Can I read Giant Brains; Or, Machines That Think on EtoBox?

Giant Brains; Or, Machines That Think is a book available to read on EtoBox.

What is Giant Brains; Or, Machines That Think about?

This 1949 book introduced the public to "mechanical brains". Edmund C. Berkeley wrote a book that every one can read. [A "computer" then was the person who used a slide-rule or other computational device.] Berkeley graduated from Harvard College in 1930, became an actuary for a life insurance company, served in the USNR at the Harvard Computation Laboratory and worked on the Aiken Mark II Relay Calculator. Later he was part of the team that bought the UNIVAC, a large-scale automatic computer. Since 1948 he operated his own consulting business handling information and computing. The 'Preface' says the use of mechanical brains is as great an advance as printing over writing for labor savings (p.vii). He will compare four of these machines. You don't have to read the entire book, only what seems interesting. You could skip some sections (p.viii). Chapter 1 explains these machines are similar to what a brain would be if it were hardware instead of flesh and nerves. Thinking in the human brain is done by storing information and then referencing to it by learning and remembering (p.2). Nerve cells operate like a relay or on-off switch (p.3). The behavior that is thinking can be done by a

Publisher

Wiley

Published

1949

Language

EN