Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Before Palm Pilots and iPods, PCs and laptops, the term "computer" referred to the people who did scientific calculations by hand. These workers were neither calculating geniuses nor idiot savants but knowledgeable people who, in other circumstances, might have become scientists in their own right. When Computers Were Human represents the first in-depth account of this little-known, 200-year epoch in the history of science and technology. Beginning with the story of his own grandmother, who was trained as a human computer, David Alan Grier provides a poignant introduction to the wider world of women and men who did the hard computational labor of science. His grandmother's casual remark, "I wish I'd used my calculus," hinted at a career deferred and an education forgotten, a secret life unappreciated; like many highly educated women of her generation, she studied to become a human computer because nothing else would offer her a place in the scientific world. The book begins with the return of Halley's comet in 1758 and the effort of three French astronomers to compute its orbit. It ends four cycles later, with a UNIVAC electronic computer projecting the 1986 orbit. In between, Grier tells us about the surveyors of the French Revolution, describes the calculating machines of Charles Babbage, and guides the reader through the Great Depression to marvel at the giant computing room of the Works Progress Administration. When Computers Were Human is the sad but lyrical story of workers who gladly did the hard labor of research calculation in the hope that they might be part of the scientific community. In the end, they were rewarded by a new electronic machine that took the place and the name of those who were, once, the computers.

Mental calculators --- Science --- Calculus --- Calculating prodigies --- Calculators, Mental --- Computers, Human --- Human computers --- Gifted persons --- Mental arithmetic --- Natural science --- Natural sciences --- Science of science --- Sciences --- History. --- Mathematics

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

"Using a well-known and successful dance and performance method, the authors describe how avatars and robots can be designed to be more comfortable with these technologies"--

Robots --- Motion. --- Human mechanics. --- Movement, Aesthetics of. --- Movement notation. --- Bartenieff Fundamentals (Service mark) --- Laban, Rudolf von, --- Influence. --- COMPUTERS / Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) --- TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Robotics --- COMPUTERS / Interactive & Multimedia

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

"This book sets the agenda for how we think about human activity that arises from embedding manipulated information in our action and embodied cognition"--

Human-machine systems. --- Thought and thinking. --- Artificial intelligence. --- Expert systems (Computer science) --- Knowledge-based systems (Computer science) --- Systems, Expert (Computer science) --- Artificial intelligence --- Computer systems --- Soft computing --- AI (Artificial intelligence) --- Artificial thinking --- Electronic brains --- Intellectronics --- Intelligence, Artificial --- Intelligent machines --- Machine intelligence --- Thinking, Artificial --- Bionics --- Cognitive science --- Digital computer simulation --- Electronic data processing --- Logic machines --- Machine theory --- Self-organizing systems --- Simulation methods --- Fifth generation computers --- Neural computers --- Mind --- Thinking --- Thoughts --- Educational psychology --- Philosophy --- Psychology --- Intellect --- Logic --- Perception --- Psycholinguistics --- Self --- Human operators (Systems engineering) --- Human subsystems (Systems engineering) --- Man-machine control systems --- Man-machine systems --- Operator-machine systems --- Engineering systems --- Human engineering --- Embodied Cognition --- Design --- Design Theory --- Human-Computer Interaction --- Ergonomics --- HCI --- CHI --- COMPUTERS / Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) --- COMPUTERS / Computer Science --- DESIGN / General