This lively and fascinating text traces the key developments in computation - from 3000 B.C. to the present day - in an easy-to-follow and concise manner. Topics and features: ideal for self-study, offering many pedagogical features such as chapter-opening key topics, chapter introductions and summaries, exercises, and a glossary; presents detailed information on major figures in computing, such as Boole, Babbage, Shannon, Turing, Zuse and Von Neumann; reviews the history of software engineering and of programming languages, including syntax and semantics; discusses the progress of artificial intelligence, with extension to such key disciplines as philosophy, psychology, linguistics, neural networks and cybernetics; examines the impact on society of the introduction of the personal computer, the World Wide Web, and the development of mobile phone technology; follows the evolution of a number of major technology companies, including IBM, Microsoft and Apple.

Drawing on entirely new evidence, The English Renaissance Stage: Geometry, Poetics, and the Practical Spatial Arts in England 1580-1630 examines the history of English dramatic form and its relationship to the mathematics, technology, and early scientific thought during the Renaissance period. The book demonstrates how practical modes of thinking that were typical of the sixteenth century resulted in new genres of plays and a new vocabulary for problems of poetic representation. In the epistemological moment the book recovers, we find new ideas about form and language that would become central to Renaissance literary discourse; in this same moment, too, we find new ways of thinking about the relationship between theory and practice that are typical of modernity, new attitudes towards spatial representation, and a new interest in both poetics and mathematics as distinctive ways of producing knowledge about the world. By emphasizing the importance of theatrical performance, the book engages with continuing debates over the cultural function of the early modern stage and with scholarship on the status of modern authorship. When we consider playwrights in relation to the theatre rather than the printed book, they appear less as "authors" than as figures whose social position and epistemological presuppositions were very similar to the craftsmen, surveyors, and engineers who began to flourish during the sixteenth century and whose mathematical knowledge made them increasingly sought after by men of wealth and power.

Global Control aims to achieve a clearer understanding of the long process of globalization by focusing on the crucial role of information and control technologies. Information systems and control technologies are key to globalization and, while generally facilitating the overall trend to spatial reorganization, they also effect change through the pervasive influence of 'internal systems logic'. Thus, the author argues, the dominant institutions of states, firms and markets transform global development and are themselves transformed by key information technologies. More specifically the book identifies the key phases of modern globalization and analyses the crucial role played by different information technologies at each point in time. Peter McMahon uses theory in political economy with writing on technological developments, and also combines cutting edge theory with historical evidence which provides a new explanation of the last two and a half centuries of global development. This unique book will be of great interest to academics and researchers of political economy, globalization, innovation and science as well as international business scholars.

Masonry constructions are the great majority of the buildings in Europe's historic centres and the most important monuments of its architectural heritage. Given the age of these constructions, the demand for safety assessments and restoration projects is pressing and constant; still within the broad studies in the subject it is not yet recognised, in particular within the seismic area, a unitary approach to deal with Masonry structures. This successful book contributes to clarify the issues with a rigorous approach offering a comprehensive new Statics of Masonry Constructions. This third edition has been driven by some recent developments of the research in the field, and it gives the fundamentals of Statics with an original and rigorous mathematical formulation, further in-depth inquired in this new version. With many refinements and improvements, the book investigates the static behaviour of many historic monuments, such as the Gothic Cathedrals, the Mycenaean Tholoi, the Pantheon, the Colosseum, the domes of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence and St Peter's in Rome, as well as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The last chapter - the 11th - regarding the behaviour of masonry buildings under seismic actions, has been modified and integrated in order to take into account the numerous recent achievements of the research in the dynamic and seismic analysis. The focal point is that there's no dissipation of energy during the deformation of masonry structures, even if accompanied by cracks. If properly reinforced, masonry constructions have the sole resource to escape the seismic action developing the rocking without failure, under alternate seismic action. In this context, the rocking of pier walls, the main resistant components of the masonry structure, has been here thoroughly examined. Furthermore, the out of plane and the in-plane seismic strengths of masonry walls with openings has been investigated within the framework of Limit Analysis. Through an interdisciplinary approach, involving Mathematics, Engineering and Architecture, this book highlights the tight connection existing between the Statics of Masonry constructions and the principles that ruled the history of constructions, since the beginnings as far as the Seventeenth century.

This book is composed of chapters that focus specifically on technological developments by distinguished figures in the history of MMS (Mechanism and Machine Science). Biographies of well-known scientists are also included to describe their efforts and experiences and surveys of their work and achievements and a modern interpretation of their legacy are presented.

After the first two volumes, the papers in this third volume again cover a wide range within the field of the History of Mechanical Engineering with specific focus on MMS and will be of interest and motivation to the work (historical or not) of many.

The technical problems confronting different societies and periods, and the measures taken to solve them, form the concern of this annual collection of essays. The book deals with the history of technical discovery and change, and explores the relation of technology to other aspects of life. It also shows how technological development has shaped, and been shaped by, the society in which it occurred.

Ernest Baldini started out as a bullied kid in Detroit, and he could have easily slipped into a life of mediocrity. Instead, he chose a different path--making careful decisions and working hard to eventually become a rocket scientist. Along the way, he survived World War II and learned that money is not the key to fulfilling dreams; instead, it's only another tool to use in building dreams.

