Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Inspiring the next generation of Spanish innovators
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
When highlighting Spain's heritage, it is common to focus on the great artists like Picasso, Dali, and Gaudi. Less often heralded are their
scientific counterparts
, the talented Spanish inventors and researchers who didn't just dream of the future, they helped create it. One such oft-overlooked contributor is
Leonardo Torres Quevedo
. His inventions range from cable cars to the world’s first chess playing computer.
In this, the hundredth anniversary year of his chess machine, Google was delighted to partner with the
Technical University of Madrid
to help resurrect Torres Quevedo’s memory. Together, we celebrated the opening of an exhibition in the main hall of the Telecommunication Engineering department featuring a number of his machines, as well as a
formal lecture programme
exploring his influence across many engineering fields.
It was a great day. Dr Alberto Rodriguez Raposa, the Director General of Telecommunications and IT from the Ministry of Industry opened the exhibitions. Speakers in the seminar included senior representatives from different engineering departments across the university, as well as Dr Francisco González de Posada, Professor of Applied Physics at the University of Madrid and a renowned expert in Torres-Quevedo’s achievements.
In parallel, a chess tournament for 14-17 year olds from regional chess clubs was staged in the hall alongside the exhibition, with the winner playing a simulation of the original chess machine.
It’s important to remember scientific pioneers like Leonardo Torres Quevedo, not only to pay rightful tribute to their achievements, but to inspire others to follow in their footsteps.
This is an appropriate time for reflection. Innovation when combined with an entrepreneurial streak, as demonstrated by Torres Quevedo, can be a powerful catalyst for economic growth, and a vital determinant of a country’s competitiveness on the world stage. In the current context, through these type of partnerships, we seek to inspire the next generation of Torres Quevedo’s to help get countries back on the fast lane to the future.
Posted by Barbara Navarro, Director of Public Policy and Corporate Affairs for Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece
Celebrating Spain's inventor of the world’s first computer game
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
What does a cable car in Niagara Falls have to do with the world’s first machine to play chess? Surprisingly, both were inventions of
Spanish civil engineer Leonardo Torres-Quevedo
. Next week, as part of
our ongoing effort
to celebrate Europe’s computing heritage, we’re commemorating Torres-Quevedo’s legacy and his remarkable machine—
"El Ajedrecista"
(in English, "The Chess Player")—in partnership with the
Telecommunication Engineering department of the Technical University of Madrid.
Photo thanks to Wikimedia Commons
Torres-Quevedo’s inventions span many fields. He was the second in the world to
demonstrate wireless remote control
, beaten to the post only by
Nikola
Tesla
. His
designs for airships
were used by both the French and British during WWI. He was a global leader in cable car design, creating the “
Spanish aero car
” over the Niagara Whirlpool which,
nearly a century on
, remains a tourist attraction. However, his most remarkable achievements were in the field of automation, developing machines that are antecedents to what we now call computers and robots.
Torres-Quevedo’s ambitions were bold. As Scientific American
proclaimed in 1915
: “He would substitute machinery for the human mind.” In the 1890’s Torres-Quevedo built a
series of mechanical devices
that solved algebraic equations. In 1920 he wowed a Paris audience with an electromechanical
arithmometer
with typewriter attachment. You simply typed a formula—say, “24x48”—and the machine would calculate and automatically type the answer “=1152” in reply.
But “El Ajedrecista,” an algorithmically powered machine that could play an end-game of chess against a human opponent completely automatically, is his most notable creation. Although it’s a far cry from
Deep Blue
, El Ajedrecista can lay claim to being the world’s first (analog) computer game.
.
Photos thanks to
Museo Torres Quevedo
The machine didn’t just calculate its moves—it had mechanical arms that physically moved its pieces, in the form of electrical jacks, across a grid. In later models the arm mechanism was replaced by magnets, and play took place on a more ordinary-looking chess board. You couldn’t cheat the machine as it could spot illegal moves; and you couldn’t win, as the game always started at a point (machine’s King and Rook versus human’s King) from which the
machine could never lose
.
In honor of El Ajedrecista’s 100th birthday, we’re working with the
Telecommunication Engineering department of the Technical University of Madrid
to stage a conference commemorating Torres-Quevedo’s legacy.
