This is the chapter about computers from a really cool text book called The World of Science, published by Golden Books in 1954.
You don’t often see people entering using a keypad with their middle finger…

THE ELECTRIC BRAINS

THE BRAIN AT REST

Along one wall of the room tall gray cabinets are ranged. They contain the “gray matter” of the electronic brain. From the front they look as blank as a face without a thought. But open the doors at the back and you will see thousands upon thousands of tiny electric circuits wired with pink, blue, green, and orange wires. Those are the “nerve cells” of the brain.

Along another wall in smaller cabinets the brain’s “slow memory” or reference library is stored. Its “fast memory” is on a magnetized drum or other device inside the machine.

A neat, desk-sized set-up in the center of the room is what we might call the brain’s “ear.” This is where it receives its instructions.

Machine Translates 1000 Words

MACHINES can do almost everything but actually think, and a mechanism recently devised by a French language teacher almost does that, for it can translate one thousand words of French into English and vice versa.

The mechanical translator employed in teaching conversational English to Paris police, is seen below. On it is written an English statement, and on the various panels appear questions about this statement. Pressing a button marked in both English and French flashes on the questions and their interpretation.

It’s a pity that prime number based encryption schemes were about 30 years away at this point. This thing could have been useful.

Electric Eye Solves Baffling Mathematical Problems

THROUGH the use of a photo-electric cell harnessed to complicated series of steel gears of different radii, Dr. Norman Lehmer, professor of Mathematics at the University of Southern California, has succeeded in solving certain problems that have baffled mathematicians for centuries.