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Automatic Calculating Machines*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2016

D. R. Hartree F.R.S.
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When we write a number in the ordinary way, such as 673, the symbols such as 6, 7, 3 in this example stand for what we call the digits of the number, and a piece of mechanical or electrical equipment which operates with and records the discrete digits of each number is often called a digital calculating machine. In the past twelve years there has been a remarkable development of such machines with two important features. First, they can carry out lengthy and intricate calculations quite automatically once they have been supplied with a specification, in suitable form, of the calculation to be carried out, and secondly, they are very versatile, so that the same machine can be used for many quite different kinds of calculation, for example for evaluating values of a function from its power-series expansion, for solving large systems of linear simultaneous algebraic equations, for finding the characteristic values of matrices, for the step-by-step integration of ordinary differential equations. To express these two features, such machines are sometimes called general-purpose, automatic, digital calculating machines, and my purpose is to give an account of some aspects of such machines, both of the machines themselves and of the way in which they are used. I can only touch on some aspects, since there is not nearly enough time in a single lecture to deal with the subject fully.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 34 , Issue 310 , December 1950 , pp. 241 - 252
Copyright
Copyright © Mathematical Association 1950

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Footnotes

*

A paper to the Annual Meeting of the Mathematical Association, January, 1950.

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