legitimate?
I have been known in the past, before I started blogging for myself, to take John Wilkins to task for claiming that Alan Turing is the father of the computer. My objection is that Turing is only one of...
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Z3 or not Z3 that is the question.
Anyone who reads this blog regularly is probably aware of the fact that the history of computing has more than a passing interest for me. I should add that the history of computing is for me not just...
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The Colossus is not a computer!
Having bashed the Americans yesterday for ignoring Konrad Zuse, I will take the opportunity today to bash the Germans, or more precisely Horst Zuse, Konrad’s son, and at the same time correct a...
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Weaving the computer age.
With this post I’m going to lose whatever reputation I might have with all the feminist and politically correct denizens of the blogahedron. Why, because I intend to explode one of the greatest myths...
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A Christmas Trinity II: Charlie, Ivor, Robert and me.
Charles Babbage, who was born on 26th December 17911, is famous as a pioneer in the history of the computer, a fame that is to some extent exaggerated as his work, although spectacular (his analytical...
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Ich bin a Gastblogger III: Drinking from the same well
I’m an alien I’m a legal alien I’m an Englishman in Nürnberg1 As an English historian of mathematics living in Germany another question that I have had put to me several times by those with somewhat...
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The Cult of St Alan of Bletchley Park
I realise that to rail against anything published in the Daily Fail is about as effective as pissing against the wind in a force 8 gale but this article on Alan Turing got so up my nose that I have...
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Christmas Trilogy 2012 Part II: Charles and Ada: A tale of genius or of...
This year Ada Lovelace Day, a celebration of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fuelled by the Finding Ada website and twitter account took off big time. Now I have...
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5 Brilliant Mathematicians – 4 Crappy Commentaries
I still tend to call myself a historian of mathematics although my historical interests have long since expanded to include a much wider field of science and technology, in fact I have recently been...
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Sliding to mathematical fame.
William Oughtred born on the 5th March 1575, who Newton regarded along with Christopher Wren and John Wallis as one of the three best seventeenth-century English mathematicians, was the epitome of the...
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Oh please!
The latest move in the canonisation of Alan Turing is an opera, or whatever, written by the Pet Shop Boys, which is being heavily promoted by a PR campaign launched yesterday. As part of this press...
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Mega inanity
Since the lead up to the Turing centennial in 2012 celebrating the birth of one of the great meta-mathematicians of the twentieth century, Alan Mathison Turing, I have observed with increasing horror...
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The worst history of technology headline of the year?
The Guardian website produced a couple of articles to announce the publication of Sydney Padua’s graphic novel, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First...
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Creating a holy cow.
Whenever I think that the deification of Ada Lovelace can’t get anymore ridiculous somebody comes along and ups the ante. The latest idiocy was posted on Twitter by the comedian Stephen Fry (of whom...
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A double bicentennial – George contra Ada – Reality contra Perception
The end of this year sees a double English bicentennial in the history of computing. On 2 November we celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of mathematician and logician Georg Boole then...
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The worst history of technology headline of the year?
The Guardian website produced a couple of articles to announce the publication of Sydney Padua’s graphic novel, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Creating a holy cow.
Whenever I think that the deification of Ada Lovelace can’t get anymore ridiculous somebody comes along and ups the ante. The latest idiocy was posted on Twitter by the comedian Stephen Fry (of whom...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A double bicentennial – George contra Ada – Reality contra Perception
The end of this year sees a double English bicentennial in the history of computing. On 2 November we celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of mathematician and logician Georg Boole then...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The worst history of technology headline of the year?
The Guardian website produced a couple of articles to announce the publication of Sydney Padua’s graphic novel, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First...
View Article