The ENIAC Project: Its Significance in Computer Science and Society

1981 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Contributions and significance of ENIAC computer

The ENIAC Project: Its Significance in Computer Science and Society

“…With the advent of everyday use of elaborate calculations, speed has become paramount to such a high degree that there is no machine on the market today capable of satisfying the full demand of modern computational methods. The most advanced machines have greatly reduced the time required for arriving at solutions to problems which might have required months or days by older procedures. This advance, however, is not adequate for many problems encountered in modern scientific work and the present invention is intended to reduce to seconds such lengthy computations…” From the ENIAC patent (No. 3,120,606), filed 26 June 1947.

When World War II broke out in 1939 the United States was severely technologically disabled. There existed almost nothing in the way of mathematical innovations that had been integrated into military use. Therefore, the government placed great emphasis on the development of electronic technology that could be used in battle. Although it began as a simple computer that would aid the army in computing firing tables for artillery, what eventually was the result was the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer). Before the ENIAC it took over 20 hours for a skilled mathematician to complete a single computation for a firing situation. When the ENIAC was completed and unveiled to the public on Valentine’s Day in 1946 it could complete such a complex problem in 30 seconds. The ENIAC was used quite often by the military but never contributed any spectacular or necessary data. The main significance of the ENIAC was that it was an incredible achievement in the field of computer science and can be considered the first digital and per...

... middle of paper ...

...) - “John W. Mauchly and the Development of the ENIAC Computer.” Penn Library Exhibitions. http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/maucly/jwm6.html

(7) - Soulliere, Cynthia. The Women of ENIAC. http://www.gecdsb.on.ca/d&g/women/women.htm

(8) - Soulliere, Cynthia. The Women of ENIAC. http://www.gecdsb.on.ca/d&g/women/women.htm

Other Sources Used:

Moye, William T. ENIAC: The Army-Sponsored Revolution. ARL Historian, January 1996

Goldstine, Herman H. "Computers at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School." The Jayne Lecture. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol 136, No.1. January 24, 1991

"Past Notable Women of Computing." http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/tap/past-women-cs.html

"WITI Hall of Fame." http://www.witi.com/center/witimuseum/halloffame/1997/eniac/php

"Why Build Computers?" The Military Role in Computer Research

Show More
Related

  • HPV Vaccine: Adams vs. Allen

    604 Words  | 2 Pages

    Human papilloma virus is today’s most common sexually transmitted infection and reamins uncurable at this time. About 79 million individuals in the United States are currently infected with HPV; around 14 million individuals will become newly infected with HPV each year. As of early 2012, one preventative measure against HPV is a vaccine given in three shots over six months, recommended for both male and female children at the age of 11 or 12. While the HPV vaccine is not mandated at this time, many individuals have openly expressed their opinions about the possibility. A man by the name of Mike Adams wrote an article for the NaturalNews website in February of 2007 titled “HPV Vaccine Texas Tyranny” explaining his apprehensions for the possible mandation of the HPV vaccine. Correspondingly, Arthur Allen wrote “The HPV Debate Needs an Injection of Reality” for the Washington Post in April of 2007 to convey his standpoint on the topic. While both Adams and Allen agree that the HPV vaccination lacks credibility, track record, and substantiation of long term safety, Adams argues that the HPV vaccine should never be mandated, while Allen believes the vaccine could be sucessfully mandated in the future if civic observations advance over time.

    Read More

  • Cervical Cancer And HPV Vaccine

    2842 Words  | 6 Pages

    It is important to promote the HPV vaccine in order to prevent cervical cancer and to reduce HPV-related cervical cancer mortality. In 2014, about 12,360 new cases of invasive cervical cancer will be diagnosed and ...

    Read More

  • The Problems Associated with Underage Drinking

    1121 Words  | 3 Pages

    The use of alcohol by adolescents is widely viewed as disobedience in American society. Although, alcohol use is technically illegal until the age of twenty-one (in 19 states the consumption of alcohol in not specifically illegal for people under the age of twenty-one), there is still an excessive use of dinking in teenagers today. Since alcohol is associated with all three leading causes of death among teens, it can also have less life-altering consequences such as a drop in academic performances and a decline of friend and family relationships. Also, mental disorders like anxiety, depression and behavioral issues as in loss of temper, an argumentative personality, being easily angered, and blaming others for mistakes. Alcohol is the most commonly abused drug in teenagers and society contributes to abuse by linking drinking to sophistication and good times. (“Alcohol Abuse and Youth” 1)

    Read More

  • Computers In The 1950s

    1418 Words  | 3 Pages

    The subject of this term paper will be about computers in the 1950’s. The divisions that will be covered are; the types of computers there were, the memory capacity of computers, the programming languages of that time, and the uses of the computers for that time. Information will be gathered from the Internet, from books, and from magazines, and from the encyclopedia.

