Leonardo da Vinci computing machine. Mechanical period. Manual stage of computer technology development
Computer(English computer - “calculator”), computer(electronic computer) - a machine for carrying out calculations, as well as receiving, processing, storing and issuing information according to a predetermined algorithm(computer program).
At the dawn of the computer era, it was believed that the main function of a computer was calculation. However, it is now believed that their main function is management.
The history of the creation of digital computing technology goes back centuries. It is fascinating and instructive; the names of outstanding scientists of the world are associated with it.
In the diaries of a brilliant Italian Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) Already in our time, a number of drawings were discovered that turned out to be a sketch of a summing computer on gear wheels, capable of adding 13-bit decimal numbers. In 1969, specialists from the famous American company IBM reproduced the machine in metal and were convinced of the complete validity of the scientist’s idea.
In those distant years, the brilliant scientist was probably the only person on Earth who understood the need to create devices to facilitate the work of performing calculations.
1623 More than a hundred years after the death of Leonardo da Vinci, another European was found - a German scientist Wilhelm Schickard (1592-1636) , who, naturally, had not read the diaries of the great Italian - who proposed his solution to this problem. The reason that prompted Schiccard to develop a calculating machine for summing and multiplying six-digit decimal numbers was his acquaintance with the Polish astronomer J. Kepler. Having become acquainted with the work of the great astronomer, which was mainly related to calculations, Schickard was inspired by the idea of helping him in his difficult work. In a letter addressed to him, he gives a drawing of the machine and tells how it works. Unfortunately, history has not preserved information about the further fate of the car. Apparently, early death from the plague that swept through Europe prevented the scientist from fulfilling his plan.
The inventions of Leonardo da Vinci and Wilhelm Schiccard became known only in our time. They were unknown to their contemporaries.
IN 1641-1642. nineteen year old Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) , then a little-known French scientist, creates a working summing machine (“pascaline”).
At first, he built it for one sole purpose - to help his father in the calculations performed when collecting taxes. Over the next four years, he created more advanced models of the machine. They were built on the basis of gears and could add and subtract decimal numbers. About 50 samples of machines were created, B. Pascal received a royal privilege for their production, but the “Pascalines” did not receive practical use, although a lot was said and written about them.
IN 1673 g. another great European, German scientist Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) , creates a calculating machine (an arithmetic device, according to Leibniz) for adding and multiplying twelve-digit decimal numbers. He added a stepped roller to the gear wheels to allow multiplication and division.
“...My machine makes it possible to perform multiplication and division over huge numbers instantly, without resorting to sequential addition and subtraction,” wrote V. Leibniz to one of his friends. Leibniz's machine was known in most European countries.
The merits of V. Leibniz, however, are not limited to the creation of an “arithmetic device”. From his student years until the end of his life, he studied the properties binary number system, which later became the basis for the creation of computers. He gave it a certain mystical meaning and believed that on its basis it was possible to create a universal language for explaining the phenomena of the world and for use in all sciences, including philosophy.
IN 1799 in France Joseph Marie Jacquard (1752-1834) invented a loom that used punched cards to set patterns on fabric. The initial data required for this was recorded in the form of punches in the appropriate places on the punched card. This is how the first primitive device for storing and entering software (in this case, controlling the weaving process) information appeared.
1836-1848 The final step in the evolution of mechanical digital computing devices was made by an English scientist Charles Babbage (1791-1871) . Analytical Engine, project which he developed was a mechanical prototype of the computers that appeared a century later. It was supposed to have the same five main devices as in the computer: arithmetic, memory, control, input, output. The program for performing calculations was written on punched cards (punched), and the original data and results of calculations were also recorded on them.
The main design feature of this machine is software operating principle.
The principle of a program stored in computer memory is considered the most important idea in modern computer architecture. The essence of the idea is that:
The calculation program is entered into the computer memory and stored in it along with the original numbers;
The commands that make up the program are presented in a numeric code in a form no different from numbers.