The conference
, taking place on November 7, will feature lectures and panel discussions, as well as an exhibition of Torres-Quevedo’s devices—including El Ajedrecista itself. Attendance is free—if you want to join us,
request an invitation
.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
Celebrating the origins of the web
Monday, October 15, 2012
It’s a project close to our hearts. This week, the
Mundaneum
in the Belgian city of Mons opened a
new exhibition
on the history of collecting and organising information. We were delighted to lend our support as part of our ongoing partnership.
Decades before the creation of the World Wide Web,
Paul Otlet
and
Henri La Fontaine
envisaged a paper archival system of the world’s information. They built a giant international documentation centre -- the Mundaneum. For us at Google, this mission sounds familiar.
Entitled “Renaissance 2.0,” A Journey Through the Origins of the Web,” the new exhibition combines video, images, and text to take us on a journey through the origins of the web. It explains the role of Otlet and Lafontaine as well as World Wide Web creator Tim Berners Lee, and, of course, the role of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
This past week, we appeared at a press conference organized by the Mundaneum to celebrate the new exhibition. In the evening, Belgian Prime Minister Elio di Rupo attended an opening cocktail and we celebrated. At the party, everyone took a step back in time, with hostesses dressed in the same 19th century uniforms they used to assemble the original Mundaneum. The exhibition runs for the coming nine months and we hope many of you can make the trip to see it.
Post content
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations
A worthy winner for the inaugural Tony Sale award
Thursday, October 11, 2012
For most people, computing seems such a modern pastime that little thought is given to its history. Thankfully, there are exceptions. Today was a chance to pay tribute to some dedicated preservers of computing heritage, via the
Tony Sale Award for Computing Conservation
.
This award, sponsored by Google, is managed by the
Computer Conservation Society
and named in memory of
Tony Sale
, leader of the project to reconstruct
Colossus
. Tony’s son Nigel now manages a technical team at Google, so fittingly was our representative on the judging panel.
As Nigel describes:
“The bigger the challenge, the more motivated Dad would be to prove he could do it. When he started a new project it would be his entire focus. I often remember him sitting in his study, surrounded by piles of papers, wires and circuit boards, with his soldering iron smoking away as he pondered the latest problem. I can see many things that my Dad would admire in all the entries. All faced challenges and overcame obstacles; many have taken years to complete. What underlines them all is a dedication to succeed, of which I know my Dad would approve”.
There were four finalists, each deserving of commendation:
The project
to restore a functioning 1959 DEC PDP-1, led by Dag Spicer of the Computer History Museum in California
Time-Line
, a collection of equipment that has been assembled with great dedication over two decades by Michael Armstrong in Wigton, UK
The reconstruction
and simulation of Konrad Zuse’s Z3 by
Raúl
Rojas in Berlin
As well as the ultimate winner:
“Love letters”
-- an art installation featuring romantic messages generated by a replica of a Ferranti Mark 1 by Dr David Link in Cologne.
Congratulations to David for his stunning work. As Chairman of the Judges, Rachel Burnett said:
“The winning entry is both a brilliant technical construction and a work of art. Its fusion of art, engineering and history celebrates one of the first artistic applications of the computer in a visually attractive way. The wide cultural appeal, originality and touch of genius of this entry set it apart and has given us an inspiring first winner of the Tony Sale Award”
There’s an old saying, never forget where you came from. Thanks to all who commit their time and energy to ensuring this doesn’t happen to computing.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
Highlighting Ukraine’s contributions to computing
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Computer history is full of stories of intellectual feats and technological leaps. Yet many of Europe’s most fascinating chapters are little known. To help remedy this, Google has been working to highlight and celebrate these forgotten computer pioneers -- from
Tommy Flowers
to
Paul Otlet
, from
Sergey Lebedev
to the team at
J Lyons & Co
.
Today marks the unveiling of another project in the series --
a new website
, developed in partnership with Kyiv-based charity
ICFCST
, to commemorate Ukraine’s rich computing heritage. Our goal is to help make these little known stories of Soviet-era computing accessible to a wider audience.
