Comments on: Electric “Brain” Weighs Three Tons

By: penny

penny — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:06:38 +0000

At least they understood the CONCEPT of a mathematical trajectory computed from differential equations!!! We still had good high schools in America back then.
Could you imagine that in Star Trek?

” Mr Sulu, a course to Starbase 11 365 mark 3.”
“Sulu, what is he talking about? I will compute the usual maximizing geodesic in our 11 dimensional
warped product Lorentzian Hypermanifold.”
“Aye, Aye Sir”.
–Penny

By: penny

penny — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:01:43 +0000

Dear J,
Thanks. I will look.
It is not good movie-writing, because later, when they change the launch window, the celestial mechanics expert is shown recomputing the trajectory using a SLIDE RULE.
” Give him a cup of hot coffee and all the assistance that he can use.”

Always happy to see DA in another movie!

By: Firebrand38

Firebrand38 — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:49:40 +0000

Widely believed but a bit more involved than that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....#Etymology

By: avidre

avidre — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:35:00 +0000

It is my understanding that a moth in one of the relays of a Navy gun computer caused a failure… thereby originating the use of the term “bug”.

By: jayessell

jayessell — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 04:01:53 +0000

Penny
I have the “Destination Moon” DVD and a (if not THE) DA appears early in chapter 4 at 19:44 to 19:47.
I doubt if the soundman used the actual sound and used Yatzee dice in a cup instead.

By: penny

penny — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 00:52:44 +0000

Bush was traveling in England, and Norbert Wiener suggested the idea to him–as an MIT project. He then tested the idea by going to a toy store and buying a Meccano Set.
That anyone could build a test D.A. from a toy
construction kit blew my mind.
Penny

Later MIT build the one shown in the article.

Bush and Norbert were the people who made MIT a great place. Norbert was a great mathematician who was not above dealing with engineers in a period when this was quite infradig. Another example of the same thing was Charles Proteus Steimetz, but
Wiener was a much greater mathematician.

By: penny

penny — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 00:48:40 +0000

Jmynt,
Would that local uni be UCLA–where I could have had mine in 1978-79?
Penny

It was being thrown out at the bottom floor junkpile of the Engineering building–where I was a Hedrick math prof–and I was astonished to see it.
It was like meeting an old friend, as I had built a small scale version earlier–after reading the SA article, and I had seen those movies.

By: penny

penny — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 00:44:54 +0000

An electronic differential integrator is easy to make with op amps, and heathkit used to sell one–which I owned.
It was a lot of fun.
Penny

By: penny

penny — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 00:43:22 +0000

I used to have the instruction manual for DA, and I could have had the thing itself at one point. But, I was 23 and foolish and didn’t do that.
Anyway, it is not in Destination Moon, but in
“When Worlds Collide”. In that movie it plays itself.
In “Earth vs the Flying Saucers” it plays a translation machine.
Penny

To build something like it, one should look in the
Amateur Scientist column of Scientific American–now available on CD. One needs to make a “force amplifier”.
Bush’s original was made from a British Meccano Set, by the way. He was a true mechanical genius.

By: Stannous

Stannous — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:20:30 +0000

“Computing Machine Can Run Rings Around Einstein in Solving Mathematical Kinks”

Albert was notoriously bad at advanced math but knew it and always sought mathematicians’ help it finding the proofs he needed.

By: Firebrand38

Firebrand38 — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:06:38 +0000

jmyint
Good catch! I should have referenced those movies myself (I’m a Pal fan from way back).

Here is a website that has animated pictures of a differential analyzer in action. http://web.mit.edu/klund/www/analyzer/

By: metageek

metageek — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:25:42 +0000

“an answer not always guaranteed mathemically exact, but at least good enough for practical purposes.”

Sounds like a Pentium predecessor for sure. Neat.

By: jmyint

jmyint — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:03:15 +0000

I have always had a warm spot in my heart for the DA. They competed with computers up until the early 60’s for cost and reliability. One of our local universities still had a working one in the early 70’s. If’n you would like to see one work I suggest the George Pal movies ‘Destination Moon’ and ‘When Worlds Collide’.

By: Firebrand38

Firebrand38 — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 13:35:53 +0000

And it worked by turning gears. It was about ten years later that the electronic ENIAC was built.