Babbage machine calculation programs compiled by Byron's daughter Ada Augusta Lovelace(1815-1852), are strikingly similar to the programs subsequently compiled for the first computers. A wonderful woman was named the world's first programmer.
Despite all the efforts of C. Babbage and A. Lovelace, the machine could not be built... Contemporaries, not seeing a concrete result, were disappointed in the scientist’s work. He was ahead of his time.
Another outstanding Englishman who lived in the same years turned out to be misunderstood - George Boole(1815-1864). The algebra of logic he developed (Boole algebra) found application only in the next century, when a mathematical apparatus was needed to design computer circuits using the binary number system. An American scientist “connected” mathematical logic with the binary number system and electrical circuits Claude Shannon in his famous dissertation (1936).
63 years after the death of Charles Babbage, “someone” was found who took upon himself the task of creating a machine similar in principle to the one to which Charles Babbage devoted his life. It turned out to be a German student Konrad Zuse(1910-1985). He began work on creating the machine in 1934, a year before receiving his engineering diploma. Conrad knew nothing about Babbage's machine, nor about the works of Leibniz, nor about Boole's algebra, however, he turned out to be a worthy heir to W. Leibniz and J. Boole, since he brought back to life the already forgotten binary calculus system, and used something like Boolean algebra. IN 1937 the Z1 (which stood for "Zuse 1") was ready and working! It was, like Babbage's machine, purely mechanical.
K. Zuse set several milestones in the history of computer development: he was the first in the world to use the binary number system when building a computer (1937), created the world's first program-controlled relay computer (1941) and a digital specialized control computer ( 1943).
These truly brilliant achievements, however, did not have a significant impact on the development of computer technology in the world... There were no publications about them or any advertising due to the secrecy of the work, and therefore they became known only a few years after the end of World War II war.
Events in the USA developed differently. IN 1944 Harvard University scientist Howard Aiken(1900-1973) creates the first in the USA (at that time it was considered the first in the world!) relay-mechanical digital computer MARK-1. The machine used the decimal number system. A remarkable quality of the car was its reliability. Installed at Harvard University, she worked there for 16 years!
Following MARK-1, the scientist creates three more machines (MARK-2, MARK-3 and MARK-4) - also using relays rather than vacuum tubes, explaining this by the unreliability of the latter.
Unlike Zuse’s work, which was carried out in secrecy, the development of MARK1 was carried out openly, and the creation of a machine that was unusual at that time was quickly learned in many countries. It’s no joke, in one day the machine performed calculations that previously took six months! The daughter of K. Zuse, who worked in military intelligence and was in Norway at that time, sent her father a newspaper clipping reporting on the grandiose achievement of the American scientist.
K. Zuse could triumph. He was in many ways ahead of his emerging opponent. Later he will send him a letter and tell him about it.
At first 1946 the first tube computer “ENIAC”, created under the guidance of a physicist, began to consider real problems Jon Mauchly(1907-1986) at the University of Pennsylvania. It was more impressive in size than MARK-1: 26 m long, 6 m high, weighing 35 tons. But it was not the size that was striking, but the performance - it was 1000 times higher than the performance of MARK-1! This was the result of using vacuum tubes!
In 1945, when work on the creation of ENIAC was being completed, and its creators were already developing a new electronic digital computer, EDVAK, in which they intended to place programs in RAM, in order to eliminate the main drawback of ENIAC - the difficulty of entering calculation programs, he was sent to them as a consultant outstanding mathematician, participant in the Manhattan atomic bomb project John von Neumann(1903-1957). IN 1946 Neyman, Goldstein and Burks (all three worked at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study) compiled a report that contained an extensive and detailed description of the principles for constructing digital electronic computers, which are still followed today.
“Computer devices” - Usually people buy color inkjet printers for home. Annotation. Computer functions. Internet resources: www.sipc.ru.; www.compsupport.ru; Computer security. A modem is a device for accessing the Internet via a telephone line. MEOW!.. etc.). The Internet is a global system for transmitting and storing data. Don't be greedy!
