When Computers Were Human (61 page)

16
. See Nevil Maskelyne to Joshua Moore, September 30, 1788, MOORE.

17
. Maskelyne, “Preface,”
Nautical Almanac for 1767
.

18
. Croarken, “Tabulating the Heavens.”

19
. Maskelyne, “Preface,”
Nautical Almanac for 1767
.

20
. Croarken, “Tabulating the Heavens.”

21
. Howse,
Nevil Maskelyne
, p. 86; Croarken, “Tabulating the Heavens.”

22
. Charles Talleyrand (1754–1838) quoted in Bradley,
Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony
, p. 16.

23
. Porter,
Trust in Numbers
(1995), p. 24; Alder, “A Revolution to Measure” (2002), pp. 85–88.

24
. Guillaume,
Procès-Verbaux du Comité d'Instruction Publique
(1897); Archibald, “Tables of Trigonometric Functions in Non-Sexagesimal Arguments” (1943).

25
. Smith, C., “The Longest Run”; Bradley,
Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony
, pp. 5, 10.

26
. Bradley,
Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony
, p. 10.

27
. Smith, C., “The Longest Run.”

28
. Bradley,
Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony
, p. 11.

29
. Quoted ibid., p. 17.

30
. Quoted ibid.

31
. Quoted in Archibald, “Tables of Trigonometric Functions in Non-Sexagesimal Arguments,” (1943).

32
. Quoted in Babbage,
Economy of Machinery and Manufactures
(1835), p. 193.

33
. Smith, C., “The Longest Run”; see also Daston, “Enlightenment Calculations.”

34
. Quoted in Babbage,
Economy of Machinery and Manufactures
, p. 193.

35
. Grattan-Guinness, “Work for the Hairdressers.”

36
. Quoted in Babbage,
Economy of Machinery and Manufactures
, p. 194.

37
. Braverman,
Labor and Monopoly Capital
, p. 220.

38
.
Grattan-Guinness, “Work for the Hairdressers.” The planners included Marc-Antoine Parseval (d. 1836), whose name is associated with “Parseval's inequality.” Kline,
Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times
, p. 716.

39
. Babbage,
Economy of Machinery and Manufactures
, pp. 193, 194.

40
. Ibid., p. 194.

41
. Grattan-Guinness, “Work for the Hairdressers.”

42
. Lalande,
Bibliographie Astronomique avec l'Histoire de l'Astronomie
(1802), pp. 743–44.

43
. Bradley,
Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony
, pp. 19, 10.

44
. See Guillaume,
Procès-Verbaux du Comité d'Instruction Publique
(1904), pp. 556–61.

45
. Alder, “A Revolution to Measure” (1995).

46
. Quoted in Bradley,
Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony
, p. 68.

47
. Grattan-Guinness, “Work for the Hairdressers”; Charles Babbage to Sir Humphrey Davy, July 3, 1822, in Morrison and Morrison,
Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines
, pp. 298–305.

48
. Hyman,
Charles Babbage
, pp. 29, 39–40.

49
. See Schaffer, “Babbage's Intelligence” (1994), p. 204.

50
. Hyman,
Charles Babbage
, p. 34.

51
. Ashworth, “The Calculating Eye.”

52
. “Prospectus for the Astronomical Society,” 1820, RAS.

53
. Babbage,
History of the Invention of the Calculating Engines
.

54
. Babbage,
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher
(1864), p. 31.

55
. See Swade,
The Cogwheel Brain
, pp. 26–27.

56
. Hyman,
Charles Babbage
, pp. 40–41; Grattan-Guinness, “Work for the Hairdressers.”

57
. Babbage,
Economy of Machinery and Manufactures
(1835), p. 191.

58
. Ibid., p. 187.

59
. Williams,
A History of Computing Technology
, pp. 124, 129.

60
. Cardwell,
Norton History of Technology
, p. 230.

61
. Williams,
A History of Computing Technology
, p. 145.

62
. Charles Babbage to Sir Humphrey Davy, July 3, 1822, in Morrison and Morrison,
Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines
, p. 305.

