Mechanical Calculators. In the seventeenth century, calculators more sophisticated than the abacus began to appear. Mathematicians who designed and implemented calculators that were capable of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, contributed to their development included Blaise Pascal (French mathematician and philosopher) and Wilhelm von Leibniz (German mathematician, philosopher, and diplomat). The calculators Pascal and Leibniz built were unreliable, since the mechanical technology of the time was not capable of manufacturing the parts with sufficient precision. As manufacturing techniques improved, mechanical calculators eventually were perfected; they were used widely until they were replaced by electronic calculators in recent times.
The Jacquard Loom. Until modern times, most information-processing machines were designed to do arithmetic. An outstanding exception, however, was Jacquard's automated loom, a machine designed not for hard figures but beautiful patterns. A Jacquard loom weaves cloth containing a decorative pattern; the woven pattern is controlled by punched cards. Changing the punched cards changes the pattern the loom weaves. Jacquard looms came into widespread use in the early nineteenth century, and their descendants are still used today. The Jacquard loom is the ancestor not only of modern automated machine tools but of the player piano as well.
14. Give synonyms to the following words:
To aid, strength, to speculate, to lift, ancestors, to manufacture, to single out, precision, to perfect, in recent times, pattern, to develop.
15. Give antonyms to the following words:
Descendants, automated machine, exception, virtue, intelligence, to transmit, reliable, sufficient, in modern times.
16. Say if the following sentences are true or false. If they are false, correct them:
1. In the beginning was the abacus.
2. The forerunner of the computer is the mechanical calculator.
3. The punched card is still very important for computers today.
4. The calculators Pascal and Leibniz built were reliable.
5. The mechanical calculator could multiply and divide as well as add and subtract.
6. Babbage invented the Jacquard loom.
17. Put the appropriate words into the following text:
In spite of, device, be traced, completed, multi-purpose, colleagues, unfortunately, techniques, machine, computational.
The idea of using machines to solve mathematical problems can … at least as far as the early 17th century.
The first… , i.e. programmable, computing … was probably Charles Babbage's Difference Engine, which was started in 1823 but never … . A more ambitious machine was the Analytical Engine. It was designed in 1842, but … it also was only partially completed by Babbage. … never building a complete working machine, Babbage and his… , most notably Ada, Countess of Lovelace, recognized several important programming … , including conditional branches, iterative loops and index variables.
A … inspired by Babbage's design was arguably the first to be used in … science.
18. Answer the following questions:
1. What are mind tools?
2. Where can examples of information-processing machines be traced back?
3. What are are some of the most important forerunners of the computer?
4. Is the abacus still in use today?
5. Where do we get the words abacus and calculate from?
6. Did philosophers design the first calculators?
7. What were the calculators of the 17th century capable of?
8. What were mechanical calculators replaced by?
9. Why was Jacquard Loom an exception?
10. What was Jacquard loom automated by?
19. Give English equivalents to the following words and word combinations:
1. изменять; 2. хранить; 3. предшественник; 4. разнообразный; 5. в основном; 6. счет; 7. быть способным; 8. ненадежный; 9. достаточный; 10. точность; 11. улучшаться; 12. в конце концов; 13. выдающийся; 14. исключение; 15. цифра; 16. потомок.
20. Give the main idea of text 4.1.
21. Put the proper words into sentences:
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