At the website
you can learn about Ukraine’s surprisingly extensive contributions to the development of computing in the Soviet Union. To name but a few:
Vadim Lashkaryov’s
unheralded contribution to the
development of transistors
Kateryna Yushchenko’s
invention of “
Address language
”, one of the world’s first high-level computer programming languages
Victor Glushkov’s
range of small-sized computers for engineers, which were
predecessors to personal computers
The story of the scientific production association “
Impulse
”, who were a leader in developing automation systems for Soviet industry, as well as the USSR’s first mass ticket booking system for Aeroflot
In putting together the site, we are indebted to
Boris Malinovsky
, an eyewitness to many of these achievements and the first to document the history of Ukraine's IT industry.
While these achievements belong to a distant political and technological era, we hope this website helps their memory to live on.
Posted by Marina Tarasova, Communications Associate, Ukraine
For Sale: Alan Turing’s Monopoly
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Alan Turing is one of technology’s heroes
—
a mathematician and codebreaker who laid the foundation for today’s computing age. In June, we celebrated his 100th birthday with a
doodle
,
blog post
and the
opening of a major exhibition
sponsored by Google honouring his life and legacy. This week we are delighted to support a more whimsical tribute, in the form of the
Alan Turing edition of Monopoly
.
This special set has been customised to feature locations and interests central to Turing’s life, including never-before-published family photos. With every roll of the dice, players follow in Alan’s footsteps, from
Warrington Crescent
to
Sherborne School
, from
Hut 8
to
Kings College
. And while
Turing isn’t (yet) on the £10 note
, rest assured he’s on all the money in this set!
As a bonus, the set also includes a parchment replica of the
hand-drawn Monopoly board
on which Alan played against William Newman, the young son of his
mathematical mentor Max
—
and unexpectedly lost.
As the box set booklet describes:
“William had drawn the original board to play upon with his brother, basing the squares around important parts of Cambridge. He also added a few unique twists... including a line which went from Go to the Free Parking square, and a ‘turn around’ square which allowed you to change direction…
One afternoon the Newman household phone rang, with Turing on the other end, asking to speak with William. ‘Did he have a Monopoly board?’ Alan asked, and on hearing that he did, raced round. Turing’s mind was fascinated with codes, and there have long been suggestions he thought there were code-based tactics to playing Monopoly to ensure success. Alas, the hand drawn nature of William’s board (not to mention the unique diagonal straight and ‘turn around’ square) proved otherwise, and the great mathematician was beaten”
This unique box set was developed by
Winning Moves
and
Bletchley Park
in collaboration with the Newman and Turing families. Google has paid for the first production run and donated it to Bletchley Park to sell for fundraising. At just £29.99 plus shipping, it would make a superb present for the geek in your life
—
click here to pre-order
.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
A tribute to Turing, the father of modern computing
Saturday, June 23, 2012
“The past is a foreign country—they do things differently there.” It’s a saying that rings especially true in the world of technology. But while innovating requires us to focus on the future, there are times when it’s important to look back. Today—the 100th anniversary of
Alan Turing
’s birth—is one such moment.
Statue of Alan Turing at Bletchley Park
Turing’s life was one of astounding highs and devastating lows. While his
wartime codebreaking
saved thousands of lives, his own life was
destroyed when he was convicted for homosexuality
. But the tragedy of his story should not overshadow his legacy. Turing’s insight
laid the foundations
of the computer age. It’s no exaggeration to say he’s a founding father of every computer and Internet company today.
Turing’s breakthrough came in 1936 with the publication of his seminal paper “
On Computable Numbers
” (PDF). This introduced two key concepts, “algorithms” and “computing machines”—commonplace terms today, but truly revolutionary in the 1930’s:
Algorithms
are, in simplest terms, step-by-step instructions for carrying out a mathematical calculation. This is where it all started for programming since, at its core, all software is a collection of algorithms.
A
computing machine
—today better known as a
Turing machine
—was the hypothetical device that Turing dreamed up to run his algorithms. In the 1930’s, a “computer” was what you called a person who did calculations—it was a profession, not an object. Turing’s paper provided the blueprint for building a machine that could do any computation that a person could, marking the first step towards the modern notion of a computer.
Considering the role computers now play in everyday life, it’s clear Turing’s inventions rank among the most important intellectual breakthroughs of the 20th century. In the evolution of computing, all paths trace back to Turing. That’s why Turing is a hero to so many Google engineers, and why we’re so proud to help commemorate and preserve his legacy.