“Internet Device” - Zvezda. The topic of the lesson is “Composition of the Internet.” Teleconferences. Storage of files with programs and data, accessible to the user via the network. Notice boards. Internet structure. Internet telephony. Regional network. Local networks. There are corporate, national and international global networks.
"The Art of Leonardo da Vinci" - Leonardo da Vinci was buried in the Castle of Amboise. End of life. "Annunciation". Leonardo da Vinci worked on a vertical take-off and landing apparatus. Leonardo planned to place a system of retractable staircases on the vertical “ornitottero”. The angel on the left (lower left corner) is the creation of Leonardo. Defeated teacher.
"The Works of Leonardo Da Vinci" - Inventions of Leonardo Da Vinci. New decorative works by Leonardo da Vinci. 1519 April 23. Leonardo in Amboise. 1517 October 1st. Life of Leonardo Da Vinci. MILAN AND FLORENCE 1507 Death of Francesco, uncle of Leonardo. Trouble about inheritance. 1507 October. Departure to Rome via Florence. Meeting of Francis I. 1515 December 8-15.
“Computer device” - a computer for computing. System software is divided into: Operating systems. A PC uses a structure with one common interface called the system bus. OSs were used for the first time to effectively manage computer resources. Software and hardware control. 1.7 External storage device. Poo. Slow response (cache miss).
"Leonardo da Vinci" - 1502 - enters the service of Cesare Borgia as an architect and military engineer. 1514-1516 - work on the painting “John the Baptist”. 1472-1477 - work on: “The Baptism of Christ”, “The Annunciation”, “Madonna with a Vase”. 1503 - return to Florence. 1509 - painting in St. Anne's Cathedral. 1503 - paintings “The Battle of Andjaria (at Anghiari)” and “Mona Lisa”.
The need for automatic calculation arose in the Middle Ages due to the sharp increase in trade operations and oceanic shipping during this period. Trade required large financial transactions, and shipping required reliable navigation tables.
Scientists of those times observed the Moon and compiled huge tables where they recorded changes in its positions, which were used to check the correctness of the proposed formulas for the movement of the Earth's natural satellite. Such a check was based on a huge number of arithmetic calculations, which required patience and accuracy from the performer. To facilitate and speed up such work, computing devices began to be developed. This is how various mechanisms appeared - the first adding machines and adding machines.
A mechanical computing device is a device built on mechanical elements and providing automatic transfer from the lowest to the highest.
Mechanical digital computing devices are technical objects of a significantly higher level of complexity compared to previous pre-mechanical means. The prerequisites for their creation are considered to be scientific and technological progress and social needs, and the main technical prerequisite for their creation was the development of mechanics both at the stage preceding the creation of precision mechanics and at the stage of its formation and development.
It is believed that the mechanical stage continues from the invention of Pascal's adding machine (1642) to the creation of Hollerith's electromechanical tabulator (1887). A classic instrument of the mechanical type is the adding machine, invented by Leibniz, the manual drive of which was later replaced by an electric one.
B is an intermediate position between mechanical and pre-mechanical devices, which use a mechanical structure (for example, gears), but do not provide the transmission of tens. These devices are called quasi-mechanical, they include the machines of Leonardo da Vinci and Wilhelm Schickard.
Leonardo da Vinci's machine
Already in our time, drawings and a description of a 13-bit adding device belonging to the Italian scientist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) were discovered.
The basis of the machine, as described, consists of rods on which gears are attached (Fig. 3). Ten revolutions of the first wheel, according to the author's plan, should have led to one full revolution of the second, and ten revolutions of the second - to one revolution of the third, etc.
In 1969, using the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, the American computer manufacturing company IBM built a working machine for advertising purposes. Experts reproduced the machine in metal and were convinced of the complete validity of the scientist’s idea.
Leonardo da Vinci's adding machine can be considered a seminal milestone in the history of digital computing. This was the first digital adder, the prototype of the future electronic adder - the most important element of modern computers, still mechanical, very primitive (manually controlled).
