LESSON 37

FROM CALCULI TO MODERN COMPUTER [2]

Task 1. Read and translate the text:

Задание 1. Прочитайте и переведите текст:

Although the first modern automatic computers began to work in 1944, the story of the development of ideas, devices, and machines entering into that automatic computer goes back a long time into the past. Problems of calculating with numbers, and recording numbers, have pressed upon human beings for more than five thousand years. Probably the first of the ideas to deal with numbers is the idea of using small objects, such as pebbles, seeds, or shells, to count with, to supplement the fingers. People, however, find it troublesome to count only in units-it takes too much time and effort. So early a second idea appears: the idea of composing a new unit equal to ten of the old units. The source of this idea is clearly the fact that a man has ten fingers; with this idea you could designate 87 by referring to all the fingers Of 8 men, and than 7 more fingers on one more man. In order to deal with numbers in their physical form of counted objects, a third idea appears: a specialized, convenient place upon which to lay out the counted objects. Such a place may be a smooth piece of ground, slab of stone, or a board.

It becomes convenient to mark off areas on the slab according to the size of unit you are dealing with-you have one area for or- binary units, one area for tens, one area for hundreds, and so on. These developments gave birth to the abacus, the first computing machine. This device consisted of a slab divided into areas, and a supply of small stones for use as counters or objects to keep track of numbers. The Greek word for slab was abax, and the Latin word for the small stones was calculi, and so the first computing machine, the abacus was invented, consisting originally of a slab and counting stones, and later on, a frame of rods strung with beads, for keeping track of numbers while calculating.

The system of numbering and the abacus go hand in hand together. The abacus is still the most widely used computing machine in the world.

Then appeared the Arabic positional notation for numerals which reached Western Europe in the 1200's. Just as the small counting stones or calculi could be used in any area on the slab, so the digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 could be used in any position of a numeral. Just as the position on the slab answered the question as to whether units, tens, hundreds, etc., were being counted so the place or column or position of the digit (as in 4786 with its four places) answered the question as to what kinds of units were there being counted. And-this was the final key idea-just as a place on the slab could be empty, so the digit 0 could mark "none" in place or column of a number.

That idea, by the way, required centuries to develop. The Romans did not have a numeral for zero; but about 300 B.C. in Babylon a symbol for zero was used. Then the Hindus developed the numerical notation that we call Arabic The Arabs used the word "sifr" meaning "vacant" about 800 A.D. for "zero". About 1200 A.D. the Arabic word was translated into Latin giving rise subsequently to the two English words "cipher" and "zero".

The first machine which would add numbers mechanically was invented by the French mathematician and philosopher Blasé Pascal in 1642. It contained geared counter wheels which could be set at any one of ten positions from 0 to 9. Each gear had a little tooth for nudging the next counter wheel when it passed from 9 to 0 so as to carry 1 into the next column.

Some 30 years later, in 1673, another mathematician, G.W. Leibnitz, invented a device which would control automatically the amount of adding to be performed by a given digit, and in this way he invented the first multiplying machine.

Pascal's and Leibnitz's machines and their improved successors have given rise to electric-powered but hand-operated adding machines and desk calculating machines which are found throughout offices today.

The idea of an automatic machine which would not only add, subtract, multiply, and divide but perform a sequence of steps automatically, was probably first conceived in 1812 by Charles Babbage, a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, England. Babbage intended that his machine should compute the values of the tabulated mathematical functions and print out the results. No attention would be needed from the human operator, once the starting data and the method of computation had been set into the machine.

Task 2. Answer the following questions:

Задание 2. Ответьте на следующие вопросы:

1. When did the first computers begin to work?

2. What was the first idea to deal with numbers?

3. What was a second idea?

4. What is a third idea according to the text?

5. What is the Greek word for slab?

6. Is the abacus still used?

Task 3. Find the English equivalents for the words given below in the text:

Задание 3. Найдите эквиваленты следующих слов в тексте:

Причиняющий беспокойство, разграничить, равный, механизм, пластина, намереваться, последовательность, приложение, свободный, счеты.

Task 4. Translate the following words into Russian:

Задание 4. Прочтите следующие слова и словосочетания и переведите их на русский язык:

Device, record, object, supplement, however, troublesome, compose, equal, source, designate, refer to, to deal with, smooth, convenient, according to, abacus, slab, frame.

Task 5. Make the sentences interrogative:

Задание 5. Поставьте следующие предложения в вопросительную форму:

1. The first machine which would add numbers mechanically was invented by the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal in 1642.

2. The Romans did not have a numeral for zero.

3. That idea, by the way, required centuries to develop.

4. Then appeared the Arabic positional notation for numerals⁵ which reached Western Europe in the 1200's.

5. The first modern automatic computers began to work in 1944.

Task 6. Fill in the blanks with the following words given below: