Your browser doesn't support the features requi#EC1C24 by impress.js, so you are presented with a simplified version of this presentation.

For the best experience please use the latest Chrome, Safari or Firefox browser.

Old Digital Literacy
Tuesdays 13:00 - 13:45, baumhaus.digital/odl
daniel@udk-berlin.de

Semester 0 :: Historical Context
Session 4 :: Between Renaissance and Age of Reason

Order of the day
  1. Repetitio :: Between Antiquity and Rennaissance
  2. Narratio :: Wheat and chessboard legend
  3. Questio :: What is an algorithm ?
  4. Lectio :: Between renaissance and Age of Reason
    • Descartes & Pascal
    • Leibniz
  5. Exercitio :: Binary counting.
Wheat and chessboard legend
"Oh emperor, my wishes are simple. I only wish for this. Give me one grain of rice for the first square of the chessboard, two grains for the next square, four for the next, eight for the next and so on for all 64 squares, with each square having double the number of grains as the square before."
Question of the day
What is an algorithm ?

Origin of the word "algorithm"
Mariam-Webster dict. definition of an "algorithm"
Rene Descartes (c. 1596 - 1650 A.D.)
Mechanism
"I should like you to consider that these functions (including passion, memory, and imagination) follow from the mere arrangement of the machine’s organs every bit as naturally as the movements of a clock or other automaton follow from the arrangement of its counter-weights and wheels." (Descartes, Treatise on Man, p.108)
Cartesian coordinate system...
...makes computer graphics possible...

and much, much more...
Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)
Death mask of Blaise Pascal
Pascaline (mechanical calculator)
Gottfried W. Leibniz (c. 1646 c. 1716)
Stepped reckoner
"... it is beneath the dignity of excellent men to waste their time in calculation when any peasant could do the work just as accurately with the aid of a machine." (G.W.L, 1673)
Leibniz wheel
Binary digits
Please read :: http://baumhaus.digital/odl/Leibniz.pdf
from letter of Leibniz to Duke of Braunschweig (1697)
Exercicio :: Binary counting

http://baumhaus.digital/odl/lumieres

TO BE CONTINUED WITH

http://baumhaus.digital/odl/steampunk

Use a spacebar or arrow keys to navigate