63
. Swift,
Gulliver's Travels
, section 3, chapter 5.

64
. Charles Babbage to Sir Humphrey Davy, July 3, 1822, in Morrison and Morrison,
Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines
, p. 305.

65
. Dreyer and Turner,
History of the Royal Astronomical Society
, appendix: medal winners.

66
. Baily, “On Mr. Babbage's New Machine” (1823).

67
. Hyman,
Charles Babbage
, p. 65.

68
. Babbage,
Economy of Machinery and Manufactures
(1835), p. 267.

69
. Goldstine,
The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann
, p. 19.

70
. Lovelace, “Notes by the Translator,” in Morrison and Morrison,
Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines
, p. 251.

71
. Hyman,
Charles Babbage
, p. 165.

72
. Babbage,
Economy of Machinery and Manufactures
, p. 169.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

T
HE
C
ELESTIAL
F
ACTORY

1
. Dickens, Charles,
Hard Times
, Project Gutenberg Edition,
“The Keynote.”

2
. Yeomans,
Comets
.

3
. Maunder,
The Royal Observatory Greenwich
, chapter 3.

4
. Wilkins, “A History of H.M. Nautical Almanac Office,” p. 56.

5
.
Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society
, vol. 2, no. 2 (February 11, 1831), pp. 11–12.

6
. Ibid., no. 25 (February 12,1830), p. 166.

7
. Ashworth, “The Calculating Eye.”

8
. South, “Report on Nautical Almanac” (1831), pp. 459–71, p. 461.

9
. Dunkin,
A Far Off Vision
, p. 45.

10
.
Nautical Almanac for 1835
, London, John Murray, 1833, p. 493.

11
. Yeomans,
Comets
(1991), pp. 256–57.

12
.
Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society
, vol. 3, no. 20 (February 12, 1836), pp. 161–62.

13
. Ibid.

14
. Report by the Astronomer Royal to the Board of Visitors for 1837, London, 1838.

15
. Smith, R., “A National Observatory Transformed”; Cannon,
Science and Culture
, p. 38.

16
. Smith, R., “A National Observatory Transformed.”

17
. Quoted in Ashworth, “The Calculating Eye.”

18
. The Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe is generally credited with giving the task of reduction to human computers.

19
. Smith, R., “A National Observatory Transformed”; Schaffer, “Astronomers Mark Time” (1988), pp. 115–45; Maunder,
The Royal Observatory Greenwich
, p. 117; Dunkin,
A Far Off Vision
, p. 72.

20
. W. H. M. Christie quoted in Meadows,
Greenwich Observatory
, vol. 2, p. 9.

21
. Dunkin,
A Far Off Vision
, p. 45.

22
. Ibid., p. 72.

23
. Ibid., p. 96.

24
. Dickens, Charles,
Hard Times
, Project Gutenberg Edition,
“The Keynote.”

25
. Maunder,
The Royal Observatory Greenwich
, p. 117.

26
. Meadows,
Greenwich Observatory
, p. 11.

27
. Dunkin,
A Far Off Vision
, p. 71.

28
. Meadows,
Greenwich Observatory
, p. 7.

29
. Chapman, “Sir George Airy,” p. 332.

30
. Smith,
Wealth of Nations
, book I, chapter 1.

31
. See
Annual Reports of the Astronomer Royal to the Board of Visitors
, beginning in 1836.

32
. George Airy to Henry Goulburn, September 16, 1842, 6-427, folder 68, GREENWICH.

33
. Swade,
The Cogwheel Brain
, p. 153.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

T
HE
A
MERICAN
P
RIME
M
ERIDIAN

1
. Latrobe,
The History of Mason and Dixon's Line
.

2
. Croarken, “Tabulating the Heavens” (2003); fragment labeled “Paper given at Columbian Institute,” undated correspondence, MOORE; Joshua I. Moore to Thomas Jefferson, September 7, 1805; Thomas Jefferson to Joshua I. Moore, September 19, 1805, JEFFERSON.

3
. Tocqueville,
Democracy in America
, book 2, chapter 9.

