Basiswissen

Fußnoten

• [1] Alan Turing: Computing Machinery and Intelligence. In: Mind. October 1950.
  

• [2] Allan G. Bromley: Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, 1838, Annals of the History of Computing, Band 4, Nr. 3, 1982, S. 215
  

• [3] Mögliche Anwendungen, zum Beispiel lineare Gleichungssysteme: "There would remain much work, tabular and other, for which differences are not very directly suited. Among these may be mentioned the determination of heavy series of constants and of definite functions of them, such as Bernoulli's numbers, Σx−n, coefficients of various expansions of functions, and inversions of known expansions, solutions of simultaneous equations with large numerical coefficients and many variables, including, as a particular, but important case, the practical correction of observations by the method of least squares. If all sorts of heavy work of this kind could be easily and quickly, as well as certainly, done, by merely selecting or punching a few Jacquard cards and turning a handle, not only much saving of labour would result, but much which is now out of human possibility would be brought within easy reach. " In: The Analytical Engine. Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor Cayley, Dr. Farr, Mr. J. W. L. Glaisher, Dr. Pole, Professor Fuller, Professor A. B. W. Kennedy, Professor Clifford, and Mr. C. W. Merrifield, appointed to consider the advisability and to estimate the expense of constructing Mr. Babbage's Analytical Machine, and of printing Tables by its means. Drawn up by Mr. Merrifield. 1878. Online: https://server.fourmilab.ch/babbage/baas.html
  

• [4] Der Analytical engine war digital konzipiert: "The application of arithmetic to calculating machines differs from ordinary clockwork, and from geometrical construction, in that it is essentially discontinuous. In common clockwork, if two wheels are geared together so as to have a velocity ratio of 10 to 1 (say), when the faster wheel moves through the space of one tooth, the angular space moved through by the slower wheels is one tenth of a tooth. Now in a calculating machine, which is to work with actual figures and to print them, this is exactly what we don't want. We require the second wheel not to move at all until it has to make a complete step, and then we require that step to be taken all at once. The time can be very easily read from the hands of a clock, and so can the gas consumption from an ordinary counter; but a moment's reflection will show what a mess any such machinery would make of an attempt at printing. This necessity of jumping discontinuously from one figure to another is the fundamental distinction between calculating and numbering machines on the one hand, and millwork or clockwork on the other. A parallel distinction is found in pure mathematics, between the theory of numbers on the one hand, and the doctrine of continuous variation, of which the Differential Calculus is the type, on the other." In: The Analytical Engine. Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor Cayley, Dr. Farr, Mr. J. W. L. Glaisher, Dr. Pole, Professor Fuller, Professor A. B. W. Kennedy, Professor Clifford, and Mr. C. W. Merrifield, appointed to consider the advisability and to estimate the expense of constructing Mr. Babbage's Analytical Machine, and of printing Tables by its means. Drawn up by Mr. Merrifield. 1878. Online: https://server.fourmilab.ch/babbage/baas.html
  

Siehe auch