History of computer science
Early Computation The abacus “ the first automatic computer” is the earliest known tool of computing It was thought to have been invented in Babylon circa 2400 BCE The abacus generally features table or tablet with beaded strings The abacus is still in use today in China and Japan It was only very recently (the 1990’s) that the availability and sophistication of the hand-held calculator supplanted the abacus In 1115 BCE the Chinese invented the South Pointing Chariot a device which was the first to use the differential gear which is believed to have given rise to the firat analog computers
Early computation
Analog Computers
Analog computers are a form of computer that use electrical mechanical or hydraulic means to model the problem being solved (simulation)
Analog computers are believed to have been first developed by the Greeks with the Antikythera mechanism which was used for astronomy and it was discovered 1991
Analog computers are not like today’s computers so modern computers are digital in nature and are immensely more sophisticated
There are still analog computers in use such as the ones for research at the Univrsity of Indiana and the Harvard Robotics Laboratory
History of Algorithms Algorithms are derived from algebra which was developed in the seventh century by an Indian mathematician Brahmagupta He introduced zero as a place holder and decimal digits In 825 a Persian mathematician Al-Kwarizmi wrote on the calculation with Hindu Numerals This book helped the diffusion of Hindu-Arabic numerals into Europe In the 12th century the book was translated into Latin Algoritmi de Numero Indorum and with the new processes of problem solving came the informant of hce oncealgopt of an rithm It today’s computers it is algorithms in essence that runs the system and computation Programs are the manifestation of algorithms in machine language
The development of Binary logic As in the case of algorithms computers rely on something else that originated in ancient times-binary logic The binary system was invented by the Indian mathematician Pingala in the 3th century BCE In this system any number can represented with just zeroes and ones It was not until the 1700’s however that binary logic was formally developed from the binary system by german Mathematician Gottfried Leibniz More than a century later George Boole refined the process in his publication of Boolean Algebra
Charles Babbage Founders of Mo VITAL STATISTICS Charles Babbage (1791-1871) was born in Walworth, Surrey, on December 26, 1791. He was one of four children born to the banker Benjamin Babbage and Elizabeth Teape. He attended Trinity, Cambridge, in 1810 to study mathematics, graduated without honors from Peterhouse in 1814 and received an MA in 1817. In 1814 he married Georgiana Whitmore with whom he had eight children, only three of whom lived to adulthood. The couple made their home in London off Portland Place in 1815. His wife, father, and two of his children died in 1827. In 1828 Babbage moved to 1 Dorset Street, Marylebone, which remained his home till his death in 1871. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1816 and occupied the Lucasian chair of mathematics at Cambridge University from 1828 to 1839. He died on October 18, 1871 and
The ‘IRASCIBLE GENIUS’ Diplomacy was not Babbage’s forte and his social and professional personas were at war. Proud and principled, he was capable of incontinent savagery in his public attacks on the scientific establishment, often beyond ordinary sensibility. He offended many whose support he needed behaving sometimes as though being right entitled him to be rude. The title of the first biography on his life was called ‘Irascible Genius: A Life of Charles Babbage, Inventor’. The twin characteristics of irascibility and genius remain the defining signatures of his historical portrait.
and Ada Lovelace odern Computing
English mathematician Ada Lovelace, the daughter of poet Lord Byron, has been called “the first computer programmer” for writing an algorithm for a computing machine in the mid-1800s.
Early Years Ada Lovelace, born as Augusta Ada Byron on December 10, 1815, was the only legitimate child of the famous poet Lord George Gordon Byron. Lord Byron’s marriage to Lovelace’s mother, Lady Anne Isabella Milbanke Byron, was not a happy one. Lady Byron separated from her husband only weeks after their daughter was born. A few months later, Lord Byron left England, and Lovelace never saw her father again. He died in Greece when Ada was 8 years old. Lovelace had an unusual upbringing for an aristocratic girl in the mid1800s. At her mother’s insistence, tutors taught her mathematics and science. Such challenging subjects were not standard fare for women at the time, but her mother believed that engaging in rigorous studies would prevent Lovelace from developing her father’s moody and unpredictable temperament. Lovelace was also forced to lie still for extended periods of time because her mother believed it would help her develop
Babbage and the Analytical Engine Around the age of 17, Ada met Charles Babbage, a mathematician and inventor. The pair became friends, and the much older Babbage served as a mentor to Lovelace. Through Babbage, Lovelace began studying advanced mathematics with University of London professor Augustus de Morgan. Lovelace was fascinated by Babbage’s ideas. Known as the father of the computer, he invented the difference engine, which was meant to perform mathematical calculations. Lovelace got a chance to look at the machine before it was finished, and was captivated by it. Babbage also created plans for another device known as the analytical engine, designed to handle more complex calculations.
Legacy Lovelace’s contributions to the field of computer science were not discovered until the 1950s. Her notes were reintroduced to the world by B.V. Bowden, who republished them in Faster Than Thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines in 1953. Since then, Ada has received many posthumous honors for her work. In 1980, the U.S. Department of Defense named a newly developed computer language “Ada,” after Lovelace.
Haifa Mohammad +966555997488 Hayyfa777@hotmail.com