    Read More

  • Desktop Computer vs. Laptop Computers

    1355 Words  | 3 Pages

    “In 1946, John Mauchly and J Presper Eckert developed the fastest computer at that time, the ENIAC I. It was built under the assistance of the US army, and it was used on military researches. The ENIAC I contained 17468 vacuum tubes, along with 70000 resistors, 10000 capacitors, 1500 relays, 6000 manual switches and 5 million soldered joints. It covered 1800 square feet of floor space, weighed 3 tons, consumed 160 kilowatts of electrical power.”(Bellis, Inventors of Modern Computer)

    Read More

  • International Business Machines (IBM)

    752 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mark I. It was actually a electromechanical calculation. It is said that this was the first potentially computers. In 1951 Remington Rand’s came out with the UNIVAC it began

    Read More

  • I Want to Study Computer Science

    560 Words  | 2 Pages

    If the nineteenth century was an era of the Industrial revolution in Europe, I would say that computers and Information Technology have dominated since the twentieth century. The world today is a void without computers, be it healthcare, commerce or any other field, the industry won’t thrive without Information Technology and Computer Science. This ever-growing field of technology has aroused interest in me since my childhood. After my twelfth grade, the inherent ardor I held for Computer Science motivated me to do a bachelors degree in Information Technology. Programming and Math, a paragon of logic and reasoning, have always been my favorite subjects since childhood.

    Read More

  • Social And Ethical Impact Of Artificial Intelligence

    1374 Words  | 3 Pages

    As our world expands through the growing abilities and applications of computers in our everyday lives, it seems that the role of the computer has been reversed. Before we knew that the computer only understood what we programmed it to understand; however, now the majority of our society is learning more from computers than they are able to input into it. Dumm (1986 p.69)

    Read More

  • The History of the Disk Operating System (DOS)

    1013 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ceruzzi, P. E. (1998). A history of modern computing (pp. 270-272). London, England: The MIT Press.

    Read More

  • Traffic Volume Study

    1908 Words  | 4 Pages

    Transportation system is a dynamic system. Information about traffic must be regularly updated to keep pace with ever-changing transportation system. Data must be collected and analyzed systematically to get representative information.

    Read More

  • Example Of Road Pricing

    726 Words  | 2 Pages

    I concluded that charges should be closely related to the amount of the use made of roads. It should be possible to change prices to some extend for different roads or areas at different times of the day, month, and year as well as for different classes of vehicles should be stable and gladly ascertainable by road users before they get on with a journey. Finally, the method should be simple for road users to understand whereby payments should be possible and individual road users should take it fair.

    Read More

  • Technology in Transportation

    3216 Words  | 7 Pages

    In today's changing business environment, information technology plays an incredibly important role in almost every aspect of the day to day life of almost every industry. The transportation industry is, of course, no different. From the transport of goods from manufacture, to warehousing, to retail, to end-user, the industry relies on information technology to get things done. The transportation of people is the exact same; incredibly important to get done yet impossible without the impact of information technology.

    Read More

  • Urban Transportation Essay

    2103 Words  | 5 Pages

    Confronting the challenges of the future will often require the adoption of new business models. The majority of urban transport business models are at the growth or maturity stage. These models embrace technologies developed for both individual modes of transport and collective modes such as bus, tram and train.

    Read More

  • The History of Computers

    836 Words  | 2 Pages

    Technology continued to prosper in the computer world into the nineteenth century. A major figure during this time is Charles Babbage, designed the idea of the Difference Engine in the year 1820. It was a calculating machine designed to tabulate the results of mathematical functions (Evans, 38). Babbage, however, never completed this invention because he came up with a newer creation in which he named the Analytical Engine. This computer was expected to solve “any mathematical problem” (Triumph, 2). It relied on the punch card input. The machine was never actually finished by Babbage, and today Herman Hollerith has been credited with the fabrication of the punch card tabulating machine.

    Read More

  • The Computer Evolution

    2687 Words  | 6 Pages

    The fist computer, known as the abacus, was made of wood and parallel wires on which beads were strung. Arithmetic operations were performed when the beads were moved along the wire according to “programming” rules that had to be memorized by the user (Soma, 14). The second earliest computer, invented by Blaise Pascal in 1694, was a “digital calculating machine.” Pascal designed this first known digital computer to help his father, who was a tax collector. Pascal’s computer could only add numbers, and they had to be entered by turning dials (Soma, 32). It required a manual process like its ancestor, the abacus. Automation was introduced in the early 1800’s by a mathematics professor named Charles Babbage. He created an automatic calculation machine that was steam powered and stored up to 1000 50-digit numbers. Unlike its two earliest ancestors, Babbage’s invention was able to perform various operations. It relied on cards with holes punched in them, which are called “punch cards.” These cards carried out the programming and storing operations for the machine. Unluckily, Babbage’s creation flopped due to the lack of mechanical precision and the lack of demand for the product (Soma, 46). The machine could not operate efficiently because technology was t adequate to make the machine operate efficiently Computer interest dwindled for many years, and it wasn’t until the mid-1800’s that people became interested in them once again.

    Read More

More about The ENIAC Project: Its Significance in Computer Science and Society

Open Document