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Books > Professional & Technical > Technology: general issues > History of engineering & technology
Soon to be a major motion picture, the story of one of the most
improbable and productive collaborations ever chronicled, between a
young unschooled Indian prodigy and a great English mathematician.
In 1913, a young unschooled Indian clerk wrote a letter to G H
Hardy, begging the preeminent English mathematician's opinion on
several ideas he had about numbers. Realizing the letter was the
work of a genius, Hardy arranged for Srinivasa Ramanujan to come to
England. Thus began one of the most improbable and productive
collaborations ever chronicled. With a passion for rich and
evocative detail, Robert Kanigel takes us from the temples and
slums of Madras to the courts and chapels of Cambridge University,
where the devout Hindu Ramanujan, "the Prince of Intuition," tested
his brilliant theories alongside the sophisticated and eccentric
Hardy, "the Apostle of Proof." In time, Ramanujan's creative
intensity took its toll: he died at the age of thirty-two and left
behind a magical and inspired legacy that is still being plumbed
for its secrets today.
An immersive account of a tragedy at sea whose repercussions haunt
its survivors to this day, lauded by New York Times bestselling
author Ron Suskind as "an honest and touching book, and a hell of a
story." In March of 1984, the commercial fishing boat Wind Blown
left Montauk Harbor on what should have been a routine offshore
voyage. Its captain, a married father of three young boys, was the
boat's owner and leader of the four-man crew, which included two
locals and the blue-blooded son of a well-to-do summer family.
After a week at sea, the weather suddenly turned, and the foursome
collided with a nor'easter. They soon found themselves in the fight
of their lives. Tragically, it was a fight they lost. Neither the
boat nor the bodies of the men were ever recovered. The downing of
the Wind Blown has since become interwoven with the local folklore
of the East End's year-round population. Its tragic fate will never
be forgotten. In this "riveting man-vs.-nature story and compelling
tribute to those who perished" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review),
journalist Amanda M. Fairbanks seeks out the reasons why an event
more than three decades old remains so startlingly vivid in
people's minds. She explores the ways in which deep, lasting grief
can alter people's memories. And she shines a light on the powerful
and sometimes painful dynamics between fathers and sons, as well as
the secrets that can haunt families from beyond the grave.
This is the first biography of William Shockley, founding father of
Silicon Valley - one of the most significant and reviled scientists
of the 20th century. Drawing upon unique access to the private
Shockley archives, veteran technology historian and journalist Joel
Shurkin gives an unflinching account of how such promise ended in
such ignominy.
It is November 6, 1920, in Chilean Patagonia when Oriana Josseau
is born into a lively family with two grandparents, two parents,
and sixteen young aunts and uncles, most within easy reach of her
robust cries. And so begins the life of an independent-minded girl
from the bottom of the world who somehow manages to overcome the
restrictions and biases of a conservative patriarchal society and
eventually becomes a scientist.
As her family relocates to the idyllic countryside of central
Chile and then to the hectic complex society of Santiago, Oriana
vividly recalls her reactions to such diverse events as the birth
of her brothers; the abrupt transition from wealth to near poverty;
her first earthquake; the turmoil of student politics; the
challenges of mountain adventures; the exploration of friendship,
love and sex; and her first encounter with raw anti-female bias in
a male-dominated research world. As she details her life from early
childhood on, it soon becomes evident that Oriana must prevail over
frequent conflicts with prejudice in order to become a strong, free
woman long before the advent of the feminist movement.
Oriana describes beautifully, with humor and empathy, the
idiosyncrasies, strengths, and foibles of one woman, and those
around her, as she embarks on a unique coming-of-age journey in a
different society and different time.
The previously untold story of the Zenith Trans-Oceanic, the
world's most romantic and expensive series of portable radios, now
in a newly revised & expanded edition. Long a companion of
kings, presidents, transoceanic yachtsmen and world explorers, the
Trans-Oceanic was also carried into battle by American troops in
three wars. Its great popularity in spite of a very high price can
be laid at the feet of several generations of armchair travelers
who used the shortwave capabilities of the Trans-Oceanic as a
window on the world. With access to the Zenith corporate archives
and their long experience as radio enthusiasts and writers for both
the popular and scholarly press, Professors Bryant and Cones
present the engrossing stories of the development and use of the
Trans-Oceanic throughout its forty year life. They present a wealth
of never-before published photographs, documents and information
concerning these fascinating radios, their collection, preservation
and restoration.
