Babbage Logic

BABBAGE (Charles): On A Method of Expressing by Signs the Action of Machinery,

First Edition, extracted from The Proceedings of the Royal Society, volume 116, pp.250-65, quarto, modern paper boards with label on front cover, with the 4 large engraved plates illustrating mechanical notation, an excellent copy, London, The Royal Society, 1826. Photograph available on request. Van Sinderen 27. Origins of Cyberspace 37. First journal edition, preceded only by the rare offprint, of which probably only 50 copies were printed. This was Babbage's first formulation and explanation of his mechanical notation system, which was fundamental to all design work on his Difference Engine and Analytical Engine. "While making designs for the Difference Engine, Babbage found great difficulty in ascertaining from ordinary drawings - plans and elevations - the state of rest or motion of individual parts as computation proceeded: that is to say in following in detail succeeding stages of a machine's action. This led him to develop a mechanical notation which provided a systematic method for labelling parts of a machine, classifying each part as fixed or moveable; a formal method for indicating the relative motions of the several parts which was easy to follow; and means for relating notations and drawings so that they might illustrate and explain each other. As the calculating engines developed, the notation became a powerful but complex formal tool . . . the most powerful formal method for describing switching systems until Boolean algebra was applied to the problem in the middle of the twentieth century" (Hyman 58).Thus this crucial paper publishes, for the first time, Babbage's system of mechanical notation which enabled him to describe the logic and operation of his machines on paper as they would be fabricated in metal. Babbage later stated that "Without the aid of this language I could not have invented the Analytical Engine; nor do I believe that any machinery of equal complexity can ever be contrived without the assistance of that or of some other equivalent language. The Difference Engine No. 2 ... is entirely described by its aid" (Babbage 1864, 104).Thus here Babbage demonstrated for the first time his new mechanical notation system, a system which would be essential for all the design work for his famous Difference Engine, the first machine to mechanically perform mathematical calculations, and his later Analytical Engine. Babbage's system, when combined with the discoveries in logic by Boole (1847 and 1854) and the application to modern circuitry by Claude Shannon (1938), became an essential developmental step in the conception of the modern computer.Babbage considered his mechanical notation system to be one of his finest inventions, and thought it should be widely implemented. It was a source of frustration to him that no other machine designer adopted it (probably because no other engineer during Babbage's time attempted to build machines as logically and mechanically complex as Babbage's). More than one hundred years later, in the 1930s, when developments in logic were applied to switching systems Claude Shannon demonstrated in his famous master's thesis that Boolean algebra could be applied to the same types of problems for which Babbage had designed his mechanical notation system.With its four plates, this paper was also one of the most extensively illustrated that Babbage published.

[SW: computer science mathematics antiquarian]

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BOOLE (George): An Investigation of the Laws of Thought: on which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities,

First Edition, probable third issue, iv, errata leaf, 424pp, tall royal octavo, original publisher's green pebble grained cloth, blind ruled on boards, gilt lettered, spine extremities neatly restored and with new endpapers, a very good copy, London, Macmillan, 1854. PHOTOGRAPHS AVAILABLE ON REQUEST. "Boole invented the first practical system of logic in algebraic form, which enabled more advances in logic to be made in the decades of the nineteenth century than in the twenty-two centuries preceding. Boole's work led to the creation of set theory and probability theory in mathematics, to the philosophical work of Peirce, Russell, Whitehead and Wittgenstein, and to computer technology via the master's thesis of C. E. Shannon (1937), who recognized that the true/false values in Boole's two-valued algebra were analgous to the open and closed states of electric circuits. Since Boole showed that logics can be reduced to very simple algebraic systems - known today as Boolean Algebras - it was possible for Babbage and his sucessors to design organs for a computer that could perform the necessary logical tasks. Thus our debt to this simple, quiet man, george Boole, is extraordinarily great." "This invention of the binary digit or "bit" made possible the development of the digital computer" (Norman). Today nearly everyone who uses a computer is familiar with Boolean Logic but the book that launched the theory is scarce. Norman 266; Origins of Cyberspace 224.

[SW: antiquarian mathematics computer logic science]

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Goldstine (Herman H.): The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann, Princeton University Press 1980
Contents, Chapitres : Preface, Contents, x, Text, 378 pages - 1. The historical background up to World War II : Beginnings - Charles Babbage and its analytical engine - The astronomical ephemeris - The universities : Maxwell and Boole - Integrators and planimeters - Michelson, Fourier coefficients, and the Gibbs phenomenon - Boolean algebra : x² = xx = x - Billings, Hollerith and the census - Ballistics and the rise of the great mathematicians - Bush's differential analyzer and other analog devices - Adaptation to scientific needs - Renascence and triumph of digital means of computation - 2. Wartime developments : ENIAC and EDVAC : Electronic efforts prior to the ENIAC - The Ballistic Research Laboratory - Differences between analog and digital machines - Beginnings of the ENIAC - The ENIAC as a mathematical instrument - John von Neumann and the computer - Beyond the ENIAC - The structure of the EDVAC - The spread of ideas - First calculations on the ENIAC - 3. Post-World War II : The von Neumann machine and the Institute for Advanced Study : Post-Edvac days - The Institute for Advanced Study computer - Automata theory and logic machines - Numerical mathematics - Numerical meteorology - Engineering activities and achievements - The computer and UNESCO - The early industrial scene - Programming languages - Conclusions - Appendix : World-wide developments - Index - nb : Histoire de l'ordinateur de Pascal a von Neumann fine copy, no markings

