Differential analyser
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The differential analyser was a mechanical analog computer designed to solve differential equations by integration, using wheel-and-disc mechanisms to perform the integration. It was one of the first advanced computing devices to be used operationally.
The analyser was invented in 1876 by James Thomson, brother of Lord Kelvin. A practical version was first constructed by H. W. Nieman and Vannevar Bush starting in 1927 at MIT. They published a full report on the device in 1931. D. R. Hartree of Manchester University brought the design to England, where he constructed his first model (with his student, Arthur Porter) in 1934. Over the next five years three more were added, at Cambridge University, Queen's University Belfast, and the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough. In the United States, differential analyzers were built at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and in the basement the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in the early 1940s; the latter was used extensively in the assembly of artillery firing tables prior to the invention of the ENIAC, which, in many ways, was modeled after the differential analyzer. Another was constructed some years later at the University of Toronto, but it appears it saw little or no use.
The differential analyser was used in the development of the bouncing bomb, used to attack German hydroelectric dams during World War II. Differential analysers have also been used in the calculation of soil erosion by river control authorities. It was eventually rendered obsolete by electronic analog computers and later digital computers.
More recently, building differential analysers out of Meccano has become a popular project among serious Meccano hobbyists.
A differential analyser is shown in operation in the 1956 film Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, and in the 1951 film When Worlds Collide (film).
[edit] External links
- Vannevar Bush bio which focuses on the Differential Analyzer
- Differential Analyser
- Vannevar Bush's Analog Computer
- The Differential Analyser Explained
- Tim Robinson's Meccano Differential Analyser
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