On the Shoulders of Giants - Part 1 - John Atanasoff

On the Shoulders of Giants - Part 1 - John Atanasoff
   We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size.

   Being a Bulgarian, I decided to dedicate the second part of the series to John Atanasoff. In Bulgaria he is known as the creator of the computer. I want to make it clear that I do not think that he was the creator of the computer. The computer did not have a single creator so no giant can bear this title alone. John Atanasoff however is certainly one of the giants, who carried on their shoulders the machine we call computer during the times when it was really heavy. In his case, it was 320 kg. One way or another, shedding light on his work should be interesting even if you are one of the people who choose to believe that this particular giant invented the computer on his own...
Posted by:   Stilgar
22:51 27.05.2009

On the Shoulders of Giants - Part 0 - Alan Turing

On the Shoulders of Giants - Part 0 - Alan Turing
   We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size.

   The phrase "Standing on the shoulders of giants" is attributed to the French philosopher Bernard of Chartres. Although he lived in the 12th century, the truth in his words became more evident with time. "On the Shoulders of Giants" will be my series of articles about the giants of computer science and information technology.  We all know the names of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, John Carmack, Anders Hejlsberg (Hallowed be His name), Sergei Brin, Larry Page and many others. While they are undoubtedly giants of IT these series will focus on the older generation of pioneers on whose shoulders the aforementioned were standing. These giants are so ancient that they did not even refer to themselves as computer scientists because computer science was non-existent at the time. Instead they called themselves mathematicians and physicists. That being said I may one day get to the point to write an article about some of the people listed above.

   Each part will tell the story of a computer scientist and sum up his works from my point of view. The articles will not include more information than what you can read on Wikipedia and find using Google but it will be formatted as a story and will sum up more than one Wikipedia article. What is more people do not go looking for information about someone if they have never heard of him. In short I will read Wikipedia for you in the form of a fairytale. Note that I cannot promise that I will have the time or the inspiration to write more articles so part 0 may happen to be the last.

   Part 0 tells the story of the most powerful (in my opinion) of the giants. The father of computer science – Alan Turing...
Posted by:   Stilgar
20:44 16.03.2009
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