14 illustrations on plates out-of-text 1st edition was 1972 Book Condition, Etat : Tres Bon paperback , illustrated wrappers grand In-8 1 vol. - 388 pages Ferce sur Sarthe, France

[SW: Informatique]

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George A. Miller: The Psychology of Communication - Seven Essays, Penguin 1976 1976 ISBN: 0140211411

Paperback | A Format (7" x 4½"). 192pp. Index. Bibliography. | In the Pelican series. [ From the cover: "George Miller (who is Co-director of the Centre for Cognitive Studies at Harvard and whose book, Psychology: The Science of Mental Life, has already been published in Pelicans) discusses, in these seven essays, information and memory; the limits to the human capacity for processing information; psychical research; psycholinguistics; computers and cognition; and, finally, his own intellectual hobby, Project Grammarama, an attempt to investigate how people learn the grammatical rules underlying artificial languages. Amused and amusing in expression, these essays are united by a concern for problems at the intersection of scientific psychology and communication theory." ] C O N D I T I O N : Good. A pleasant enough reading copy. Notably rubbed at the outside edges of the cover and spine. Pages lightly age-tanned. Slightly fragile with age now.

[SW: psycholatry intensities bottlenecks ensionality constituent compression grammar-ama probability correlation abstraction subroutines measurement cathode-ray pythagorean restrictive gram-marama linguistics recognition operational all-or-none grammatical information mathematics mediumistic apparitions acquisition conditioned experiments symbolizing cybernetics distinctive educational engineering transmitted co-variance inclination verstehende distinction association development tukasiewicz paranormal nerceptual correlates scientific technology redundancy ebbinghaus philosophy productive perceptual permissive restricted laboratory universals asynchrony linguistic successive shortening linguarama strategies mongoloids wertheimer operations consonants swedenborg calculator concerning psychiatry perception grammarama generative acceptance experiment solomonoff generation definition occurrence subitizing university conversion stammering amplitudes psychology production electrical conception artificial rubenstein judgements automation economics imitation syllables rehearsal political deductive morphemes institute descartes reduction permanent voltmeter frequency computers bousfield sentences structure redundant decisions harmonics telephone recursive bandwidth listening reasoning inductive semantics criterion automatic attention voice-ear psychical lenneberg relations direction languages saltiness believing phonetics epicycles schneider saltmarsh vespasian behaviour cognitive sweetness curvature responses premature finishing reception movements processes selection receivers isolation ptolemaic immediate rewriting phenomena phonology variables judgement staniland anarthria inability shipstone phantasms telepathy cognition receding patterns variance capacity children software teaching encoding research external position response sematics transfer abstract hamilton terminal stanford geometry stimulus guessing features loudness fidelity sequence cedanken randomly mnemonic alphabet absolute estimate phonemes embedded auditory semantic symbolic approach deletion matching learning acoustic strategy grammars language relative punching crutches plateaux lectures notation thinking economic newspeak nasality nonsense between methods writing genetic digital copying decimal dilthey voicing brogden vocoder channel eastern colours sharing illicit drayton fallacy command goodnow bregman pattern theorem jaspers grammar lexicon project machine pollack logical process letters science context signals library parsing ability objects reading devices holyoke college aphasia neumann masking animals perrott saporta problem strings society hearing shannon systems studies haunted insight babbage regular meaning clauses infants cabinet length lights memory visual theory letter digits austin square binary belief filing coding bruner adding laymen census borges impact garner jevons german phrase graves gurney chosen halsey markov school center flying polish houses invent report prefix speech huxley amount chunks method random jacobs system formal coonan cyclic dreams wolfle dwarfs warren wilmot pearce medium marama vowels verbal tyrell gallup signal suppes syntax string newman finite turing recall caused ihrase irwin force alien plato pratt study proof wff'n angle pitch vandy lines mazes sumby ratio no-it radar pairs taste stein locke tones truth reiss reese reber recur broad halle binet jorge polls brain human frick brave rules voice among brown frayn logic state picks essay esper cohen homer world curve paget octal myers mount motor words items hayes lodge tests legal phase kulpe isard jaian hogan bacon noise bayes aborn istic babel]

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