In the 21st century, humanity is in a whirlpool of a huge number of numbers: bills, salaries, taxes, dividends, loans, etc. It is also inevitable that the world would move much slower without such a seemingly simple computing device as a calculator. After all, how many necessary operations we perform with the help of this object, which was invented several centuries earlier.
Prototype of Leonardo's calculator
In the winter of 1967, American scientists, working on one of the projects based on the National Library of Spain, made an amazing discovery. Researchers have discovered two lost works by da Vinci that are now integral parts of the Codex Madrid. This artifact contains drawings of a counting mechanism made by Leonardo in 1492.
The prototype of the calculator was based on a base with a pair of jagged wheels: a large wheel on one side, a small one on the other. Based on the drawings left behind by da Vinci, it can be understood that the bases were arranged in such a way that the large wheel of one part was linked to the small wheel of another part, and the rods themselves were turned over one at a time. The mechanism was driven by a chain reaction: the first rod, making ten revolutions, forced one revolution of the second rod, respectively, ten revolutions of the third - to one revolution of the fourth. In total, the car had 13 parts that moved thanks to special weights.
It is believed that Leonardo da Vinci failed to implement this project during his lifetime.
Roberto Guatelli and Leonardo da Vinci
Roberto Guatelli was a renowned expert on the biography, work and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci. Since 1951, together with the IBM organization, he has been reproducing Leonardo's great works, studying the drawings and sketches he left behind. While conducting research on the computer work in the Codex Madrid, Guatelli discovered that there were similarities with sketches in the Codex Atlantica, another large-scale work of the inventor.
Based on two images, in the late 60s Roberto Guatelli recreated a sample of a computer. The device worked on a ten to one principle on each of the 13 parts. After the first handle made a full rotation, the units wheel began to move, and a number from 0 to 9 appeared. After the tenth rotation of the first lever was completed, the units mechanism repeated the same action and returned to the zero mark, which was moved by the decimal mechanism by unit. Accordingly, each subsequent wheel was responsible for designating hundreds, thousands, etc.
Guatelli made some adjustments to Leonardo's drawing, with the help of which a more complete and detailed picture of what was happening was revealed to the viewer.
But after a year of existence of the reproduction of the computer, discussions arose regarding the exact reproduction of the mechanism. Therefore, a group of academic studies was conducted to establish the originality of this invention. There was a hypothesis that Leonardo's drawings depicted a device involved in carrying out proportions, and not a computer. There was also an opinion that in the apparatus the rotation of the first base led to ten revolutions of the second, one hundred revolutions of the third and 10 to the 13th degree of rotation of the last. Opponents believed that this mechanism could not function due to too much friction.
IBM, despite disagreements among researchers, decided to remove the subject of debate from the collection.
So, the first prototype of the calculator was not only able to take on a material shell several centuries later, but also became the subject of controversy in the scientific community.
Leonardo da Vinci's device
A kind of modification of the abacus was proposed by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) at the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th century. He created a sketch of a 13-bit adding device with ten-tooth rings. Drawings of this device were found among Leonardo's two-volume collection on mechanics, known as the Codex Madrid. This device is something like a counting machine based on rods, on one side there is a smaller one on the other, a larger one, all the rods (13 in total) had to be arranged in such a way that the smaller one on one rod touches the larger one on the other. Ten revolutions of the first wheel should lead to one full revolution of the second, 10 of the second to one full revolution of the third, etc.
LEONARDO DA VINCI (April 15, 1452, Vinci near Florence - May 2, 1519, Cloux Castle, near Amboise, Touraine, France), Italian painter, sculptor, architect, scientist, engineer.
Combining the development of new means of artistic language with theoretical generalizations, Leonardo da Vinci created an image of a person that meets the humanistic ideals of the High Renaissance. In the painting "The Last Supper" (1495-1497, in the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan), the high ethical content is expressed in strict patterns of composition, a clear system of gestures and facial expressions of the characters. The humanistic ideal of female beauty is embodied in the portrait of Mona Lisa (La Gioconda, circa 1503). Numerous discoveries, projects, experimental studies in the field of mathematics, natural sciences, and mechanics. He defended the decisive importance of experience in knowledge of nature (notebooks and manuscripts, about 7 thousand sheets).