In 2010, Google helped Bletchley Park raise funds to
purchase Turing’s papers
so they could be preserved for public display in their museum. More recently, we’ve been working closely with curators at London’s Science Museum to help put on a stunning new exhibition “
Codebreaker - Alan Turing’s Life and Legacy
.” This tells the story of Turing’s vast achievements in a profoundly moving and personal way, through an amazing collection of artifacts—including items loaned by GCHQ, the U.K. government intelligence agency, never before on public display. Topics addressed include Turing’s early years, his code-breaking at Bletchley Park, his designs for the Pilot Ace computer, his later
morphogenesis work
, as well as his sexuality and death. The exhibition opened on June 21 and is well worth a visit if you’re passing through London in the next year.
And finally, we couldn’t let such a momentous occasion pass without a doodle. We thought the most fitting way of paying tribute to Turing’s incredible life and work would be to simulate the theoretical “Turing machine” he proposed in a mathematical paper. Visit the homepage today— we invite you to try your hand at programming it. If you get it the first time, try again... it gets harder!
Turing was born into a world that was very different, culturally and technologically, from ours—but his contribution has never been more significant. I hope you’ll join me today in paying tribute to Alan Turing, the forefather of modern computing.
Posted by Andrew Eland, Engineering Director, Google U.K.
Commemorating Alan Turing at London’s Science Museum
Thursday, June 21, 2012
As Steven Pinker, the Harvard professor and popular science author,
recently wrote
:
“It would be an exaggeration to say that the British mathematician Alan Turing explained the nature of logical and mathematical reasoning, invented the digital computer, solved the mind-body problem, and saved Western civilization. But it would not be much of an exaggeration”.
For proof, look no further than the stunning new exhibition “
Codebreaker - Alan Turing’s Life and Legac
y” which opens to the public today at London’s Science Museum. This tells the story of Turing’s vast achievements in a profoundly moving way, through an amazing collection of artifacts -- including items never before on display.
Photos from last night’s gala opening
This exhibition is especially close to our hearts at Google, since not only is Turing a founding father of computing, in a way he is also the father of our collaboration with the Science Museum.
A few years ago one of Google’s senior engineers heard there was an idea to stage an exhibition about Turing. He got in touch and volunteered to help; and from that small seed, Google’s association with the Science Museum has now blossomed into a fully-fledged partnership.
In this, the centenary of Turing’s birth,
we’re proud to sponsor
such a fitting tribute to one of computing’s true heroes. The exhibition will be open until the end of June 2013, and entry is free, so do visit if you can.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
Launching the Tony Sale Award for Computer Conservation
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Computers are now an everyday part of life for many, yet most people know little about their history. At Google we’re keen to help celebrate and preserve the stories of computing’s past. We’ve
blogged
, made
short films
and
partnered
with
museums
-- now it’s time to shine the spotlight on the efforts of others.
To that end, we are delighted to support this week’s launch of an international award recognising those who have made an outstanding engineering achievement in computing conservation. Named in honour of the late
Tony Sale
, acclaimed for his work
rebuilding Colossus
, the award will be managed by the UK’s
Computing Conservation Society
(CCS).
Tony Sale led the team that rebuilt the Colossus computer. He also helped start the campaign to save Bletchley Park, found The National Museum of Computing and establish the Computer Conservation Society.(Photo thanks to The National Museum of Computing)
Entries are invited from any individual or group worldwide who has made a demonstrable contribution to preserving the world’s computing heritage, and whose work is (or could be put) on public display. Nominations close at end-July. Further details and application forms can be found at the
CCS’s website
.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
Launching an Internet lecture program
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
In March, Belgium’s Prime Minister
Elio Di Rupo
visited our Brussels headquarters to celebrate our
partnership
with the Mundaneum, a pioneering 1920's Belgian project that we see as, in many ways, an ancestor of Google.
This month marked the launch of our joint lecture series, with an evening exploring linguistic diversity on the Web.The Mundaneum’s headquarters in the southern Belgian city of Mons was packed for the first Google-sponsored lecture. I was privileged to introduce the main speaker
Louis Pouzin
, the inventor of the
datagram
and designer of an early
packet
communications network.
From Google’s perspective, the Net offers fantastic possibilities to promote local languages. Our
Google Translate
now serves 53 languages, from Afrikaans to Yiddish, including Basque, Gujarati, and Swahili. At the click of a computer mouse, web pages can be instantaneously translated, allowing anybody, anywhere, to understand a web page.
