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Reckoning with matter : calculating machines, innovation, and thinking about thinking from Pascal to Babbage / Matthew L. Jones.
Author
Jones, Matthew L. (Matthew Laurence), 1972-
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Format
Book
Language
English
Published/Created
Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2016.
Description
331 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Availability
Available Online
Online Content
Copies in the Library
Location
Call Number
Status
Location Service
Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks
QA75 .J66 2016
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Details
Subject(s)
Calculators
—
History
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Computers
—
History
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Technology
—
History
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Library of Congress genre(s)
History
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Summary note
"Tells the story of early modern European calculating machines, from the early attempts of Blaise Pascal in the 1640s through Charles Babbage{u2019}s efforts of the 1820s to 40s. All failed spectacularly. By exploring these failed technologies, Matthew L. Jones tracks diverse forms of technical life--different social arrangements of practitioners, different legal conceptions of the ownership of work and ideas, and different philosophical conceptions of knowledge and skill. Philosophers, engineers, and craftspeople wrote about their distinctive competencies, about technical novelty, and about the best way to coordinate their efforts, and drawing on these remarkably well-preserved records, Jones reveals the concrete processes of imagining, elaborating, testing, and building key components for calculating machines. By highlighting the makers and their conceptions of invention right up to the instauration of modern patent regimes and the solidification of the concept of Romantic genius, Jones argues that these conceptions of creativity and of making are often more incisive--and more honest--than those still dominating our own legal, political, and aesthetic culture."--Provided by publisher.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-320) and index.
Contents
Introduction
Carrying tens: Pascal, Morland, and the challenge of machine calculation
First carry : Babbage and Clement mechanize table making
Artisans and their philosophers: Leibniz and Hooke coordinate minds, metal, and wood
Second carry : Babbage gets funded
Improvement for profit: calculating machines and the prehistory of intellectual property
Third carry : Babbage claims his property
Reinventing the wheel: emulation in the European enlightenment
Fourth carry : Babbage confronts prior art
Teething problems: Charles Stanhope and the coordination of technical knowledge from Geneva to Kent
Fifth carry : Babbage's collaborators emulate
Calculating machines, creativity, and humility from Leibniz to Turning
Final carry : Epilogue.
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ISBN
9780226411460 ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
022641146X ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
9780226411637 ((e-book))
022641163X ((e-book))
LCCN
2016015339
OCLC
944086965
Other standard number
99975102669
Statement on language in description
Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage.
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Reckoning with matter : calculating machines, innovation, and thinking about thinking from Pascal to Babbage / Matthew L. Jones.
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99125485019606421