Lecture 2.html (4489B)
1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 2 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> 3 <html><head><link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css"><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"/><meta name="exporter-version" content="Evernote Mac 7.9 (457563)"/><meta name="altitude" content="-0.9342213273048401"/><meta name="author" content="Alex Balgavy"/><meta name="created" content="2018-04-13 11:13:42 +0000"/><meta name="latitude" content="52.37361799068014"/><meta name="longitude" content="4.836345760416044"/><meta name="source" content="desktop.mac"/><meta name="updated" content="2018-05-30 15:28:40 +0000"/><title>Lecture 2</title></head><body><div>After WW2, people started putting faith in machines that didn’t work, and they made them work.</div><div>The need for scientific calculations exploded.</div><div><br/></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cold war science</span></div><div>In the US:</div><ul><li><div>During WW2, Manhattan project was successful in new nuclear/medical applications that could develop further after the war</div></li><li><div>worldwide computer power dick measuring contest — who has the bigger, more powerful computer?</div></li><ul><li><div>Vannevar Bush was aware and started with the ENIAC during the war, but it wasn’t done till like 1945</div></li></ul><li><div>hand-in-hand with space race — NASA</div></li><li><div>another measuring contest — Atomic power</div></li></ul><div><br/></div><div>Continental EU:</div><ul><li><div>mood was a mix of fatalism and optimism, scientists felt like science could offer a lot</div></li><ul><li><div>in late 1940s — rebuilding the nation and economy (Marshall plan)</div></li><li><div>Mathematisch Centrum (1946) would help to rebuild the Netherlands</div></li></ul><li><div>people started realising that computers really <span style="font-style: italic;">are </span>important</div></li><ul><li><div>Hans Freudenthal — "Rekenmachines winnen den oorlog”</div></li><li><div>JJSS — “Le Defi Americain” (The American Challenge)</div></li><li><div>needed for stuff like aeronautical calculations, code breaking (Bletchley Park), radar</div></li></ul></ul><div><br/></div><div>Dinosaurs (some of the first computers)</div><ul><li><div>US</div></li><ul><li><div>“Manchester Baby” in Manchester, 1948</div></li><li><div>“EDSAC” in Cambridge, 1949, Maurice Wilkes</div></li></ul><li><div>EU</div></li><ul><li><div>in the EU, none of the computer innovations originated in the administrative tradition, it was all scientific</div></li><li><div>Amsterdam</div></li><ul><li><div>mostly Mathematisch Centrum: Aad van Wijngaarden, Jan van der Corput</div></li><li><div>ARRA (1952), ARRA II (1954), ARMAC (1956), Electrologica X1</div></li></ul></ul><ul><li><div>Delft</div></li><ul><li><div>Willem van der Poel — built ARCO/Testudo</div></li><li><div>others were ZERO, PTERA, ZEBRA, STANTEC</div></li></ul><li><div>Eindhoven</div></li><ul><li><div>Wim Nijenhuis built PETER for acoustic measurement, to improve music industry</div></li><li><div>following were NATLAB, PASCAL, STEVIN</div></li></ul></ul><li><div>all of these used components like relays, vacuum tubes, etc. they were often unreliable, and had poorly soldered connections.</div></li></ul><div><br/></div><div>For the public — this was the Golden Age of Science Fiction!</div><ul><li><div>most people never actually saw a computer, yet were still putting money in</div></li><li><div>the ideas had to be sold to the public, otherwise they’d protest</div></li><li><div>Dystopian literature in Europe</div></li><li><div>themes were totalitarianism, nationalism, surveillance, censorship</div></li><li><div>Examples:</div></li><ul><li><div>Literature:</div></li><ul><li><div>Isaac Asimov — "I, Robot”, “Foundation”</div></li><li><div>Aldous Huxley — "Brave New World"</div></li><li><div>George Orwell — “1984" (this was huuuge and still is)</div></li><li><div>Robert Heinlein — "Starship Troopers", "Stranger in a Strange Land"</div></li><li><div>Arthur C. Clarke — “Interplanetary Flight”, “Childhood’s End”, “Rama”, “2001"</div></li><li><div>Philip K. Dick — “What makes us human?”</div></li></ul><li><div>Films:</div></li><ul><li><div>Metropolis</div></li><li><div>Desk Set (1957)</div></li><li><div>Forbidden Planet (1956)</div></li></ul></ul></ul><div><br/></div></body></html>