In other ways, too, Google is committed to reviving and promoting local culture. Our partnership with Mundaneum is part of a larger project to revive the memory of Europe’s computing pioneers. The next lecture at the Mundaneum is scheduled for this autumn.
Robert Cailliau
, a Belgian computer scientist who, together with
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
, developed the
World Wide Web
. We look forward to seeing you in Mons.
Posted by Thierry Geerts, Managing Director, Belgium
Honoring and supporting Belgian Internet pioneers
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
It’s not everyday that a Prime Minister visits your office. Today, Googlers in our Brussels office were honoured by a visit from Belgium’s
Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo
to celebrate and revive the memory of two unique Belgian inventors and pioneers.
Decades before the creation of the World Wide Web,
Paul Otlet
and
Henri La Fontaine
envisaged a paper archival system of the world’s information. They built a giant international documentation centre called
Mundaneum
, with the goal of preserving peace by assembling knowledge and making it accessible to the entire world. For us at Google, this mission sounds familiar.
The two Mundaneum founders met in 1895 and created the modern library
universal decimal classification system
, building from John Dewey’s early work. When La Fontaine won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1913 for his work as an activist in the international peace movement, he invested his winnings into the Mundaneum project, which was already underway. La Fontaine and Otlet collected 3-by-5 inch index cards to build a vast paper database which eventually contained some 16 million entries, covering everything from the history of hunting dogs to finance. The Belgian government granted them space in a government building and Otlet established a fee-based research service that allowed anyone in the world to submit a query via mail or telegraph. Inquiries poured in from all over the world.
World War II and the deaths of La Fontaine in 1943 and Otlet in 1944 slowed the project. Although many of these archives were stored away, some of them in the Brussels subway, volunteers kept the dream alive. In 1998, Belgium’s French community government revived the Mundaneum’s memory, bringing most of the archives to a beautiful Art Deco building in the city of Mons.
That brings us to today. The Prime Minister came to our office to announce a major partnership with the Mundaneum and the University of Ghent. Google will sponsor and partner in both the upcoming exhibition at the Mundaneum headquarters in Mons and a speaker series on Internet issues at the Mundaneum and the University of Ghent. Web pioneers
Louis Pouzin
and
Robert Cailliau
are already scheduled to speak.
Mundaneum will use Google to present and promote its conferences and exhibitions. It has also constructed an
online tour
of its dazzling premises. At today’s event in the Google Brussels office, Prime Minister Di Rupo said he hopes that the Google-Mundaneum cooperation becomes a “wonderful forum for experimentation.” Di Rupo himself is passionate about the Mundaneum; as mayor of Mons, he was instrumental in preserving the archive.
If information was important a century ago, it is even more important in the 21st century. In his remarks, the Prime Minister made the connection between the past and the future, and called on Belgium to embrace the digital economy. We showed him our recently-launched Belgian version of
Street View
. In Belgium, the internet accounts for 2.5% of GDP—and its contribution is expected to grow by more than 10% a year for the next five years. “If all our companies could take better advantages of these new technologies, its sure that our exports would get a boost,” Di Rupo said.
Our partnership with Mundaneum is part of a larger project to revive the memory of Europe’s computing pioneers. Europe played a crucial role in the invention of computers and the Internet, yet all too often has forgotten its innovators. Last year marked the 60th anniversary of
LEO
, the world’s first business computer, built by
J.Lyons & Co
, a leading British food manufacturer at the time that also ran a famous chain of tea shops. This past December, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the formal recognition of Ukraine’s
Sergey Lebedev’s pioneering MESM project
. We’ve also given our support to help restore
Bletchley Park
, the site of the U.K.’s wartime codebreaking and home of
Colossus
, the world’s first electronic programmable computer.
Now we’re moving to the heart of Europe. “This is a beautiful story between Google and us, which allows us to recognize the memory of the Mundaneum,” says the Mundaneum’s director Jean-Paul Deplus. For Google, it’s just as exciting to rediscover our own roots.
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations, Brussels
Remembering Colossus, the world’s first programmable electronic computer
Thursday, March 8, 2012
It’s no secret we have a
special fondness for Bletchley Park
. The pioneering work carried out there didn’t just crack codes—it laid the foundations for the computer age.
