This may be slightly OT - but the one thing I have always wondered about the 19th century is why Babbage didn't go down the route of Boolean logic/math for computation? Furthermore, why he didn't incorporate and use relays (from telegraphy)? For that matter, why didn't Hollerith?
Ultimately, to me it seems all connected to this "fixed" idea (that is, thinking "inside the box") that computation was about numbers - that there was only calculation and tabulation - counting, iow.
While Boole came up with the math/logic - few pursued the idea of making machines to work with it (a few -did- exist, but were obscure, iirc); embodying logic using electrical circuits would have to wait. Then there was the "revelation" of computation being about symbols, not numbers - which opened everything up.
I'm just kinda rambling here; my apologies. And, hindsight is always easier than foresight, of course. It just bugs me, and makes me wonder what "obvious" ideas we are missing today, that will change the world, that we won't know until we look back. I guess I wonder why many of the most world changing ideas (in the long run) are often very simple, and why did it take so long for humanity to see/discover them? I wonder if anyone has studied this - of if it is something that can be studied...?
Ultimately, to me it seems all connected to this "fixed" idea (that is, thinking "inside the box") that computation was about numbers - that there was only calculation and tabulation - counting, iow.
While Boole came up with the math/logic - few pursued the idea of making machines to work with it (a few -did- exist, but were obscure, iirc); embodying logic using electrical circuits would have to wait. Then there was the "revelation" of computation being about symbols, not numbers - which opened everything up.
I'm just kinda rambling here; my apologies. And, hindsight is always easier than foresight, of course. It just bugs me, and makes me wonder what "obvious" ideas we are missing today, that will change the world, that we won't know until we look back. I guess I wonder why many of the most world changing ideas (in the long run) are often very simple, and why did it take so long for humanity to see/discover them? I wonder if anyone has studied this - of if it is something that can be studied...?