Over the course of eighty years and a series of carefully considered choices, he set the bar high in a bid to reach the heavens. Although he rubbed elbows and collaborated with some of the century's greatest scientists and engineers, his life parallels the lives of millions of other Americans whose years have been clouded by wars, disasters, booms, and busts.

Take a trip through history, enjoy modest adventures, and relish the tales of a man with a romantic heart whose love for life never wavered in A Twentieth-Century Argonaut.

BERGBUCHLEIN, The Little Book on Ores was published before 1518 and was the first book on mining ever printed. With references to alchemy and astronomy this English translation of the German text includes the full text and original woodcut illustrations. BERGBUCLIEN pre-dates DE RE METALLICA by four decades and sections of BERGBUCHLEIN were used by Georgius Agricola in his landmark text. Republished every century since its origination in the 1500s, with this edition BERGBUCHLEIN is once again available to audiences interested in the historical views of mining and ore formation.

Today, computers fulfil a dazzling array of roles, a flexibility resulting from the great range of programs that can be run on them.

"A Science of Operations" examines the history of what we now call programming, defined not simply as "computer" programming, but more broadly as the definition of the steps involved in computations and other information-processing activities. This unique perspective highlights how the history of programming is distinct from the history of the computer, despite the close relationship between the two in the 20th century. The book also discusses how the development of programming languages is related to disparate fields which attempted to give a mechanical account of language on the one hand, and a linguistic account of machines on the other.

Topics and features: Covers the early development of automatic computing, including Babbage's "mechanical calculating engines" and the applications of punched-card technology, examines the theoretical work of mathematical logicians such as Kleene, Church, Post and Turing, and the machines built by Zuse and Aiken in the 1930s and 1940s, discusses the role that logic played in the development of the stored program computer, describes the "standard model" of machine-code programming popularised by Maurice Wilkes, presents the complete table for the universal Turing machine in the Appendices, investigates the rise of the initiatives aimed at developing higher-level programming notations, and how these came to be thought of as 'languages' that could be studied independently of a machine, examines the importance of the Algol 60 language, and the framework it provided for studying the design of programming languages and the process of software development and explores the early development of object-oriented languages, with a focus on the Smalltalk project.

This fascinating text offers a new viewpoint for historians of science and technology, as well as for the general reader. The historical narrative builds the story in a clear and logical fashion, roughly following chronological order.

This set of 10 volumes, originally published between 1900 and 1994, amalgamates a wide breadth of research on Science and Technology in the Nineteenth Century, including studies on notable figures such as Gregor Johann Mendel, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sir Humphry Davy. This collection of books from some of the leading scholars in the field provides a comprehensive overview of the subject how it has evolved over time, and will be of particular interest to students of history and the sciences.

This book offers an analysis of the formation of contemporary hospital systems between the mid-19th century and the mid-20th century. Based on extensive archival material and a broad international literature review, it focuses on the case of the canton of Vaud, Switzerland, and uses a triple approach that discusses technological innovations, hospital management, and health policy. This research is a major contribution to the history of medicine which gives a unique overview of the formation of contemporary hospital systems.

This tenth volume of papers emanating from the annual International High Technology Small Firms Conference represents a full decade of research and policy relevant papers on innovation and growth problems of New Technology-based Firms (NTBf).
Because this series has become the major vehicle for publication among the best international researchers working on the formation and subsequent growth problems of NTBfs, it represents an authoritative voice on NTBf development problems.
Topics covered in this volume include strategy, spin offs - their contribution to NTBf growth and the problems they encounter during the traumatic "spin off" process, the current hot topic of clusters and their role in enhancing NTBf formation and growth, networking and global issues since many NTBfs are truly "born global."

The technical problems confronting different societies and periods, and the measures taken to solve them form the concern of this annual collection of essays. It deals with the history of technical discovery and change and explores how technology is related to the social, cultural and economic aspects of life. It also looks at how technological development has shaped, and been shaped by, the society in which it occurred.

Who would have guessed that the first sports bra was made out of two jockstraps sewn together or that it succeeded because of federal anti-discrimination laws? What do simple decisions about where to build a road or whether to buy into the carbon economy have to do with Hurricane Katrina or the Fukushima nuclear disaster? How did massive flood control projects on the Mississippi River and New Deal dams on the Columbia River lead to the ubiquity of high fructose corn syrup? And what explains the creation-and continued popularity-of the humble fish stick? In Fish Sticks, Sports Bras, and Aluminum Cans, historian Paul R Josephson explores the surprising origins, political contexts, and social meanings of ordinary objects. Drawing on archival materials, technical journals, interviews, and field research, this engaging collection of essays reveals the forces that shape (and are shaped by) everyday objects. Ultimately, Josephson suggests that the most familiar and comfortable objects-sugar and aluminum, for example, which are inextricably tied together by their linked history of slavery and colonialism-may have the more astounding and troubling origins. Students of consumer studies and the history of technology, as well as scholars and general readers, will be captivated by Josephson's insights into the complex relationship between society and technology.