Today, we’d like to pay homage to a lesser-known contributor—
Tommy Flowers
. Bletchley Park’s breakthroughs were the product of theoretical mathematical brilliance combined with dazzling feats of engineering—none more so than Flowers’ creation of
Colossus
, the world’s first programmable, electronic computer.
Photo of Dr. Thomas “Tommy” Flowers. Reproduced with kind permission of the Flowers family
By 1942 the hardest task facing Bletchley Park’s wartime codebreakers was deciphering messages encrypted by
Lorenz
, used by Germany for their most top-secret communications. Initially Lorenz messages were broken by hand, using ingenious but time-consuming techniques. To speed things up, it was decided to build a machine to automate parts of the decoding process. This part-mechanical, part-electronic device was called
Heath Robinson
, but although it helped, it was unreliable and still too slow.
Tommy Flowers was an expert in the use of
relays
and
thermionic valves
for switching, thanks to his research developing telephone systems. Initially, he was summoned to Bletchley Park to help improve Heath Robinson, but his concerns with its design were so great he came up with an entirely new solution—an electronic machine, later christened Colossus.
When Flowers proposed the idea for Colossus in February 1943, Bletchley Park management feared that, with around 1,600 thermionic valves, it would be unreliable. Drawing on his pre-war research, Flowers was eventually able to persuade them otherwise, with proof that valves were reliable provided the machine they were used in was never turned off. Despite this, however, Bletchley Park’s experts were still skeptical that a new machine could be ready quickly enough and declined to pursue it further.
Fortunately Flowers was undeterred, and convinced the
U.K.’s Post Office research centre
at Dollis Hill in London to approve the project instead. Working around the clock, and partially funding it out of his own pocket, Flowers and his team completed a prototype Colossus in just 10 months.
Photo of the rebuilt Colossus which you can visit at
The National Museum of Computing
in the U.K.
Reproduced with kind permission of The National Museum of Computing.
The first Colossus came into operation at Bletchley Park in January 1944. It exceeded all expectations and was able to derive many of the Lorenz settings for each message within a few hours, compared to weeks previously. This was followed in June 1944 by a 2,400-valve Mark 2 version which was even more powerful, and which provided vital information to aid the D-Day landings. By the end of the war there were 10 Colossus computers at Bletchley Park working 24/7.
Once war was over, all mention of Colossus was forbidden by the
Official Secrets Act
. Eight of the machines were dismantled, while the remaining two were sent to London where they purportedly were used for intelligence purposes until 1960. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that Colossus could begin to claim its rightful crown at the forefront of computing history.
Tommy Flowers passed away in 1998, but we were privileged recently to catch up with some on his team who helped build and maintain Colossus.
This week heralds the opening of a
new gallery
dedicated to Colossus at the U.K.’s
National Museum of Computing
, based at Bletchley Park. The rebuilt Colossus is on show, and over the coming weeks it will be joined by interactive exhibits and displays. Bletchley Park is less than an hour from Central London, and makes a fitting pilgrimage for anyone interested in computing.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
(Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
)
A Computer Star Visits Zurich
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
For Google engineers,
Donald Knuth
is a true hero. The 74-year old Knuth, a professor emeritis at Stanford, is one of the pioneers of computer science, best known for his multi-volumed work “
The Art of Computer Programming
.” He is also recognized as the “father” of the field of analysis of algorithms, and of course, algorithms are central to much of what we do here at Google.
When the professor visited
our offices in Zurich
recently, more than 350 engineers packed the conference hall for a question and answer session. While many of the queries were technical, many were pertinent to all of us.
In Europe, Google has made a priority of promoting
science education
, so naturally a number of questions focused on this subject. How should a beginner programming get started? A bottom-up education is best, Knuth suggested, explaining that in his analogue era, some people became interested in science in order to build radios by themselves. In the Internet age, he said it was crucial to give aspiring programmers simple tools to learn coding from the ground up.
Another question was whether “programming is more of an art than a science?” Could programming progress in the same way as, say medieval Christians progressed the building of their soaring Gothic cathedrals from a try-and-see art to a mature engineering discipline?” It is only a matter of time that computing takes the same path, Knuth agreed. Many things start as art (even cathedral building), and systematic, scientific methods evolve. In this way, art feeds science and science nurtures art in a virtuous circle.