4
. Dupree,
Science in the Federal Government
, p. 42.

5
. Dick and Doggett,
Sky with Ocean Joined
, p. 169; see also Dick,
Sky with Ocean Joined
.

6
. Theberge,
History of the Commissioned Corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
, “personnel policies,” pp. 84ff. (“Investigation of 1842”).

7
. Will of James Smithson, quoted in Dupree,
Science in the Federal Government
, p. 66.

8
. See
Congressional Globe
, 30th Cong., 2d sess., HR 699, “An Act Making appropriations for the naval service, for the year ending the thirtieth of June, 1850.”

9
. Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893).

10
. Matthew Fontaine Maury quoted in Waff, “Navigation vs. Astronomy.”

11
. Anonymous (1849); Waff concludes that Peirce or Davis was the most likely author (see Waff, “Navigation vs. Astronomy,” p. 97).

12
. Waff, “Navigation vs. Astronomy,” p. 97.

13
. Davis, C. H., II,
Life of Charles Henry Davis
(1899), pp. 4, 64, 89.

14
. Ibid., p. 91.

15
. Ibid., p. 58.

16
. Ibid., pp. 4, 64, 89.

17
. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “Nature,” section 4.

18
. Peterson, “Benjamin Peirce,” pp. 89–112.

19
. Charles Henry Davis to William Ballard Preston, July 30, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

20
. Davis, C. H., “Report of the Secretary of the Navy” (1852), p. 6.

21
. Davis, C. H., “Report on the Nautical Almanac” (1852).

22
. Charles Henry Davis to William Ballard Preston, July 30, 1849, box 15, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

23
. Morando, “The Golden Age of Celestial Mechanics.”

24
. Gottfried Galle to Jean Joseph Le Verrier, September 25, 1846, quoted ibid.

25
. Thoreau,
Walden
, section 1, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.”

26
. Charles Henry Davis to Charles Peirce, August 5, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

27
. Tyler,
John David Runkle
; “Annual Report for the United States Navy for 1852,” p. 8.

28
. Gould, “Commemoration of Sears Cook Walker.”

29
. Ibid.

30
.
Benjamin Peirce to Matthew Fontaine Maury, January 21, 1846, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

31
. Maury, Matthew, “Report on Leverrier,” Nautical Almanac Correspondence, January 1847, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

32
. Maury, Matthew, Report to Secretary of the Navy, February 7, 1847, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

33
. Charles Henry Davis to William Ballard Preston, “Reply on employing subordinate computers,” OBSERVATORY-LOC.

34
. Jones and Boyd,
The Harvard College Observatory
, p. 384.

35
. Fuller, Margaret,
Women in the Nineteenth Century
(1844), in
The Essential Margaret Fuller
, Jeffrey Steele, ed., New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1992, p. 260. See also her story of Miranda, pp. 261ff.

36
. Wright,
Sweeper in the Sky
(1949), p. 23.

37
. Jones and Boyd,
The Harvard College Observatory
, pp. 384–85.

38
. Charles Henry Davis to Maria Mitchell, January 5, 1851, OBSERVATORY-LOC; U.S. Nautical Almanac for 1852.

39
. Charles Henry Davis to Maria Mitchell, December 24, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

40
. Charles Henry Davis to Maria Mitchell, December 24, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

41
. Newcomb,
The Reminiscences of an Astronomer
, pp. 1, 75.

42
. Charles Henry Davis to Otis E. Kendall, April 24, 1851, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

43
. Charles Henry Davis to William A. Graham, June 19, 1851, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

44
. Charles Henry Davis to the Secretary of the Navy, October 14, 1850, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

45
. Waff, “Navigation vs. Astronomy,” p. 95.

46
. Davis, C. H.,
Remarks on an American Prime Meridian
(1849), p. 12.

47
. Charles Henry Davis to William Preston, July 31, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

48
. Charles Henry Davis to William Preston, July 31, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.

49
. Davis, C. H.,
Remarks on an American Prime Meridian
(1849), pp. 32, 39.