Quote: the cards for the Analytical Engine may contain errors; but once developed, they are valid for an infinite number of particular cases

Quotation

To this it may be replied, that an analyzing process must equally have been performed in order to furnish the Analytical Engine with the necessary operative data; ant that herein may also lie a possible source of error. Granted that the actual mechanism is unerring in its processes, the cards may give it wrong orders. ... In the case of the Analytical Engine we have undoubtedly to lay out a certain capital of analytical labour in one particular line; but this is in order that the engine may bring us in a much larger return in another line. It should be remembered also that the cards, when once made out for any formula, have all the generality of algebra, and include an infinite number of particular cases.   Google-1   Google-2

Published before 1922

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