ThisvolumehasitsoriginsinameetingheldatMicrosoftResearch,Cambridge,in
April2009tocelebrateTonyHoare's75thBirthday(actually11Jan2009).
Allthe
technicalpapersexceptforthosewrittenbyAbramsky,Jackson,JonesandMeyer
arebased-sometimesclosely,sometimesnot-onpresentationsgivenatthatme-
ing.
TheideaforthemeetingaroseinconversationsbetweenourselvesandAndrew
HerbertofMicrosoft,whohostedatrulymemorableandhappyevent.
ThemeetingwasorganisedbyourselvesandKenWood,withthe?nancials-
portofMicrosoftResearchandFormalSystems(Europe)Ltd,andheldovertwo
days. We wouldlike to recordparticularthanksto Angela Still of
Microsoftfor
makingallthelocalarrangementsatCambridgeandmuchmore:themeetingwould
nothavehappenedwithouther.
Whilethemajorityofthepapersinthisvolumearetechnical,weaskedauthorsto
re?ectonthein?uenceofHoare'sworkontheirown?eldsandtomakeappropriate
remarksonit. Allthetechnicalpaperswererefereed.
DiscussionswithWayneWheelerofSpringerinspiredthetwoofustowritethe
scienti?cbiographyofHoarethatisthe?rstpaperinthisvolume.
Thoughwehave
bothknownTonywellformanyyears,wewereamazedathowmanydiscoveries
abouthimwemadeduringtheprocessofwritingthisarticle.
WewouldlikethankWayneandhisassistantSimonReesfortheirhelpinprep-
ingthisvolumeaswellastheirpatience.
Muchoftheworkingatheringthepapers,
ensuringconsistencyofLaTeXstyles,etc. ,wasdonebyLucyLiofOxfordUniv-
sityComputingLaboratoryandwethankherwarmly.
Tragically,KenWood'swifeLisadiedafteralongillnessinSeptember2009.
Wededicatethisvolumetohermemory. January2010 CliffJones BillRoscoe
ix Contents 1 Insight,InspirationandCollaboration...1 C. B.
JonesandA. W. Roscoe 2 FromCSPtoGameSemantics...33 SamsonAbramsky 3
OnMereologiesinComputingScience...47 DinesBjorner 4
Roles,Stacks,Histories:ATripleforHoare...71 Johannes Borgstrom, ..
Andrew D. Gordon, andRiccardoPucella 5 ForwardwithHoare...101
MikeGordonandHel 'ene ' Collavizza 6
ProbabilisticProgrammingwithCoordination...123 HeJifeng 7
TheOperationalPrincipleandProblemFrames...143 MichaelJackson 8
TheRoleofAuxiliaryVariablesintheFormal
DevelopmentofConcurrentPrograms...167 C. B. Jones 9
AvoidaVoid:TheEradicationofNullDereferencing...189
BertrandMeyer,AlexanderKogtenkov,andEmmanuelStapf 10
UnfoldingCSP...213 MikkelBundgaardandRobinMilner xi xii Contents 11
Quicksort:CombiningConcurrency,Recursion,
andMutableDataStructures...2 29
DavidKitchin,AdrianQuark,andJayadevMisra 12
TheThousand-and-OneCryptographers...255 A. K. McIverandC. C. Morgan
13 On Process-AlgebraicExtensions of Metric TemporalLogic...283
ChristophHaase,Joel .. Ouaknine,andJamesWorrell 14
FunwithTypeFunctions...301
OlegKiselyov,SimonPeytonJones,andChung-chiehShan 15
OnCSPandtheAlgebraicTheoryofEffects...333
RobvanGlabbeekandGordonPlotkin 16 CSPisExpressiveEnoughfor ...371
A. W. Roscoe 17 TheTokeneerExperiments...405 JimWoodcock,EmineGokc
.. ,eAydal,andRodChapman Chapter1
Insight,InspirationandCollaboration C. B. JonesandA. W. Roscoe
Abstract TonyHoare'smanycontributionstocomputingsciencearemarkedby
insightthatwasgroundedinpracticalprogramming.
Manyofhispapershavehada
profoundimpactontheevolutionofour?eld;theyhavemoreoverprovidedasource
ofinspirationtoseveralgenerationsofresearchers.
