MACHINES THAT THINK

Evening Star, Issue 22639, 4 May 1937, Page 12

MACHINES THAT THINK

PROBLEMS MAY BE ANSWERED Complicated mathematical' problems are now so usual in research work, particularly in physics, that scientists are coming more and more to depend on machines to do the •laborious work entailed in their solution, just as banks, insurance offices, and other big commercial concerns use mechanical calculators to reduce the time formerly employed by clerks to do sums in arithmetic with head, pen, and paper. Cambridge University is to spend at least £IO,OOO within the next few years in building and setting up a computing laboratory. Many of tho instruments to be installed are so ingenious that they seem to the uninitiated to be actually thinking. One of the first of these mathematical instruments to be invented was made in 1814 to measure directly the area bounded by an irregular curve. This was subsequently developed as the “ planimeter,” and is now made in forms which solve directly and quickly many problems connected with irregular plain figures, which would take hours to work out by algebra and arithmetic. The most complicated mathematical instrument in the world is the “ product integraph ” at the Institute of Technology, Massachusetts. This instrument, which is some 18ft long, is driven by electricity, and answers some mathematical problems which are far too complex for the human brain to tackle. Most mathematical equations can be represented as a curve drawn on squared paper. In the “product integraph” the equations concerned in the different parts of the problem to be solved are fed into appropriate places in the machine, and the answer is read as another curve at the on l. Computations which' would take weeks to complete by tiie old methods can be finished in a few hours by this instrument. Problems that would take an hour or so can be done in a few minutes.