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The Time of Computers: From Babbage and the 1830s to the Present

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Historical Studies in Computing, Information, and Society

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Abstract

This chapter argues first that Babbage and Lyell developed a similar, machinic view of human and natural time, with the difference engine for Babbage being at the center of this conceptualization. This view involved the smoothing of time socially and naturally to create a form of stasis. Second, it maintains that the ever-faster time of the computer, prefigured by Babbage, has led to the historical creation of a new ontological level at which events occur well below the threshold of human perception – and that this new level is associated with a drive to stasis.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.inverse.com/article/13413-a-hive-of-drones-and-an-icelandic-data-center-would-make-awesome-futuristic-skyscrapers accessed 3/30/2019

  2. 2.

    See Lewis (2014). He describes premium prices being paid for the positioning of a server within a room of servers.

  3. 3.

    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/physicists-record-smallest-slice-time-yet-180961085/ accessed 4 April, 2019.

  4. 4.

    Latour (1988).

  5. 5.

    Lyell (1830–1833).

  6. 6.

    For some discussion see Husbands et al. (2008): 5.

  7. 7.

    Babbage (1826).

  8. 8.

    Babbage (1994[1864]).

  9. 9.

    Ibid., 90.

  10. 10.

    Swade (2000).

  11. 11.

    British Sessional Papers, 1817, vol. 6, p361.

  12. 12.

    Babbage (1832).

  13. 13.

    Ibid., 3–6.

  14. 14.

    Ibid. 39; 43.

  15. 15.

    Thomas Turner to Charles Babbage, 28.11.32, Correspondence, vol. 6, 1832, British Museum Add.Mss. 37185–37191, ff.247-9.

  16. 16.

    Wells (1938).

  17. 17.

    Arnott (1827).

  18. 18.

    Somerville (1834): 249.

  19. 19.

    Bergery (1829).

  20. 20.

    Babbage (1837).

  21. 21.

    Whewell (1833).

  22. 22.

    Babbage, op. cit. note 20: 140.

  23. 23.

    Kittler (2017).

  24. 24.

    Op. cit. note 20: 39

  25. 25.

    Ibid.: 54.

  26. 26.

    Lyell to Babbage, 17/2/37. Add. Mss. 37190. f.37.

  27. 27.

    Who was thrown by her father Metabus across the Amisenus river attached to a javelin.

  28. 28.

    Edinburgh Review, 1838: 285–286.

  29. 29.

    Perdonnet (1832): 28.

  30. 30.

    Ibid.: 29.

  31. 31.

    Mechanic’s Magazine. 9/9/37: 381–2.

  32. 32.

    Somerville to Babbage, 6/6/37. Add. Mss. 37190. ff.204-5; Chalmers to Babbage, 10/10/37. Add. Mss. 37190. f.295.

  33. 33.

    Lyell, op. cit. note 5: vol.1: 112.

  34. 34.

    Op. cit., note 12: 88–89.

  35. 35.

    Ibid.: 90.

  36. 36.

    Lyell to Babbage. May 1837, Add.Mss. 37190, f.187.

  37. 37.

    Poulett Scrope (1833).

  38. 38.

    Dunoyer (1837).

  39. 39.

    De Serres (1837): ij.

  40. 40.

    Ibid.: ij; iij.

  41. 41.

    Ibid.: iij.

  42. 42.

    Ibid.: iij.

  43. 43.

    Ibid.: 5.

  44. 44.

    Ibid.: 33.

  45. 45.

    Beniger (1986).

  46. 46.

    PickeringPickering (2010).

  47. 47.

    http://www.humanemergence.org/humanMemome.html accessed 29/3/2019.

  48. 48.

    Candea (2010).

  49. 49.

    Charles Babbage, The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise: A Fragment, op. cit. note 12.

  50. 50.

    This temporal collapse is perhaps pointed to by Kittler’s use of “a screaming comes across the sky” (16) – the opening and closing lines of Gravity’s Rainbow, encapsulating the extensive time of the novel into the moment of the dropping of a rocket.

  51. 51.

    Cormen et al. (2009): 774.

  52. 52.

    Deutsch (1997): 155.

  53. 53.

    Ibid.: 200.

  54. 54.

    Ibid.: 196–7.

  55. 55.

    I borrow this felicitous phrase from Service (2004).

  56. 56.

    https://aiimpacts.org/brain-performance-in-flops/, accessed 11/21/18. Kurzweil gives 1016.

  57. 57.

    “Messy emulation” is just doing neuron for neuron mapping; other forms would develop new kinds of intelligence. (It is surprising that such a limited view of the workings of the brain – neuron firing – persists in computer science, as well as the willful ignorance of the distributed, embodied nature of cognition).

  58. 58.

    Shanahan (2015): 152–3.

  59. 59.

    Ibid.: 157.

  60. 60.

    Ibid.: 35.

  61. 61.

    Ibid.: 157 – citing Hans Moravic.

  62. 62.

    Schüll and Zaloom (2011): 1–24.

  63. 63.

    Beverungen and Lange (2018): 80.

  64. 64.

    I am grateful to John Seberger for pointing this out to me. Gross (2019).

  65. 65.

    Berson (2015).

  66. 66.

    http://www.engineersgallery.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/things.jpg accessed 4 April, 2019.

  67. 67.

    Serres (1995).

  68. 68.

    Mitchell (2011).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Geoffrey C. Bowker

  2. Center for Advanced Studies, Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Oslo, Norway

    Geoffrey C. Bowker

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  1. Geoffrey C. Bowker
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Correspondence to Geoffrey C. Bowker .

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  1. Department of Information Science, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    William Aspray

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Bowker, G.C. (2019). The Time of Computers: From Babbage and the 1830s to the Present. In: Aspray, W. (eds) Historical Studies in Computing, Information, and Society. History of Computing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18955-6_1

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