Weexaminethedevelopmentof
hisworkthroughareviewofthedevelopmentofsomeofhismostin?uentialpieces
ofworksuchasHoarelogic,CSPandUnifyingTheories. 1. 1 Introduction To
many who know Tony Hoare only through his publications, they must
often
looklikepolishedgemsthatcomefromamindthatrarelymakesfalsesteps,nor
evenperhapshastoworkattheircreation.
Assooften,thisimpressionisafurther
complimenttosomeonewhoactuallyaddstoveryhardworkandmanydiscarded
attempts the ?nal polish thatmakes complexideas relatively easy for
the reader tocomprehend.
Asindicatedonpagexiof[HJ89],hisideastypicallygothrough
manyrevisions.
ThetwoauthorsofthecurrentpapereachhadthehonourofTonyHoaresuperv-
ingtheirdoctoralstudiesinOxford.
Theyknowat?rsthandhiskindandgenerous
styleandwillcountitasanachievementifthispapercanconveysomethingofthe
workingmethodsofsomeonebigenoughtoeschewcompetitionandpointscoring.
Indeedit willbe apparentfromthe
followingsectionshowoften,havingstarted
somenewwayofthinkingorexcitingideas,hehappilyleavestheirexplorationand
developmenttoothers. Wehavebothbene?tedpersonallyfromthis. C. B.
Jones( ) SchoolofComputingScience,NewcastleUniversity,UK
e-mail:cliff. jones@ncl. ac. uk A. W. Roscoe
OxfordUniversityComputingLaboratory,UK e-mail:Bill. Roscoe@comlab.
ox. ac. uk C. B. Jonesetal. (eds. ),Re?ectionsontheWorkofC. A. R.
When Sir Cyril Burt died in 1971, he was widely recognized as
Britain's most eminent educational psychologist whose studies of
gifted and delinquent children, contributions to the development of
factor analysis, and research on the inheritance of intelligence
brought widespread acclaim. Within five years of his death,
however, he was publicly denounced as a fraud who had fabricated
data to conclude that intelligence is genetically determined.
Examiners of the published data found serious inconsistencies that
raised questions about their authenticity; the case has divided the
scientific community ever since. Were the charges justified, or was
he a victim of critics fearful of validating such a politically
unacceptable scientific theory? This is an up-to-date and unbiased
analysis of one of the most notorious scandals in science, now more
timely and widely discussed than ever with the publication of The
Bell Curve, the best-selling polemic that raises arguments
comparable to Burt's. The distinguished contributors examine the
controversial areas of Burt's work and argue that his defenders
have sometimes, but by no means always, been correct, and that his
critics have often jumped to hasty conclusions. In their haste,
however, these critics have missed crucial evidence that is not
easily reconciled with Burt's total innocence, leaving the
perception that both cases are seriously flawed. An introductory
chapter lays the background to the case, followed by an examination
of Burt's work that relates to the controversy. The book concludes
with a chapter on Burt's character, other cases of apparent
scientific fraud, and the impact of Burt's alleged fabrications.
These findings have profound implications not only for the study of
psychology, but for the wider issues relating to integrity in
scientific research, and the impact of intelligence testing on
social policy.
This book provides a technological history of modern India, in
particular the Nehruvian development in the context of the Cold
War. Through a series of case studies about military modernization,
transportation infrastructure, and electric power, it examines how
the ideals of autarky and technological indigenization conflicted
with the economic and political realities of the Cold War world.
Where other studies tend to focus on the political leaders and
economists who oversaw development, this book demonstrates how the
perspective of the engineers, government bureaucrats, and aid
workers informed and ultimately implemented development.
At the time of its construction, the Forth Bridge was the largest
bridge in the world, and to this day it remains a breathtaking
monument to the vision and confidence of the Victorian age which
created it. For seven years, thousands of men from all over Europe
worked beneath the waters of the Forth and hundreds of feet in the
sky on what was widely regarded as the eighth wonder of the modern
world. Sheila Mackay vividly recounts the story of the bridge from
its inception to the opening ceremony in 1890. Featuring more than
a hundred archive photographs which detail every stage of the
project, this book is a magnificent celebration of one of
humankind’s most impressive engineering achievements.
