MATHEMATICAL MARVEL

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24802, 16 February 1946, Page 7

MATHEMATICAL MARVEL

Problems Solved By Electronics

COMPUTATIONS AT HIGH SPEED

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (ft ec- U?®? WASHINGTON, Feb. 15. The United States War Department has revealed one of the top war-time th® “Eniac” computing machine, which applies electronic speeds to mathematical tasks hitherto too difficult for solution. Experts who viewed the device heralded it as a tool ~ h . ich to be « in t 0 rebuild scientific affairs on new foundations. Eniac is expected to revolutionise modern engineering, hasten a new epoch m industrial design, and eventually eliminate much of the slow and costly trial and error work now necessary m fashioning intricate machines. Emac computes mathematical problems 1000 times faster than is now possible.

Epiac has not a single moving mechanical part Nothing inside its 18,000 vacuum valves and several miles of wiring moves' with the exception of the tiniest elements of matter. However, mechanical devices associated with Eniac translate or interpret human mathematical language into terms understood by Eniac and viceversa.

Eniac was invented by young University of Pennsylvania scientists, John Mauchly and Presper Eckert at the request of the War Department which desired a machine to prepare the large volume ballistic data needed to break a threatened bottle neck in the produc-’ tion of firing and bombing tables for new weapons going overseas. Eniac was developed in 30 months ahd cost 400,000 dollars. Eniac solved its first difficult wartime problem in two hours—a problem ordinarily requiring the services of 100 trained men for one year. Eniac is expected to lead to improved weather forecasting, better aeroplanes, gas turbines, television, and supersonic projectiles.

Eckert predicted that problems now thought impossible because they required a lifetime of study would be readily solved. “The old era is going out and the new era of electronic speeds is on the way when we can begin to tackle scientific problems with hew understanding.” he said.