Leonardo was born into the family of a wealthy notary. He developed as a master, studying with Andrea del Verrocchio in 1467-1472. Working methods in the Florentine workshop of that time, where the artist’s work was closely linked with technical experiments, as well as his acquaintance with the astronomer P. Toscanelli contributed to the emergence of young Leonardo’s scientific interests. In early works (the head of an angel in Verrocchio's "Baptism", after 1470, "Annunciation", about 1474, both in the Uffizi, "Benois Madonna", about 1478, Hermitage) enriches the traditions of Quattrocento painting, emphasizing the smooth three-dimensionality of forms with soft chiaroscuro, enlivening faces a thin, barely perceptible smile.
In "The Adoration of the Magi" (1481-82, unfinished; underpainting - in the Uffizi) he turns a religious image into a mirror of various human emotions, developing innovative drawing methods. Recording the results of countless observations in sketches, sketches and full-scale studies (Italian pencil, silver pencil, sanguine, pen and other techniques), Leonardo achieves rare acuity in conveying facial expressions (sometimes resorting to grotesque and caricature), and the structure and movements of the human body leads in perfect harmony with the dramaturgy of the composition.
In the service of the ruler of Milan, Lodovico Moro (from 1481), Leonardo acts as a military engineer, hydraulic engineer, and organizer of court festivities. For over 10 years he has been working on the monument to Francesco Sforza, father of Lodovico Moro; The life-size clay model of the monument, full of plastic power, has not survived (it was destroyed during the capture of Milan by the French in 1500) and is known only from preparatory sketches.
This period marked the creative flowering of Leonardo the painter. In “Madonna of the Rocks” (1483-94, Louvre; second version - 1487-1511, National Gallery, London), the master’s favorite subtle chiaroscuro (“sfumato”) appears as a new halo, which replaces the medieval halos: this is equally a divine-human and natural mystery, where the rocky grotto, reflecting Leonardo’s geological observations, plays no less dramatic role than the figures of saints in the foreground.
"Last Supper"
In the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Leonardo creates the painting “The Last Supper” (1495-97; due to the risky experiment that the master undertook, using oil mixed with tempera for the fresco, the work has reached us in a very damaged form). The high religious and ethical content of the image, which represents the stormy, contradictory reaction of Christ’s disciples to his words about the impending betrayal, is expressed in clear mathematical laws of the composition, powerfully subjugating not only the painted, but also the real architectural space. The clear stage logic of facial expressions and gestures, as well as the excitingly paradoxical, as always with Leonardo, combination of strict rationality with an inexplicable mystery made “The Last Supper” one of the most significant works in the history of world art.
Also involved in architecture, Leonardo developed various versions of the “ideal city” and the central-domed temple. The master spends the following years in constant travel (Florence - 1500-02, 1503-06, 1507; Mantua and Venice - 1500; Milan - 1506, 1507-13; Rome - 1513-16). From 1517 he lived in France, where he was invited by King Francis I.
"Battle of Angyari". Mona Lisa (Portrait of Mona Lisa)
In Florence, Leonardo is working on a painting in the Palazzo Vecchio ("Battle of Anghiari", 1503-1506; not finished and not preserved, known from copies from cardboard, as well as from a recently discovered sketch - private collection, Japan), which stands at the origins of the battle genre in the art of modern times; the deadly fury of war is embodied here in the frenzied fight of the horsemen.
In Leonardo's most famous painting, the portrait of Mona Lisa (the so-called "La Gioconda", circa 1503, Louvre), the image of a wealthy city dweller appears as a mysterious personification of nature as such, without losing its purely feminine cunning; The inner significance of the composition is given by the cosmically majestic and at the same time alarmingly alienated landscape, melting into a cold haze.
