• We use programs to compute numbers.

Automatic computation

• Charles Babbage is known for developing the first automatic computer machine (1820’s)
  • “the faster and more reliably one could calculate, the more money businesses could make.”

• Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, became enamoured by Babbage’s machine and developed the first algorithm, to calculate a sum of numbers:

Algorithm

• Basically, a program: a description of a series of operations.
• But with some specific features:
  1. Precise and unambiguous steps
  2. Definite results
  3. Finite
  4. Generalizable (works with a range of possible inputs)
  5. Usually expressed through abstract/mathematical notation

STEM today is programming computations

• For complex calculations, we don’t rely anymore on pressing calculator buttons. We have to make automatic computation programs