From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@...>
Date: 2007-10-04T13:37:02+09:00
Subject: Re: A Must Read!!!

John Joyce wrote:
> 
> On Oct 3, 2007, at 10:08 AM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> 
>> Michael Glaesemann wrote:
>>> On Oct 3, 2007, at 7:53 , Michael T. Richter wrote:
>>>> (I have similar questions about people acting as if functional 
>>>> programming -- '50s -- were the New Deal.)
>>> Huh. I haven't seen many people claiming Roosevelt had much influence 
>>> on computer science.
>>> Michael Glaesemann
>>> grzm seespotcode net
>>
>> Well ... he did fund the Manhattan Project, after all. Most of the 
>> calculations for that, however, were done by rooms full of men and 
>> women operating mechanical desk calculators, under the direction of 
>> John Von Neumann and others. These men and women were known as 
>> "computers", and in many cases had college degrees in mathematics.
>>
>> The genius of Von Neumann was that he saw that such calculations could 
>> be done faster, more accurately and with lower cost electronically. 
>> But it didn't happen until *after* the Manhattan Project was over and 
>> FDR was in his grave.
>>
> Slide Rule
> 
> 
Uh ... try integrating PDEs with a room full of people running slide 
rules some time. :)

The electronic equivalent of the slide rule, the analog computer, was 
limited to a precision of at best five decimal digits, and could 
integrate *ordinary* differential equations easily. But partial 
differential equations are a whole 'nutha ball game. :)