#Logic world history definition download#

What is unusual is that the primary reference was a 90-year-old work of mathematical philosophy, George Boole’s The Laws of Thought. Shannon’s paper is in many ways a typical electrical-engineering paper, filled with equations and diagrams of electrical circuits. “Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about.” Shannon’s thesis topic came about when Bush recommended he try to discover such a theory. The device was mostly mechanical, with subsystems controlled by electrical relays, which were organized in an ad hoc manner as there was not yet a systematic theory underlying circuit design. His adviser, Vannevar Bush, built a prototype computer known as the Differential Analyzer that could rapidly calculate differential equations.

The evolution of computer science from mathematical logic culminated in the 1930s, with two landmark papers: Claude Shannon’s “ A Symbolic Analysis of Switching and Relay Circuits,” and Alan Turing’s “ On Computable Numbers, With an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.” In the history of computer science, Shannon and Turing are towering figures, but the importance of the philosophers and logicians who preceded them is frequently overlooked.Ī well-known history of computer science describes Shannon’s paper as “possibly the most important, and also the most noted, master’s thesis of the century.” Shannon wrote it as an electrical engineering student at MIT. As one computer scientist commented: “If, in 1901, a talented and sympathetic outsider had been called upon to survey the sciences and name the branch which would be least fruitful in century ahead, his choice might well have settled upon mathematical logic.” And yet, it would provide the foundation for a field that would have more impact on the modern world than any other. Mathematical logic was initially considered a hopelessly abstract subject with no conceivable applications.

#Logic world history definition download#

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