Quote: Babbage's analytical engine can backup and advance the operation cards to any extent; can make judgments based on any number of conditions

Quotation

Prof. Mossotti (of Turin, friend of Menabrea whose memoir of these meetings Ada Lovelace translated)] remarked that he was now quite ready to admit the power of mechanism over numerical, and even over algebraical relations, to any extent. But he added that he had no conception how the machine could perform the act of judgment sometimes required during an analytical inquiry. [Babbage responded with an approximation algorithm for determining roots of an equation]. ... [p. 66] But here a difficulty arises: successive powers of ten are to be substituted for x in the equation, until a certain event happens. ... [p. 67] The passage through zero can be easily ascertained [by a carry from the highest position] ... [p. 67] The explanation of M. Mossotti's difficulty is this:--Mechanical means have been provided for backing or advancing the operation cards to any extent. ... Any number of courses may be possible at the same time; and the choice of each may depend upon any number of conditions.   Google-1   Google-2

Published before 1923

Additional Titles

Quote: Babbage's analytical engine detected overflow carries; used for determining events

Related Topics

Group: conditional control   (7 topics, 142 quotes)
Topic: history of computers (66 items)
Topic: events (44 items)
Topic: computer architecture (44 items)