Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator
-
-
5.0 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- £13.99
-
- £13.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
The hidden history of the pocket calculator—a device that ushered in modern mathematics, helped build the atomic bomb, and went with us to the moon—and the mathematicians, designers, and inventors who brought it to life.
Starting with hands, abacus, and slide rule, humans have always reached for tools to simplify math. Pocket-sized calculators ushered in modern mathematics, helped build the atomic bomb, took us to the bottom of the ocean, and accompanied us to the moon. The pocket calculator changed our world, until it was supplanted by more modern devices that, in a cruel twist of irony, it helped to create. The calculator is dead; long live the calculator.
In this witty mathematic and social history, Keith Houston transports readers from the nascent economies of the ancient world to World War II, where a Jewish engineer calculated for his life at Buchenwald, and into the technological arms race that led to the first affordable electronic pocket calculators. At every turn, Houston is a scholarly, affable guide to this global history of invention. Empire of the Sum will appeal to math lovers, history buffs, and anyone seeking to understand our trajectory to the computer age.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Houston (Shady Characters) surveys the evolution of mathematical calculation, from prehistory to the 20th century, in this informative study. Beginning with a chapter on "The Hand," Houston details humans' first attempts to count beyond the number of digits they possessed. As humans evolved, so too did their counting tools, progressing from Chinese counting rods and the Greek counting board of the 700s to the 300s BCE; to the abacus, which definitively emerged in China around 200 BCE; and the slide rule, first utilized by British mathematicians in the 17th century, which "ruled the greater part of the modern era." The first calculating computer, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, was created by Harvard in 1944. The race to make calculators smaller, faster, and more powerful was dominated by big names—Intel, HP—and would eventually lead to the device that ended the calculator's dominance: the personal computer. With the advent of the first pocket-size calculator in 1971, followed shortly by the first scientific calculator, which could execute more complicated functions such as graphing and square roots, the age of the calculator had reached its pinnacle by 1974. This thorough study explains complex technical advancements with wit and charm. Math lovers and history buffs will be equally entertained.
Customer Reviews
A fascinating history
This book starts with the background of early human counting, through the various attempts from the abacus onwards through arithmometers and comptometers to relays, valves and then transistors.
It does all this in a lively and engaging style with some tremendous photos of the devices mentioned. If you have even a passing interest in the subject then I’d highly recommend this book.