[SIGCIS-Members] turning from 'language' to block diagrams

Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan bernard.geoghegan at hu-berlin.de
Fri Nov 7 06:06:10 PST 2014


Dear SIGCISers,

as long as the conversation is going wonderfully astray, I'd like to 
seize upon a momentarily less trodden path. Paul wrote:
/
//As an added idea to the discussion on language, we should also 
recognize non-written languages use widely by engineers and modelers 
(e.g., block languages, or the diagrams of Bush’s analyzer). These are 
documented forms of communication, and so forms of language./

I'm writing a little piece at the moment on the Shannon's diagram in 
consolidating certain notions of communication in broader scientific and 
popular fields. Can anyone recommend relevant literature on the origins 
of the block diagram /writ large/? And I've been surprised not to see 
any similar diagrams in the earlier papers by Nyquist or Hartley. Anyone 
have any good citations for key moments in the appearance of block 
diagrams in electrical engineering-type fields?

Apart from Erhard Schuettpelz's "Eine Ikonographie der Stoerung: 
Shannons Flussdiagramm der Kommunikation," I haven't found a lot of 
super relevant material for zeroing in on this particular problem of the 
diagram. David Kaiser and Deleuze have some great tips for thinking 
about the work of diagrams and diagrammatic reason but I'd like to find 
some primary or secondary literature for thinking about its development 
of digital computing, information theory, electrical engineering, and so 
on. Tips?

Thanks for any thoughts,
Bernard
>
> -paul
>
>
>> And, one last thing, does anybody know why did Von Neumann choose the 
>> term "automata"? Just a coincidence ?
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> David Nofre
>>
>> On 6 November 2014 09:17, Mark Priestley <m.priestley at gmail.com 
>> <mailto:m.priestley at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     Menabrea wrote, concerning the Analytical Engine:
>>
>>     "the cards are merely a translation of algebraical formulae, or,
>>     to express it better, another fom of analytical notation" (quoted
>>     on p. 60 of my book "The Science of Operations").
>>
>>     which maybe counts as an early explicit connection between
>>     "programming notations" and "language" (scare quotes emphasized).
>>     Even the cards of the AE are being described here as language-like.
>>
>>     Once you've got mechanical agency, real or envisaged, it seems to
>>     have been very natural for people - eg Babbage, Stibitz, Hopper -
>>     to think in terms of communication, and the language metaphor
>>     seems to enter as a way of categorizing to the kind of
>>     communication going on between humans and calculating machines.
>>
>>     Cheers,
>>     Mark
>>
>>     On 6 Nov 2014 01:04, "David Alan Grier" <grier at gwu.edu
>>     <mailto:grier at gwu.edu>> wrote:
>>
>>          If we are going to Lovelace, then we need to go to the
>>         Memoirs of the Analytical Society.  "It is the spirit of this
>>         symbolic language, by that mechanical fact, which carries the
>>         eye at one glance through the most intricate modifications of
>>         quantity, to condense pages into lines and volumes into
>>         pages; shortening the road to discovery, and preserving the
>>         mind unfatigued by the continued efforts of attention to the
>>         minor parts that it may exert its whole vigor on those which
>>         are important".   Babbage and Herschel wrote it. Babbage
>>         referenced it in his later writings. Lovelace would have
>>         certainly known it.
>>
>>
>>         David
>>         --------------------------------
>>         David Alan Grier
>>         Past President, IEEE Computer Society
>>
>>         http://video.dagrier.net <http://video.dagrier.net/>
>>         http://erranthashtag.dagrier.net
>>         <http://erranthashtag.dagrier.net/>
>>
>>         Associate Professor, International Science & Technology Policy
>>         Elliott School of International Affairs
>>         George Washington University
>>         grier at gwu.edu <mailto:grier at gwu.edu>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>         On Nov 5, 2014, at 2:07 PM, McMillan, William W
>>         <william.mcmillan at cuaa.edu
>>         <mailto:william.mcmillan at cuaa.edu>> wrote:
>>
>>         > Do these notes by Ada Lovelace count"
>>         >
>>         > 'The bounds of arithmetic were however outstepped the
>>         moment the idea of applying the cards had occurred; and the
>>         Analytical Engine does not occupy common ground with mere
>>         “calculating machines.” It holds a position wholly its own;
>>         and the considerations it suggests are most interesting in
>>         their nature. In enabling mechanism to combine together
>>         general symbols in successions of unlimited variety and
>>         extent, a uniting link is established between the operations
>>         of matter and the abstract mental processes of the most
>>         abstract branch of mathematical science. A new, a vast, and a
>>         powerful language is developed for the future use of
>>         analysis, in which to wield its truths so that these may
>>         become of more speedy and accurate practical application for
>>         the purposes of mankind than the means hitherto in our
>>         possession have rendered possible. Thus not only the mental
>>         and the material, but the theoretical and the practical in
>>         the mathematical world, are brought into more intimate and
>>         effective connexion with each other. We are not aware of its
>>         being on record that anything partaking in the nature of what
>>         is so well designated the Analytical Engine has been hitherto
>>         proposed, or even thought of, as a practical possibility, any
>>         more than the idea of a thinking or of a reasoning machine'
>>         >
>>         > [emphasis added]
>>         >
>>         > https://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html
>>         >
>>         > Her use of "language" here seems to be specific to the
>>         expression of computation and reasoning.
>>         >
>>         > - Bill
>>         >
>>         >
>>         > ________________________________
>>         > From: members-bounces at sigcis.org
>>         <mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org>
>>         [members-bounces at sigcis.org
>>         <mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org>] on behalf of Marie
>>         Gevers [marie.gevers at unamur.be <mailto:marie.gevers at unamur.be>]
>>         > Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2014 4:13 AM
>>         > To: members
>>         > Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Origin of 'language'?
>>         >
>>         > I wonder by whom and when the word 'language' was used for
>>         the first time in the framework of computer sciences.
>>         > Can anybody enlighten me?
>>         > Thanks in advance.
>>         >
>>         > Marie
>>         > --
>>         > [cid:part1.03020706.06070701 at unamur.be
>>         <mailto:cid%3Apart1.03020706.06070701 at unamur.be>]
>>         >
>>         > Prof. Marie d'UDEKEM-GEVERS
>>         > Chargée de cours
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>
> Paul Fishwick, PhD
> Chair, ACM SIGSIM
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>    and Professor of Computer Science
> Director, Creative Automata Laboratory
> The University of Texas at Dallas
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-- 
Dr. Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan
Institut für Kulturwissenschaft
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

www.bernardg.com

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