Book Description
A theoretical physicist at Cambridge, Douglas Hartree is best known for his work in numerical methods and the machines that could be used to calculate them with increasing speed and sophistication.

This reprint of Hartree's principal work also includes his inaugural Cambridge lecture, Calculating Machines: Recent and Prospective Developments and Their Impact on Mathematical Physics, which is extremely difficult to obtain and which makes ideal preliminary reading for the main set of lectures presented in Calculating Instruments and Machines. In these, Hartree provided the first comprehensive survey of the significant developments in computation that were going on at the time-the main directions of development in storage systems, serial machines, and parallel programming and coding, and particularly with high-speed automatic digital machines that were precursors of the modern stored program computer.

Calculating Instruments and Machines was originally published in 1949 by the University of Illinois Press. It is Volume VI in The Babbage Institute Reprint Series. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Computing Prehistory by One of Its British Participants
Calculating MachinesDouglas R. Hartree

A review by Frederick A. Ware

This book is volume six in the Charles Babbage Institute Reprint Series for the History of Computing. Douglas Hartree was primarily aphysicist, his most significant contribution being the Hartree-Fockself-consistent approximation technique for generating molecular wavefunctions. Later in his career, he became one of the leading computerresearchers in Britain during the late 1940s when Britain briefly overtookthe United States in this new field.

This was a tremendously enjoyablebook. It goes into significant depth in a number of areas. The reader isimpressed and surprised by how far computer hardware and softwaredevelopment had moved in the three years since the unveiling of Eniac.

This is a valuable historical reference, as well, touching upon theprimary classes of computing machinery during what is arguably the mostcritical two decades in the realization of the computer. In 1930 the onlycomputing instruments were the mechanical desk calculator and slide rule.By 1950 there were several dozen stored program machines doing useful workscattered across two continents.

This book covers the development ofcalculating instruments and machinery during the 1930s and the 1940s.Briefly, the nine chapters are:

[1] Introduction

[2] The DifferentialAnalyser (those Brits don't know how to spell) - The Bush DifferentialAnalyser is described extensively. The core of this mechanical analoguecomputer is the two diskintegrator. Shaft rotations are used to representnumerical values, and ordinary differential equations may be solvednumerically with the instrument. There is also some discussion of howmechanical analogue computers were quickly replaced by analogue electroniccomputers with the development of the vacuum tube operationalamplifier.

[3] The Differential Analyser and Partial DifferentialEquations - Partial differential equations are turned into ordinarydifferential equations be evaluating them with one of the independent keptto a limited range. The equations are solved repeatedly to give a family ofnumerical solutions.

[4]Some Other Instruments - Analogue instrumentationcapable of Fourier decomposition and Fourier synthesis is described.

[5]Introduction to Large Automatic Digital Computers - The structure of adigital computer is described - main store, processing unit, control unit,and an input/output unit. Also the basic classes of commands used toprogram the machine are described: load/store transfers, arithmetic/logicaloperations, sequencing operations (branch and skip), and input/outputoperations. Computer science 101, but it was pretty new in 1949.

[6]Charles Babbage and the Analytical Engine - A description of Babbagescomputer demonstrating how it mapped into the digital computer of chapter5.

[7] The First Stage of Development - A description of the firstcomputers (really just souped-up calculaters with some kind of automaticsequencing capability). This included the Harvard Mark I mechanical digitalcomputer, the Bell Telephone relay digital computer, and the Penn Statevacuum tube digital computer. Of the three, the Eniac was the mostsignificant because of its blinding speed - the electronic components gaveit a 1000x performance advantage over the other technologies. The keycontribution of Mauchley and Eckert was to prove that large numbers ofvacuum tubes could be operated reliably. The architecture of the machinewas not significant, with all subsequent vacuum tube machines utilizing thefamiliar stored program architecture.

[8] Projects and Prospects - Thedevelopment of large, fast main storage is the critical problem to beaddressed in the late 1940s. The two principle alternatives to vacuum tubeflipflops are mercury delay lines and electrostatic storage on a CRT . Bothare volatile and require refreshing techniques. Both go on to be used in anumber of computers in the next five years until ferrite core memory isdeveloped.

[9] High Speed Automatic Digital Machines and NumericalAnalysis - The first attempts to develop numerical algorithms that arestable and efficient. The problems are the same as those attacked by theearlier analogue machines, but the problems of roundoff and quantizationmust be addressed for the first time. ... Read more

Book Description
This scientific biography of Douglas R Hartree not only describesimportant events in his life but also outlines his contributions to anumber of fields. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A service to science
Charlotte Froese Fischer has done science in general and computer science in particular a great service by portraying the life and work of Douglas Rayner Hartree.He was not only a notable pioneer in atomic theory, numerical analysis and computer software but as well, probably more than any other person, did more to demonstrate the enormous value of the differential analyzer to science and technology - and by no means least to the theory of automatic control.The book reveals Hartree as a wonderful teacher and friend.It is sad to reflect that his intense dedication to the war effort during World War II may have shortened his life.

Arthur Porter
Professor Emeritus
University of Toronto

Review
An interesting review of the life and work of Hartree.Though his contributions to science are significant, Froese Fischer exaggerates the impact of his contributions.Instead of giving a realistic account of an ordinary scientist, Froese Fischer attempts to give an extraordianry account of an extraordinary scientist - which Hartree is not.However, the book does provide much information that would not have otherwise been available to the public. ... Read more