Technology for Modelling: Electrical Analogies, Engineering Practice, and the Development of Analogue Computing (History of Computing)

✍ Scribed by Charles Care

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 219
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Historians have different views on the core identity of analogue computing. Some portray the technology solely as a precursor to digital computing, whereas others stress that analogue applications existed well after 1940. Even within contemporary sources, there is a spectrum of understanding around what constitutes analogue computing. To understand the relationship between analogue and digital computing, and what this means for users today, the history must consider how the technology is used. Technology for Modelling investigates the technologies, the concepts, and the applications of analogue computing. The text asserts that analogue computing must be thought of as not just a computing technology, but also as a modelling technology, demonstrating how the history of analogue computing can be understood in terms of the parallel themes of calculation and modelling. The book also includes a number of detailed case studies of the technology's use and application. Topics and features: discusses the meaning of analogue computing and its significance in history, and describes the main differences between analogue and digital computing; provides a chronology of analogue computing, based upon the two major strands of calculation and modeling; examines the wider relationship between computing and modelling, and discusses how the theme of modelling fits within the history of analogue computing; describes how the history of analogue computing evolved through a number of stages of use; presents illustrative case studies on analogue modelling in academic research, oil reservoir modelling, aeronautical design, and meteorology. General readers and researchers in the field of history of computing – as well as history of science more generally – will find this book a fascinating insight into the historical use and evolution of technology. The volume provides a long-needed historical framework and context for these core computing technologies. Dr. Charles Care is a senior software engineer at BT and an Associate Fellow at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Warwick, UK.

