Kastalia Knowledge Management System · Glasperlenspiel template · knot 3995
Cogs, Steam, Algorithm
In which the reader is asked, quite simply, What is an Algorithm? — and finds the answer rather older, and rather stranger, than expected.
Being an account of cogs and looms and engines of brass; of Signor Pascal's calculating box and Mr. Babbage's unbuilt Engines; of a certain Lady Lovelace who saw further than most; and of sundry other contrivances got up by ingenious persons long before any machine was called a computer.
Wherein two short films are watched, in the company of a partner to be consulted not once but twice; wherein old Euclid's method is recalled, some two thousand years and more since first he wrote it down; and wherein, at the last, the curious Persian origin of a word now spoken a thousand times a day — one al-Khwarizmi's own — is at length discovered.
Ancestors (1 superordinated path)
root/
baumhaus.digital/
Studium Generale/
Short History of the Learning Machine/
Cogs, Steam, Algorithm
Descendants (at least 19 branches originate here)
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Cogs, Steam, Algorithm 🔊
In which the reader is asked, quite simply, What is an Algorithm? — and finds the answer rather older, and rather stranger, than expected.Being an account-
is_parent Question of the Day ·
Question of the day: What is an algorithm?You already use the word casually — "the algorithm" recommends your videos, "the algorithm" decides your feed. B -
is_parent First Thoughts ·
Turn to the person next to you. Two minutes, no googling.Together, try to answer: what is an algorithm? Give one example each, if you can.Don't worry about bein -
is_parent Watch: Early Computing ·
Before the word, there were the machines. Crash Course Computer Science #1: Early Computing — from the abacus to Herman Hollerith's punch cards. -
is_parent What Did You Notice? ·
What surprised you?Notice how many of these — the abacus, Pascal's calculator, the Jacquard loom, Babbage's engines — are not computers in our sense -
is_parent From Cogs to Concept ·
Strip away the brass gears, the steam, the punch cards — what's left in each of those machines is the same abstract thing: a precise, repeatable sequence -
is_parent A Working Definition ·
An algorithm is a finite, well-defined sequence of steps that transforms a given input into a desired output.Finite — it has to actually end, eventually.W -
is_parent An Everyday Algorithm ·
You run algorithms all the time without a computer in sight.A recipe: fixed steps, specific ingredients (input), a finished dish (output).Long division, tying y -
is_parent Older Than Computers ·
Euclid described an algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers around 300 BCE — still taught today, still called Euclid's algorithm. -
is_parent Second Thoughts ·
Back to your partner. Compare: how close was your first guess to the definition we just built together?This time, try to name an algorithm from your own daily l -
is_parent Where Does the Word Come From? ·
"Algorithm" doesn't come from Greek, like most technical vocabulary in mathematics. It comes from a name.Whose? -
is_parent Watch: Why Algorithms Are Called Algorithms ·
A short answer, in under three minutes — BBC Ideas: Why algorithms are called algorithms. -
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Al-Khwarizmi and the Birth of a Word
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Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, a 9th-century Persian scholar working in Baghdad's House of Wisdom, wrote a treatise on systematic methods for solving equations -
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Interlude: Pascal, Leibniz, and the Baroque
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Rewind two centuries. Long before Babbage, long before steam, the same ancient appetite for mechanizing the mind was already stirring — in the Baroque.In -
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Closing: What's Next
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Today: a definition, a history, a name.Next week: Alan and his Enigma — the story of Alan Turing, his machine(s), and his test(s).We'll meet the Turing ma -
is_parent Steam and the Jacquard Loom ·
By the early 1800s, the Industrial Revolution had already proven something remarkable: steam and gearwork could replace human muscle at scale.Joseph-Marie Jacqu -
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Charles Babbage's Engines
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Charles Babbage (1791–1871) — mathematician, philosopher, mechanical engineer, and by most accounts a thoroughly restless Victorian gentleman.His Di -
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Ada Lovelace, the First Programmer
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Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (1815–1852), daughter of Lord Byron, was trained rigorously in mathematics from childhood — and became Babbag -
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One More Name: George Boole
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One more figure worth knowing, even briefly: George Boole (1815–1864), who in 1854 published The Laws of Thought — reducing logical reasoning itself
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