Re: Babbage vs Turing

2018-12-22 Thread Brent Meeker 



On 12/22/2018 1:00 AM, Philip Thrift wrote:



On Saturday, December 22, 2018 at 2:35:27 AM UTC-6, Philip Thrift wrote:



On Saturday, December 22, 2018 at 1:13:48 AM UTC-6,
agrays...@gmail.com wrote:

What are the key differences between their contributions to
computer science? TIA, AG


A century apart:

1837 - Analytical Engine
1936 - Turing Machine

"[Charles Babbage's] Analytical Engine incorporated an arithmetic
logic unit, control flow in the form of conditional branching and
loops, and integrated memory, making it the first design for a
general-purpose computer that could be described in modern terms
as *Turing-complete.* In other words, the logical structure of the
Analytical Engine was essentially the same as that which has
dominated computer design in the electronic era."
[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine
 ]

Turing sort of picked up where Babbage left off 100 years before.

In retrospect, it is surprising that programming languages (which
also logicians seemed oblivious to as well as mathematicians) took
so long to originate.

- pt




Regarding programming, one shouldn't forget who was to be the "first 
programmer" for Babbage's AE.


*Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace
*

http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html

- pt


Babbage never completed any of his engines, but 
https://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/modernsequel/ .   I wonder if 
anyone will ever undertake to build his Analytical Engine?


Brent

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Re: Babbage vs Turing

2018-12-22 Thread Bruno Marchal 

> On 22 Dec 2018, at 10:00, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Saturday, December 22, 2018 at 2:35:27 AM UTC-6, Philip Thrift wrote:
> 
> 
> On Saturday, December 22, 2018 at 1:13:48 AM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com <> 
> wrote:
> What are the key differences between their contributions to computer science? 
> TIA, AG
> 
> A century apart:
> 
> 1837 - Analytical Engine
> 1936 - Turing Machine
> 
> "[Charles Babbage's] Analytical Engine incorporated an arithmetic logic unit, 
> control flow in the form of conditional branching and loops, and integrated 
> memory, making it the first design for a general-purpose computer that could 
> be described in modern terms as Turing-complete. In other words, the logical 
> structure of the Analytical Engine was essentially the same as that which has 
> dominated computer design in the electronic era."
> [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine 
>  ]
> 
> Turing sort of picked up where Babbage left off 100 years before.
> 
> In retrospect, it is surprising that programming languages (which also 
> logicians seemed oblivious to as well as mathematicians) took so long to 
> originate.
> 
> - pt
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Regarding programming, one shouldn't forget who was to be the "first 
> programmer" for Babbage's AE.
> 
> Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace
> 
> http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html 



>From a text by Jacques Lafitte from 1911, Babbage would have Been more proud 
>of its functional language that he invented to describe the plan of its “gear 
>machine”, which makes me think that he discovered the concept of “universal 
>machinery/universal machine”.

The first to discover the universal machine explicitly is, to my knowledge 
Emile Post, and it includes hs understanding that “Church’s thesis”, is a form 
of empirical laws, to be tested infinitely often.
Post anticipated the Lucas-Penrose argument, but also saw the machine response 
and understood the non validity of such type of arguments. Post anticipated up 
to the immaterialist consequence of Mechanism, but makes it appear in the 
subject, probably influenced by Brouwer, so he was not so sure, and change its 
mind after reading Turing (and coming back to a form of dualism).

To sum up Babbage discovery the universal purpose machine, and almost build it, 
but the notion is rediscovered by the mathematicians when working on the 
conceptual problem in the foundations of mathematics. (Gödel’s discover the 
primitive recursive functions, a large subclass of thetotal computable 
functions, but Turing will make precise the notion of universal machine, a set 
of quadruplets mime-icking all set of quadruplets through their descriptions as 
numbers. Post, Kleene will do the equivalent work for the enumerable sets and 
leads to Recursion Theory and the studies of the degrees of unsolvability of 
the arithmetical problems. The war will motivate the buildings of such non 
universal, at first, but quickly universal machines: the computers (physical 
implementation of universal machine).

Ada Lovelace can be considered as the “inventor of subroutine” and even as the 
first programmer, but some clock-bass machinery already occurred in the Antic 
world, and were quite sophisticated.

Suze in Germany, von Neumann, others will be the first computers, then Steve 
Jobs, thanks to the quantum based discovery of the transistors and their 
miniaturisation. 


Bruno





> 
> - pt
> 
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Re: Babbage vs Turing

2018-12-22 Thread Philip Thrift 


On Saturday, December 22, 2018 at 2:35:27 AM UTC-6, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
>
> On Saturday, December 22, 2018 at 1:13:48 AM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
> wrote:
>>
>> What are the key differences between their contributions to computer 
>> science? TIA, AG
>>
>
> A century apart:
>
> 1837 - Analytical Engine
> 1936 - Turing Machine
>
> "[Charles Babbage's] Analytical Engine incorporated an arithmetic logic 
> unit, control flow in the form of conditional branching and loops, and 
> integrated memory, making it the first design for a general-purpose 
> computer that could be described in modern terms as *Turing-complete.* In 
> other words, the logical structure of the Analytical Engine was essentially 
> the same as that which has dominated computer design in the electronic era."
> [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine ]
>
> Turing sort of picked up where Babbage left off 100 years before.
>
> In retrospect, it is surprising that programming languages (which also 
> logicians seemed oblivious to as well as mathematicians) took so long to 
> originate.
>
> - pt
>
>
>
>
Regarding programming, one shouldn't forget who was to be the "first 
programmer" for Babbage's AE.


*Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace*

http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html 

- pt

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Re: Babbage vs Turing

2018-12-22 Thread Philip Thrift 


On Saturday, December 22, 2018 at 1:13:48 AM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
wrote:
>
> What are the key differences between their contributions to computer 
> science? TIA, AG
>

A century apart:

1837 - Analytical Engine
1936 - Turing Machine

"[Charles Babbage's] Analytical Engine incorporated an arithmetic logic 
unit, control flow in the form of conditional branching and loops, and 
integrated memory, making it the first design for a general-purpose 
computer that could be described in modern terms as *Turing-complete.* In 
other words, the logical structure of the Analytical Engine was essentially 
the same as that which has dominated computer design in the electronic era."
[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine ]

Turing sort of picked up where Babbage left off 100 years before.

In retrospect, it is surprising that programming languages (which also 
logicians seemed oblivious to as well as mathematicians) took so long to 
originate.

- pt



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Re: Babbage vs Turing

2018-12-21 Thread Brent Meeker 
 Turing's big contribution to CS (although he also built working 
machines) was to define an abstract machine that emulated how a person 
might calculate and use it to prove things about what was mathematically 
possible to compute.


Babbage designed and tried to build a practical, programmable computer 
that would both calculate and set type for ephemeris tables used for 
celestial navigation.   Babbage knew that major source of errors in 
printed tables were typesetting errors. So he designed his machine to 
press numbers into wet paper so that lead could be poured directly into 
the impressions and make type automatically, thus eliminating the 
typesetting error.  Sadly, it was mechanically a bridge to far.


Brent

On 12/21/2018 11:13 PM, agrayson2...@gmail.com wrote:
What are the key differences between their contributions to computer 
science? TIA, AG


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Babbage vs Turing

2018-12-21 Thread agrayson2000 
What are the key differences between their contributions to computer 
science? TIA, AG

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