✦ Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
Acronyms
Modelling, Calculation and Analogy: The Themes of Analogue Computing
Introduction: Analogue Computers in the History of Computing
Analogue Computers: Another Class of Computing Technology
Analogue Computer: A Challenge to Define
Analogue Computing as Modelling Technology
Structure of This Book
Part I: Modelling, Calculation and Analogy: The Themes of Analogue Computing
Part II: Analogue Computing in Use: A Selection of Contexts
A Multi-Stranded Chronology of Analogue Computing
Two Meanings of Analogue: The Tension Between Analogy and Continuity
Towards a Chronology of Analogue Computing
First Thematic Time-Line-Mechanising the Calculus: The Story of Continuous Computing Technology
1814-1850: Towards the Mechanical Integrator: The Invention and Development of the Planimeter
Hermann, Gonnella, Oppikofer: The Various Inventors of the Planimeter
1850-1876: Maxwell, Thomson and Kelvin: The Emergence of the Integrator as a Computing Component
1870-1900: The Age of the Continuous Calculating Machine
1885: H.S. Hele-Shaw and H.P. Babbage: An Early Analogue-Digital Debate
1880-1920: The Integrator Becomes an Embedded Component Initiating Associations Between Control and Calculation
1884: Determining the Engine Speed of a Royal Navy Warship: The Blythswood Speed Indicator, an Example of an Embedded Integrator
1911: Integrators in Fire Control: Arthur Hungerford Pollen and the Royal Navy
1915: Technology Transfer: Elmer Sperry, Hannibal Ford and Fire Control in the US Navy
1920-1946: The Heyday' of Analogue Computing? 1931: Vannevar Bush and the Differential Analyser Second Thematic Time-Line-From Analogy to Computation: the Development of Electrical Modelling 1845-1920: The Development of Analogy Methods Tracing Field Lines, Field Analogies and Electrolytic Tanks Miniature Power Networks and Resistor-Capacitor Models 1920-1946: Pre-digital Analogue Modelling 1924: The Origins of the MIT Network Analyser 1932: Le Laboratoire des Analogies Electriques: Electrolytic Tanks in France 1935: George Philbrick and the Polyphemus: Development of Electronic Modelling at Foxboro 1942: William A. Bruce and the Modelling of Oil Reservoirs Third Thematic Time-Line-Analogue Computing and the Entwining of Calculation and Modelling 1940: The Emergence of Analogue Computing as a Technical Label and Class of Machine 1945-1960: The Development and Stabilisation of Computer Technology The Development of Electronic Differential Analysers Early Digital Computers as the Evolution of Analogue Architectures Analogue Techniques on Digital Hardware: The Digital Differential Analyser 1950-1965: The Commercialisation of the Analogue Computer, and the Invention of Hybrid Computing Conclusions Modelling Technology and the History of Analogue Computing Modelling: A Variety of Definitions and Associations Modelling as a Meta-Narrative for the History of Computing Support for Thinking of the Computer as a Modelling Medium Theoretical Support for a Modelling Perspective Historical Support for a Modelling Perspective Analogue Computing as a Technology of Modelling Conclusion Origins of Analogue: Conceptual Association and Entanglement The Establishment ofForward Analogy': Historical Influences from Electrical Theory
Modelling with Electricity: Early Use of a Reverse Analogy
Clifford Nickle and Vannevar Bush: Modelling with the Reverse Analogy
Establishing a Modelling Medium Based on the Reverse Analogy: The Work of Nickle and Doherty
Stabilising the Field: Bush's Classification Schemes and Their Enrolling Function
Positive Association with Computing and Computational Rhetoric
Formation of an Analogue User Culture
George Philbrick and Lightning Empiricism: An Exemplar of Analogue Culture
Simulation Culture and the Transition to Digital
Digital Languages for Simulating Analogue Computing
Dis-enrollment of Analogue Computing and the Redefinition of Analogue Culture
Conclusion
Analogue Computing in Use: A Selection of Contexts
Analogue Computers in British Higher Education
Calculation, Modelling, or Control: Three Different Uses, Three Different Histories
Analogue Research at Manchester: Networks, Tanks, and Hybrid Computing
Analogue Research at Imperial College: Networks and Tanks as Engineering Tools
King's College London: Analogue Computing at `Ultra-High Speed'
Analogue Computing at Birmingham
Analogue Computing at the University of Bath: An Example of a Technical College
The Flowers Report and the Funding of Analogue Computing
Conclusion
Analogue Computers and Oil Reservoir Modelling
Production Management and the Application of Analogue Computing
Modelling Hydraulic Pressures with Electricity: William A. Bruce and the Carter Analyser
Incorporating Repetitive Operation: The Reservoir Analysers Developed by the Sun Oil Company
The Story of the BP Analogue Computer
Outsourcing Development to EMI Electronics
The BP Analyser in Use
BP and the Analogue-Digital Debate
Analogue-Digital Issues at the Local Level
Analogue-Digital Issues at the Corporate Level
Conclusion
Analogue-Digital Decisions in British Aeronautical Research
Analogue Computing for Aeronautics
Soap Film Models as Analogue Computers
The Electrolytic Tank as a Table-Top Wind Tunnel
Aerodynamic Calculations, British Aircraft Designers and the ARC Computation Panel
Tanks Versus Networks
Deciding Between Analogue and Digital: The Case of Flutter
Thirty Year Persistence: The Shortcomings of Digitalisation
Conclusion
The Analogue Dishpan: Physical Modelling Versus Numerical Calculation in Meteorology
Computation and the History of Meteorology
Non-digital Approaches to Meteorology
Richardson's Forecast Factory and His Suggested Analogue Alternative
Richardson: Mathematician, Experimentalist, Quaker
Richardson's Rotating Fluid Experiment and the Tension Between Experiment and Mathematics
Dave Fultz and the Experimental Tradition of Meteorology
Conclusion
Conclusion
Three Principal Conclusions
Multiple Perspectives of Use Informing Multiple Historical Trajectories
Classifications and Social Associations in the Construction and Deconstruction of Analogue Culture
Analogue-Digital Debates Were Application Based not Technologically Based
Challenges for Future Scholarship in the History of Analogue Computing
Concluding Remarks
References
Index