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→history of computer science: new section
I have read and also heard lectures that often times that technological advances are more often achieved incrementally in a particular area of technology rather than done in quantum leaps.[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHZdD3WtCHM]. If memory serves, and it may not, the historian Fernand Braudel took this view.[http://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Material-1400-1800-Fernand-Braudel/dp/0060104546][http://www.amazon.com/Civilization-Capitalism-15th-18th-Century-Vol/dp/0520081145] [[User:Conservative|conservative]] 11:36, 29 November 2009 (EST)
I have read and also heard lectures that often times that technological advances are more often achieved incrementally in a particular area of technology rather than done in quantum leaps.[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHZdD3WtCHM]. If memory serves, and it may not, the historian Fernand Braudel took this view.[http://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Material-1400-1800-Fernand-Braudel/dp/0060104546][http://www.amazon.com/Civilization-Capitalism-15th-18th-Century-Vol/dp/0520081145] [[User:Conservative|conservative]] 11:36, 29 November 2009 (EST)
== history of computer science ==
The history of computers and computer science is quite complicated. First, one must draw a distinction between computer ''science'' and the invention of computers themselves. Computer science is a rather theoretical and mathematical discipline, and Alan Turing can probably rightly be called its father. He invented the "Turing machine", which is an abstract thing, in order to prove the theorems that are the basis of what people study. By the way, calling a Turing machine "useful" in any sense is rather questionable. No one builds them. Talking about their lack of limitations in power consumption etc. is, well, just wrong. The ''theory'' of Turing machines is useful for understanding the problems of computability. And the "halting problem". But it comes down to finite-state vs. infinite state, and all those things that people study in grad school.
As far as the invention of the computer itself, I'd say it started with a fascination with clocks and mechanical things that show phases of the moon etc. Much of this was in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, but there's an article in the current Scientific American about such a thing being invented in ancient Greece. This may have led to a fascination with things that calculate mechanically, such as the calculators that Pascal and Leibniz invented. And don't forget the abacus, of course.
This fascination with mechanical things that do complex "information processing" operations led to the Jacquard loom (around 1800), which wove complex tapestries under the direction of information on -- you guessed it -- punched cards! Charles Babbage is credited with designing a mechanical computer for the purpose of doing general calculations, as opposed to weaving patterns. His first machine, finished in 1991, calculated trig tables. His "analytical engine" would have been a real computer, able to make decisions and branches under control of the data. It was way too ambitious to build, the Ada Augusta wrote a program for it.
Real computing needed to be done electronically; mechanical things were way too slow, though Babbage is certainly to be recognized for his pioneering work. Early electronic circuits were invented by DeForest (vacuum tube), and Eccles and Jordan (the flip-flop), and perhaps the first real electronic computer was invented by John Atanasoff in the 1930's. Many other computers followed, with contributions by Eckert, Mauchly, Zuse, Aiken, Wilkes, and many others. John Von Neumann came up with the extremely important idea that the instructions are taken from the same memory as the data. This places him in both the practical and theoretical camps.
[[User:SaraT|SaraT]] 00:08, 2 December 2009 (EST)