“The Inner Satisfaction That Comes with Each Use of the Alignment Chart”

  • Aristotle Tympas
Chapter
First Online:
Part of the History of Computing book series (HC)

Abstract

Calculating tables and graphs, the two classes of calculating artifacts covered in this chapter, exemplify a mode of computing that seems to have been as little (if at all) mechanical as possible. They are treated together for an additional reason: tables were usually generated from graphs and vice versa. In many cases, the two were also used complementary. The construction and use of calculating tables and graphs could actually involve several other calculating artifacts, from slide rules to ones that exemplified the highest degree of mechanization (some versions of analyzers). In some cases, tables and graphs were used as components of an expensive standard or unique calculating artifact; in others, expensive calculating artifacts had been used to generate a table or a graph. The process could start from empirical data, collected at the interface of engineering or other encounter with nature, or, from the other end, plans to change nature according to laboratory rehearsals.

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© Springer-Verlag London Ltd. 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  • Aristotle Tympas
    • 1
  1. 1.National and Kapodestrian University of AthensAthensGreece

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