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1853 Close-up of Babbage’s 19th-century early mechanical computer
Photo post: 1853 Close-up of Babbage’s difference engine, a 19th-century early mechanical computer. This was an earlier version of the analytic engine that Ada Lovelace from our previous posts programmed. Later versions of these massive machines were used to compute, among other things, error-free navigation tables. There is thus a clear line between early computers and our earlier photos on astrolabe, Gutenberg, printing, and the conquistadors. Inexpensive navigational tables were a killer app for the early printing presses. It is not coincidental that the voyages of discovery happened soon after the invention of inexpensive printing. Another chapter in the of story of data. Comments may link to a version of this post that originally appeared on our Instagram account. Instagram likes: (more…)… Read the restAugusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace
This is Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, today known simply as Ada Lovelace (Wikipedia). This is an 1838 portrait of her by Margaret Sarah Carpenter. Ada is a famous steampunk for a couple of reasons: the sole legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron. Lovelace was also an avid mathematician. For her work on the difference engine, an early mechanical computer in the 19th century, she is also commonly credited as the first computer programmer. The computer programming language Ada is named after her. Post and some comments below may be synced from our original Instagram version. Instagram likes: (more…)… Read the restmath pattern art: mathematical quilting & design
Mathematical quilting and math pattern art & design: shown here are 17th century Italian quilts made from mathematical patterns. Yesterday’s Hamming metric (or Hamming Error Correcting Code) quilt got us thinking. Turns out there is a branch of quilting making (or perhaps a branch of mathematics if you will), “mathematical quilting.” It looks to math — polynominals, Rule 90 cellular automatons, etc., for inspiration in quilt making and pattern art. Shown here is so called “Florentine work” because these popular quilt designs are based on mathematical patterns originally found on chairs in the Bargello Palace (today an art museum) in Florence Italy. These chairs date to at least the 17th century, if not earlier. There are many types of these quilts, which are typically very colorful. The quilting requires precise counting of squares so that the pattern art design conforms to the mathematical pattern chosen. So yesterday’s crazy quilt, in which math creates art, isn’t unique.… Read the restKardashev scale: information, energy and civilization
This illustration of a future Dyson Swarm in #space connects many of our past photos to Carl Sagan. 🙂 Suppose we could do one of the endless “I’m just Sagan” meme photos here, but we are trying to be original. 🙂 In our last photo blog post, we talked about information theorist Claude Shannon and the links between data science (or information) and energy gradients (or entropy or thermodynamics). In 1964 Soviet (Russian) astronomer Nikolai Kardashev proposed the Kardashev scale. A Type I civilization could harness terrestrial power equivalent to 1960s Earth, Type II civilization an entire star, and a Type III civilization the energy output of an entire galaxy. Kardashev was expanding on earlier work by Leslie White who attempted to use a similar system to classify ancient human civilizations (thus connecting this photo with our very first photo on the Singularity and math models of ancient human societies). Carl Sagan modified this scale to interpolate between the different values and created a decimal system.… Read the restRecent Comments
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