Late paintings
Leonardo's later works include: designs for the monument to Marshal Trivulzio (1508-1512), the painting "St. Anne with Mary and the Child Christ" (circa 1500-1507, Louvre). The latter, as it were, sums up his searches in the field of light-air perspective, tonal color (with a predominance of cool, greenish shades) and harmonious pyramidal composition; at the same time, this is harmony over the abyss, since a group of holy characters, welded together by family closeness, is presented on the edge of the abyss. Leonardo's last painting, “Saint John the Baptist” (circa 1515-1517, ibid.) is full of erotic ambiguity: the young Forerunner here looks not like a holy ascetic, but like a tempter full of sensual charm. In a series of drawings depicting a universal catastrophe (cycle with the “Flood”, Italian pencil, pen, circa 1514-1516, Royal Library, Windsor), thoughts about the frailty and insignificance of man before the power of the elements are combined with rationalistic ones, anticipating the “vortex” cosmology of R. Descartes ideas about the cyclical nature of natural processes.
"Treatise on Painting"
The most important source for studying the views of Leonardo da Vinci are his notebooks and manuscripts (about 7 thousand sheets), written in colloquial Italian. The master himself did not leave a systematic presentation of his thoughts. The "Treatise on Painting", prepared after Leonardo's death by his student F. Melzi and which had a huge influence on the theory of art, consists of passages, largely arbitrarily extracted from the context of his notes. For Leonardo himself, art and science were inextricably linked. Giving the palm in the “dispute of the arts” to painting as, in his opinion, the most intellectual form of creativity, the master understood it as a universal language (similar to mathematics in the field of science), which embodies the entire diversity of the universe through proportions, perspective and chiaroscuro. “Painting,” writes Leonardo, “is a science and the legitimate daughter of nature..., a relative of God.” By studying nature, the perfect artist-naturalist thereby learns the “divine mind” hidden under the external appearance of nature. By engaging in creative competition with this divinely intelligent principle, the artist thereby affirms his likeness to the Supreme Creator. Since he “has first in his soul and then in his hands” “everything that exists in the universe,” he also is “a kind of god.”
Leonardo is a scientist. Technical projects
As a scientist and engineer, Leonardo da Vinci enriched almost all areas of knowledge of that time with insightful observations and guesses, considering his notes and drawings as sketches for a giant natural philosophical encyclopedia. He was a prominent representative of the new, experimentally based natural science. Leonardo paid special attention to mechanics, calling it “the paradise of mathematical sciences” and seeing in it the key to the secrets of the universe; he tried to determine the coefficients of sliding friction, studied the resistance of materials, and was passionate about hydraulics. Numerous hydrotechnical experiments were expressed in innovative designs of canals and irrigation systems. Leonardo's passion for modeling led him to astounding technical foresights that were far ahead of his era: such are sketches of designs for metallurgical furnaces and rolling mills, weaving machines, printing, woodworking and other machines, a submarine and a tank, as well as designs for flying machines developed after a thorough study of the flight of birds and parachute
The observations collected by Leonardo on the influence of transparent and translucent bodies on the color of objects, reflected in his painting, led to the establishment of the principles of aerial perspective in art. The universality of optical laws was associated for him with the idea of the homogeneity of the Universe. He was close to creating a heliocentric system, considering the Earth to be “a point in the universe.” He studied the structure of the human eye, making guesses about the nature of binocular vision.
Anatomy, botany, paleontology
In anatomical studies, summarizing the results of autopsies of corpses, in detailed drawings he laid the foundations of modern scientific illustration. Studying the functions of organs, he considered the body as an example of “natural mechanics”. He was the first to describe a number of bones and nerves, paying special attention to the problems of embryology and comparative anatomy, trying to introduce the experimental method into biology. Having established botany as an independent discipline, he gave classical descriptions of leaf arrangement, helio- and geotropism, root pressure and the movement of plant juices. He was one of the founders of paleontology, believing that fossils found on mountain tops refute the idea of a “global flood.”
Having revealed the ideal of the Renaissance “universal man,” Leonardo da Vinci was interpreted in subsequent tradition as the person who most clearly outlined the range of creative quests of the era. In Russian literature, the portrait of Leonardo was created in the novel “The Resurrected Gods” (1899-1900)
