Page 72 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol Two

computer 421

Lieberman,V. (1997).Transcending East-West dichotomies: State and cul- Mechanical Predecessors
ture formation in six ostensibly disparate areas. Modern Asian Stud- Programmable digital computers were developed just
ies, 31, 463–546.
Lieberman,V. (2004). Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context before the middle of the twentieth century, but the more
c.800-1830, vol. 1 Integration on the Mainland. New York: Cambridge general history of devices that help people think goes
University Press.
Pomeranz, K. (2001). The great divergence: China, Europe, and the mak- back to prehistoric times, when someone first carved
ing of the modern world economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University marks on a stick to count the cattle in a herd or mark the
Press. days in the phases of the moon. Complex additions and
Richards, J. (2003). The unending frontier:An environmental history of the
early modern world. Berkeley: University of California Press. subtractions were done in ancient days by arranging peb-
Rodinson, M. (1974). Islam and capitalism (B. Pearce,Trans.). London: bles in piles on the ground, and our word calculate
Allen Lane.
Skocpol,T. (1979). States and social revolutions: A comparative analysis derives from the Latin word calculus or pebble. The
of France, Russia, and China. New York: Cambridge University Press. most complex known “computer” of classical civilization
Tilly, C. (Ed.). (1975). The formation of national states in Western Europe. is the remarkable geared Antikythera device, which appar-
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Tilly, C. (1992). Coercion, capital, and European states, AD 990–199. ently was designed to predict the motions of the sun,
Oxford, UK: Blackwell. moon, and planets. Found in a shipwreck on the bottom
Wallerstein, I. (1974). The modern world-system: Capitalist agriculture
and the origins of the European world-economy in the sixteenth century. of the Mediterranean Sea, it is believed to date from
New York: Academic Press. about 80 BCE.
Wallerstein, I. (1980). The modern world-system II: Mercantilism and the Computing has always been closely allied with math-
consolidation of the European world-economy, 1600–1750. New
York: Academic Press. ematics, and the invention of logarithms by the Scottish
Wallerstein, I. (1989). The modern world-system III: The second era of mathematician John Napier around 1614 was a major
great expansion of the capitalist world-economy, 1730–1840s. New
York: Academic Press. advance for practical calculating.With a mechanical cal-
Weber, M. (1958). The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism (T. Par- culating device, it is much easier to add than to multiply,
sons,Trans.). New York: Scribner. and subtraction is much easier than division. Logarithms
Wong, R. B. (1997). China transformed: Historical change and the limits
of European experience. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. turned multiplication into addition, and division into sub-
Wong, R. B. (2002).The search for European differences and domination traction, at the cost of looking up numbers in vast books
in the early modern world: A view from Asia. American Historical
Review, 107.2, 447–469. of tables that themselves had to be calculated by hand.
From Napier’s time until the introduction of transistor-
ized electronic calculators around 1970, a book of loga-
rithm tables was a standard tool for engineers and
scientists.They were cumbersome to use, so for quick esti-
Computer mates slide rules were employed. A slide rule is an ana-

log calculating device based on logarithmic scales marked
omputers have transformed work, communication, along rulers that slide past each other. The term analog
Cand leisure activity, and they promise future changes refers to the analogy between the abstract numbers and
of equal magnitude. For many years, computer technol- corresponding physical distances along a line.
ogy was dominated by groups in the United States, Digital mechanical calculators that represented num-
because that nation had the largest single market and its bers as precise digits were also developed—for example,
government invested heavily in military applications and by the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pas-
fundamental science and engineering. But many nations cal in 1642.A common approach was to connect a series
contributed to the technological basis on which com- of wheels, each of which would turn in ten steps for the
puting arose, and with the development of the World digits 0 through 9. A legend has developed that the
Wide Web computing became a global phenomenon. eccentric English dilettante Charles Babbage was the