Knuth signed books that engineers had brought with them, inscribing each book with the message suggested by each engineer. One engineer brought their copy of “The Art of Computing Programming” in Russian to be signed. Before leaving, we presented him with a plaque showing a fragment of the code describing the Google Search page including “I’m feeling lucky!” We felt the same way about his visit.
Posted by David Harper, Head University Relations, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Remembering a remarkable Soviet computing pioneer
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Cross-posted with the
Official Google Blog
In many parts of the world, today is Christmas—but in Russia and Eastern Europe, which use the
Orthodox calendar
, December 25 is just an ordinary day. Little known to most, however, it’s also a day that marks the anniversary of a key development in European computer history.
Sixty years ago today, in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, the Soviet Academy of Sciences finally granted formal recognition to
Sergey Lebedev
’s pioneering
MESM project
. MESM, a Russian abbreviation for “Small Electronic Calculating Machine,” is regarded as the earliest, fully operational electronic computer in the Soviet Union—and indeed continental Europe.
Recently we were privileged to get a first-hand account of Lebedev’s achievements from Boris Malinovsky, who worked on MESM and is now a leading expert on Soviet-era computing.
Turn on captions for the English translation.
Described by some as the “Soviet
Alan Turing
,” Sergey Lebedev had been thinking about computing as far back as the 1930’s, until interrupted by war. In 1946 he was made director of Kyiv’s Institute of Electrical Engineering. Soon after, stories of “electronic brains” in the West began to circulate and his interest in computing revived.
Sergey Lebedev*
Initially, Lebedev’s superiors were skeptical, and some in his team felt working on a “calculator”—how they thought of a computer—was a step backward compared to electrical and space systems research. Lebedev pressed on regardless, eventually finding funding from the Rocketry department and space to work in a derelict former monastery in
Feofania
, on the outskirts of Kyiv.
Work on MESM got going properly at the end of 1948 and, considering the challenges, the rate of progress was remarkable. Ukraine was still struggling to recover from the devastation of its occupation during WWII, and many of Kyiv’s buildings lay in ruins. The monastery in Feofania was among the buildings destroyed during the war, so the MESM team had to build their working quarters from scratch—the laboratory, metalworking shop, even the power station that would provide electricity. Although small—
just 20 people
—the team was extraordinarily committed. They worked in shifts 24 hours a day, and many lived in rooms above the laboratory. (You can listen to a lively account of this time in programme 3 of the
BBC’s ”Electronic brains”
series.)
MESM and team members in 1951. From left to right: Lev Dashevsky, Zoya Zorina-Rapota, Lidiya Abalyshnikova, Tamara Petsukh, Evgeniy Dedeshko
MESM ran its first program on November 6, 1950, and went into full-time operation in 1951. In 1952, MESM was used for top-secret calculations relating to rocketry and nuclear bombs, and continued to aid the Institute’s research right up to 1957. By then, Lebedev had moved to Moscow to lead the construction of the next generation of Soviet supercomputers, cementing his place as a giant of European computing. As for MESM, it met a more prosaic fate—broken into parts and studied by engineering students in the labs at Kyiv’s Polytechnic Institute.
*All photos thanks to
ukrainiancomputing.org
.
Posted by Marina Tarasova, Communications Associate, Ukraine
New exhibitions at London’s Science Museum
Thursday, December 15, 2011
At Google, we’re passionate about finding ways to inspire the next generation of technologists and engineers, and we think museums are a great way to do it.
Earlier this year
, and again
this week
we announced how we are supporting science museums internationally through charitable gifts.
Today, one of those museums, the
Science Museum
in London, gave details of two forthcoming exhibitions supported by their Google grants.
A new temporary exhibition celebrating the centenary of the birth of English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist
Alan Turing
will open in June 2012. Turing formalized the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine. The Science Museum’s biographical exhibition will examine Turing’s inspirational (and tragic) story, using objects (including some which have never been on public display), archive material, interactive exhibits, photographs and quotations.
The second is a new permanent exhibition which opens in summer 2014. Situated at the heart of the Museum, Making Modern Communications will explore the history of information and communication technologies. It will tell powerful stories about how these technologies have shaped our world over the last 200 years, showcasing never-before-seen objects and the most advanced multimedia and interpretive techniques.
We’re delighted to be able to support these new exhibitions which will help explain both the birth of modern computing and how that revolution touches all our lives today.
