Document Type

Research

Abstract

Most of us have at hand a simple analogue computer like a sliderule, or a digital computer like an adding machine or a desk calculator. But what can a scientist do when his computations become too involved for these devices? We have all read accounts of the Electronic Numerical Integrator ·and Computer, or Eniac (2, 3) built at the Moore School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and now located at Aberdeen. This giant occupies 1000 square feet of floor space and contains 18000 vacuum tubes, 1500 relays, and has an accumulator, multiplier, divider, square rooter, a function table, and a constant transmitter. It normally handles 10-digit numbers. Information is given to the machine on I B M punched cards, and the answers are punched on cards. This machine in 4 minutes evaluated and punched 250 values of the final solution of 3 simultaneous nonlinear ordinary differential equations which arose in the theory of the lamillar boundary layer in a compressible fluid; once the problem has been set up and the machine provided with certain initial estimates.

Publication Date

1952

Journal Title

Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science

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application/pdf

Recommended Citation

Helmick, P. S. (1952) "Presidential Address: The Scientist Meets the Robots," Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science, 59(1), 71-79.
Available at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/pias/vol59/iss1/8

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Presidential Address: The Scientist Meets the Robots

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