The life story of the highest decorated soldier of the Wehrmacht.
Many photos of Rudels aircraft.
In this detailed and meticulously researched account of the life
and work of Charles Michell, the first surveyor-general and civil
engineer of the South African Cape Colony, author Gordon Richings
examines in depth, the many interests and achievements of the man,
as well as the essence of the time in which he lived, by referring
to unpublished personal diaries, sketchbooks and letters. Born in
Exeter, Devon in 1793, Michell showed artistic talent at a young
age, but due to family circumstances, joined the British Army and
served with distinction in the Napoleonic Wars in Portugal. He came
to the Cape in 1829 and for the next twenty years played a crucial
role in opening up the Cape interior to economic development and
expansion, by designing roads, bridges and mountain passes,
including Sir Lowry's, the Houw Hoek, Montagu and Michell's Passes.
He also suggested improvements to Table Bay Harbour and designed
lighthouses at Mouille Point, Cape Agulhas and Cape Recife in an
effort to protect shipping along the Cape's notorious coastline.
This first biography of Charles Michell is lavishly illustrated
with his sketches, watercolours and engravings of Cape scenery,
plants, insects and rock paintings, as well as Cape personalities,
maps of the colony and architectural plans - the majority of which
are published for the first time. New light is shed on the
socio-economic life at the Cape, particularly the Tsitsikamma
region of the southern Cape, the Frontier War of 1834-35, as well
as on the personalities of Michell's colleagues and contemporaries
in England and at the Cape.
In 1978, John Couch was working as a software engineer at
Hewlett-Packard when a young, ambitious entrepreneur named Steve
Jobs unexpectedly showed up on his doorstep. It was Steve's second
time trying to persuade John to join him at his promising startup,
Apple Computer, where he needed help building a "revolutionary
computer." John was one of UC Berkeley's first fifty computer
science graduates and a leader at HP, working under the tutelage of
its iconic founder, Bill Hewlett, so Steve knew he was one of the
few people in the world capable of achieving such a task. He was
thrilled when John agreed to help, becoming Apple's 54th employee
and, ultimately, its first VP of Software and first VP of
Education. Over time, John and Steve's business relationship would
grow into an unbreakable, decades-long friendship.
This collection focuses on different expeditions and their role in
the process of knowledge acquisition from the eighteenth century
onwards. It investigates various forms of scientific practice
conducted during, after and before expeditions, and it places this
discussion into the scientific context of experiments. In treating
expeditions as experiments in a heuristic sense, we also propose
that the expedition is a variation on the laboratory in which
different practices can be conducted and where the transformation
of uncertain into certain knowledge is tested. The experimental
positioning of the expedition brings together an ensemble of
techniques, strategies, material agents and social actors, and
illuminates the steps leading from observation to facts and
documentation. The chapters show the variety of scientific
interests that motivated expeditions with their focus on natural
history, geology, ichthyology, botany, zoology, helminthology,
speleology, physical anthropology, oceanography, meteorology and
magnetism.
Charles Babbage was thirty years old in 1821, as was his close
friend, John Herschel, and in English intellectual circles they
were both regarded as brilliant mathematicians. One day as Babbage
worked in preparing logarithmic tables, a tedious and boring task,
he commented to Herschel that he thought he could invent a machine
to do these calculations with far more speed and accuracy than a
human calculator could. And so was born an idea that would
fascinate, tantalize, and absorb him for the remainder of his life.
Over the years he drew plans, expanded them, modified them, and
finally invented two machines, the Difference Engine and the
Analytical Engine. The first was capable only of generating tables,
but the Analytical Engine could do much more. It could convert into
numbers and print the results of any formula that might be
required. It could also develop any analytical formula the laws of
whose formation were given. Using punched cards it could store
early results in a calculation and then use them to make further
calculations when they were required. He had invented the first
mechanical computer.
Encyclopedia of Architectural and Engineering Feats presents more
than 200 achievements in architecture and structural engineering in
all the inhabited continents, from prehistory to the present. An
architect once described the built environment as "the
manifestation of the human spirit in stone, wood, and steel." In
this new volume, readers can explore the most innovative and
magnificent architectural expressions of the human spirit, from
pre-history to the present, from all parts of the world. Readers
can visit the Acropolis and Chartres cathedral, along with less
familiar places like the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, once the greatest
city in sub-Saharan Africa, and China's 71 meter high, 1,200 year
old Grand Buddha, carved from stone. They'll learn the secrets
behind audacious engineering feats like the Panama Canal, the U.S.
interstate highway system, and the Deltaworks in the Netherlands.
