Galileo, Engineer
Calculation and Measurement
Scientists and engineers thrive upon mathematical innovations in calculation and measurement, as shown in several illustrations from the abacus to the slide rule to the analytical computer.
Browse Items on Display
| 1 |
Book on Calculation Borgi, Pietro (1517) Borgi’s book on the abacus was the most important commercial arithmetic manual in Renaissance Italy. Around 1200, Leonardo of Pisa, also known as Fibonnacci, wrote an earlier manual for the abacus which introduced a sign for zero, Hindu-Arabic numerals, and a base-10 place value system. |
|
| 2 |
Star Viewer Schickard, William (1698) Schickard, a friend of Kepler’s, designed this planisphere or “astroscopium” to calculate the positions of the stars for any day and hour of the year. Schickard also devised a calculating machine to produce astronomical tables according to Kepler’s laws. |
|
| 3 |
On Mathematics Schott, Gaspar (1668) In this mathematics textbook, Schott explained the rod-based calculating machine designed by his fellow Jesuit, Athanasius Kircher. The philosopher Leibniz also created a calculating machine, described in 1666, which he offered to the emperor of China. |
|
| 4 |
A Description of the Marvelous Rule of Logarithms Napier, John (1614) In this book, Napier presented logarithmic methods of calculation in more than 50 pages of explanation, followed by 90 pages of numerical tables. “Logarithm” derives from “logos” (proportion) and “arithmos” (number). |
 |
| 5 |
Description and Use of an Instrument, Called the Double Scale of Proportion Partridge, Seth (1692) After a century of calculating instrument innovation, Partridge created the slide-rule. Edmund Gunter designed a logarithmic scale in 1620. William Oughtred placed two logarithmic scales side-by-side to perform multiplication and division in 1630. |
|
| 6 |
Demonstration Slide Rule The slide rule is based on logarithms. With a slide rule, one may quickly and reliably calculate to a precision of about 3 digits. Until the pocket calculator became available in the mid-1970‘s, slide rules were in constant use by scientists and engineers. |
|
| 7 |
Notes Lovelace, Ada (1843) These notes comprise one of the most important papers in the history of computing. Lovelace explained how Babbage’s “analytical engine,” if constructed, would amount to a programmable computer rather than merely a calculator. |
|
| 8 |
Apple Computer (1984) The original 256K Macintosh computer was the first consumer-marketed personal computer to support mouse input and a windows-based graphical user interface. |
|
| 9 |
Abacus model The abacus, an ancient calculating machine, is still in use around the world. Counters consisting of pebbles in the sand, beads on a wire or knots on a string are shifted back and forth on each level to represent different quantities, such as units and tens. |