And we’re thrilled that Alan Turing, widely regarded as the father of modern computing and a hero to many of the engineers who work at Google, is finally getting the recognition that his work deserves. This week we also announced support for educational activities at
Bletchley Park
, where Turing’s code-breaking genius helped shorten the second World War and saved thousands of lives.
We look forward to seeing how these exhibitions will inspire tomorrow’s technologists.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director, External Relations, EMEA
Celebrating LEO, the world’s first business computer
Thursday, November 17, 2011
(Cross posted on
Official Google Blog
)
This year marks the 60th anniversary of
LEO
, the world’s first business computer—built by
J.Lyons & Co
, a leading British food manufacturer at the time that also ran a famous chain of tea shops.
Lyons management had long been keen to streamline their back-office operations. In 1947, two Lyons managers visited the U.S. to learn about the latest business processes, including whether the electronic computers they’d heard about during their wartime service, like
ENIAC
, might be useful. (At the time, the closer-to-home advances at
Bletchley Park
were still a well-kept military secret.)
They returned inspired by the possibilities and keen to build a machine of their own. After several years of development, LEO, a.k.a. Lyons Electronic Office, took on its first office job on November 17, 1951—weekly valuations for the bakery division, calculating margins on Lyon’s output of bread, cakes and pies.
Until LEO, computing in a work setting was treated like a specialist bit of kit on a factory production line. Each machine was dedicated to a single task. In essence, they were narrowly defined calculating machines. The vision for LEO, in contrast, was bravely broad. LEO was a single computer capable of handling a whole swathe of accounting and bookkeeping tasks, as well as producing daily management reports.
LEO was such a success that Lyons set up a commercial subsidiary to sell spare time on LEO to other businesses, including the Ford Motor Company, which used it to process the payroll for the thousands of workers at its U.K. plant. Later, Lyons also built entirely new LEOs and sold them to other blue-chip companies of the era. In total, more than 70 LEO’s were built, with the last remaining in service until the 1980’s (not bad for a computer that took up an entire room!).
Today we view IT as critical to any enterprise, but in the 1950s, this was by no means a given, as evidenced by a quote from a 1954 issue of
The Economist
: “There are those who do not believe in the desirability of introducing anything as esoteric as electronics into business routine.” Things certainly have changed, and in a sense, all modern day businesses owe a debt to the LEO team.
Last week at the
Science Museum in London
, we were delighted to sponsor a small gathering of early LEO programmers to celebrate their accomplishments and reminisce about their pioneering work. Today, on this 60th anniversary, we invite you to have a cup of tea and join us in toasting LEO—a remarkable ancestor in IT’s family tree.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
Restoring Bletchley Park, birthplace of modern computing
Monday, August 8, 2011
Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
Late last year Google
backed the bid
to buy the papers of the British computer scientist and wartime codebreaker
Alan Turing
and return them to their rightful home at
Bletchley Park
. We were thrilled when this was finally
achieved in February
.
Now we’ve joined forces with the Bletchley Park Trust to help raise funds to rebuild Block C, the original wartime building that once housed the vast punched card index—in essence, the “search engine” at the heart of Bletchley Park’s decryption activity.
Block C at Bletchley Park, awaiting restoration
Bletchley Park played a pivotal role in computing history. For decades the extraordinary achievements of its veterans were hidden by order of the UK’s Official Secrets Act. It was not until the 1980s that the full secret of
Colossus
— the world’s first electronic programmable computer—was revealed. Housed at Bletchley Park, Colossus and other custom-built machines were crucial aids in the code-breaking, reputed to have
shortened World War II
by two years.
Tony Sale, leader of the Colossus rebuild project, demos it at the National Museum of Computing
Today, Block C is derelict. We hope to help restore it to serve as a visitor and learning centre for both
Bletchley Park
and the UK’s
National Museum of Computing
. The fund-raising campaign kicked off this week with a Google-supported
garden party
in the Bletchley Park grounds, at which over £10,000 was raised. We still have a long way to go, though, so if you’d like to contribute,
please donate
at the Bletchley Park website.
If you’re in London, Bletchley Park is less than an hour away by train, and well worth an afternoon’s visit. You can see a working replica of Colossus, along with many other exhibits highlighting wartime work at Bletchley Park and the UK’s rich computing heritage.
Posted by Peter Barron, Director of External Relations for Europe, Middle East and Africa
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