ACM remembers A.M. Turing Award Laureate E. Allen Emerson, who passed away on Oct. 15, 2024.
Computer History
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The Computation Behind This Year’s Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Physics
What, from a computational perspective, did recent Nobel recipients do to merit their prizes?
Hopper kept a backwards clock on her wall to remind herself to think outside the box.
Technical Marvels, Part 8: Historical Surveying Instruments
Geometrical instruments in the 17th century focused on measuring distances and heights.
The Paradigm Shifts in Artificial Intelligence
To understand the state of the art of AI and where it is heading, it is important to track its scientific history.
Nobel Prizes and AI: The Promise, the Peril, and the Path Forward
Three prizes awarded by the Nobel Committee this year send a remarkable message about the current moment in Artificial Intelligence
Technical Marvels, Part 7: Musical Clocks and Organs
Many clocks, automaton figures, furniture, and jewelry have built-in musical mechanisms.
Technical Marvels, Part 6: Musical Automatons
Music automatons range from singing birds and music boxes to barrel organs and self-playing pianos.
Introducing the distinction between a programmer and a coder made the idea of automatic coding more appealing.
Technical Marvels, Part 5: Chess Automatons
Chess has been a touchstone for artificial intelligence.
A recounting of the past half-century of database technology.
Technical Marvels, Part 4: Leonardo da Vinci’s Robots
Polymath Leonardo da Vinci designed a wide range of machines and instruments over 500 years ago.
Free and Open Source Software–and Other Market Failures
Computing has scientific roots, and if it is not open source, it is not science.
Technical Marvels, Part 3: The Yupana
Yupanas were not only calculating devices, they were possibly also used as architectural models for urban planning.
Technical Marvels, Part 2: Lebombo and Ishango Bones
A look at some of the earliest mathematical instruments.
Charles Babbage’s code sketches were the first attempt to specify how to mechanize complex algorithms with a computer.
This series presents selected technical marvels from the fields of computing technology, mathematics, astronomy, surveying, time measurement, looms and automatons (automaton figures, chess-playing machines, musical automatons, automaton writers, drawing automatons, automaton clocks, picture clocks, globes, historical robots). The examples are largely from the 15th to 20th centuries and do not claim to be exhaustive. In […]
The overriding philosophy of computing pioneer Niklaus Wirth, who died on January 1, 2024, was that systems should be simple, efficient, and “elegant.”
What Do Computing and Economics Have to Say to Each Other?
Computing is huge! Pay attention to optimistic economists.
Niklaus Wirth and Beyond: Safeguarding the Intellectual Heritage of Computing
On preserving the memory, and work documentation, of the founders of computer science.
Shape the Future of Computing
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