They will discover that many of these awe-inspiring projects were
not the work of trained architects and engineers, but of
"underdeveloped" communities, where unified will, tight social
organization, and shared commitment to a spiritual ideal were more
important than the inventions of the Industrial Age. 200+ A-Z,
fully cross-referenced entries on fascinating structures such as
Angkor Wat, a Cambodian temple complex that remains the largest
religious monument ever constructed A wealth of illustrations
covering diverse topics such as dams, agrarian terracing,
cathedrals, temples, bridges, monuments, palaces, skyscrapers,
aqueducts, and highway systems Numerous photographs of world famous
structures such as the Taj Mahal and the Pont du Gard, and lesser
known wonders such as Nazca Lines in Peru depicting a 300 foot long
monkey A glossary of explanations for many architectural and
engineering terms used around the globe
The dramatic life story of one of the legendary USAAF fighter
pilots of World War II who fought across the skies over the
Mediterranean and southern Europe in the great aerial campaigns
against the Luftwaffe a Herschel H. "Herky" Green. By the time
Colonel Green was grounded by orders of higher headquarters, he was
the leading ace of the 15th Air Force with eighteen aerial
victories.
Manufacturing computers in series was quite a feat in the 1950s. As
mathematical as it gets, the machines discussed here were called X1
and X8. The industrial achievement combined with the background in
a mathematical research center made the company Electrologica a
legend in Dutch computing. The tales in this book are told by those
who have a right to tell. Highly engaged professionals take readers
back to their pioneering work with the machines and in retrospect
unveil some of the values, which went without saying in the 1960s.
To disagree, Paul Klint relates the contrasting views on software
in Dutch research traditions. ALGOL culture: Frans Kruseman Aretz
takes the reader along to the detailed decisions on constructing
compilers and shows the values of an ALGOL culture transpiring.
Signposts: Dirk Dekker for the first time 'owns' his algorithm for
mutual exclusion. In particle physics: Rene van Dantzig's use case
was an Electrologica X8 computer controlling two other computers in
three-dimensional detection of colliding particles. Early steps in
AI: Lambert Meertens' tale of the X8 machine composing a violin
quartet comes with his original presentation, as well as the code
in ALGOL 60. The reflections of first hand experiences combine well
with the second thoughts of historical research into archival
sources. Historians Huub de Beer and Gerard Alberts offer a view
into the boardrooms of the local enterprise Electrologica, and of
the electronics multinational Philips. Where pioneers and
historians meet in an inspiring dialogue, the reader gains a view
on the often implicit decisions constituting the field.
Fortuitously, a copy of the X8 was retrieved from Kiel, Germany,
and put on display at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, Leiden. Sparked by the
very material presence of an X8, the present book takes stock of
the state of historiography of Electrologica. Gerard Alberts is an
associate professor in History of Digital Cultures, retired from
the University of Amsterdam. Jan Friso Groote is a full professor
of Formal Methods at the Eindhoven University of Technology.
He walked on the Moon. He flew six space missions in three
different programs--more than any other human. He served with NASA
for more than four decades. His peers called him the ""astronaut's
astronaut."" Enthusiasts of space exploration have long waited for
John Young to tell the story of his two Gemini flights, his two
Apollo missions, the first-ever Space Shuttle flight, and the first
Spacelab mission. Forever Young delivers all that and more: Young's
personal journey from engineering graduate to fighter pilot, to
test pilot, to astronaut, to high NASA official, to clear-headed
predictor of the fate of Planet Earth. Young, with the assistance
of internationally distinguished aerospace historian James Hansen,
recounts the great episodes of his amazing flying career in
fascinating detail and with wry humor. He portrays astronauts as
ordinary human beings and NASA as an institution with the same ups
and downs as other major bureaucracies. He frankly discusses the
risks of space travel, including what went wrong with the
Challenger and Columbia shuttles. Forever Young is one of the last
memoirs produced by an early American astronaut. It is the first
memoir written by a chief of the NASA astronaut corps. Young's
experiences and candor make this book indispensable to everyone
interested in the U.S. space program.
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