I’ve long been interested in cases where inventions were delayed longer than seems reasonable.

Like the bicycle. Anyone could have built a reasonable pedal-driven bicycle in the mid 18th century. It’s not rocket science. The tyres would have been not great: perhaps some non-vulcanised solid rubber or gummed cotton, but it would have better than a kick in the bum. Instead, the first real pedal-powered bicycle appeared in 1853, around the same time as the invention of the four-stroke petrol engine (which, in my view, is a much more advanced piece of engineering).

Relay logic is another case: the use of electromagnetic relays to create logic gates for computing.

A relay is in this context is any electrically operated switch that can make another electrical circuit closed or open. Logic gates are the AND, OR, NAND, NOR, NOT etc gates that are at the very heart of digital computing.

In order to use electromagnetic relays for computing, you need a) the concept of a logical gate and b) the invention of an electromagnetic relay (duh), and both of these predate the invention of relay logic by a long period.

By 1700, Liebnitz had written extensively on binary algebra and symbolic logic, and this largely laid the table for Boole’s later work on logical operations in 1847. Around the same period (1840 to 1870), Babbage conceived on and continued to refine his Analytical Engine, and Ada Lovelace created the first computing algorithms. Babbage’s Analytical Engine did not use binary logic but instead used decimal gates, but his ingenious methods of carrying out storage and conditional operations using a mechanical leant itself very easily to binary logical gates that we associate with modern computing. Babbage never really got it working as well as he’d like but that was mainly because of mechanical nuisances: his son built a working version not long after Babbage’s death.

Various kinds of relays were built during the early 1800s (using electrolytes or mercury etc) but the proper electromagnetic relay was probably invented by Samuel Morse around 1840, as part of his improved telegraph methods, though he didn’t call it a relay.

Now, if you’ve got a relay set up such that when voltage A is on, then voltage C is the same as voltage B … you basically have the makings of an AND gate. With a few variations you can create all the basic logic gates.

No one even thought of it until 1886, when American mathematician Charles Sanders Pierce communicated the idea to Allan Marquand, and Pierce (not really a hands-on kind of guy) didn’t develop the concept further.

Not until the late 1930s was the concept seriously worked on. Konrad Zuse and Claude Shannon independently developed relay logic technology, and Zuse built the first programmable computers based on relay logic, the Z2 and Z3, during WW2.

Of course, relay logic eventually gave way to valves and semiconductors but both of those relied on 20th century physical developments. All of the pieces for computing based on relay logic were in place by 1850 (the demand, the logic theory, the computing algorithms, the physical mechanism) but no one put those pieces together. It really would have just taken a lightbulb moment for electrical computing to have begun in earnest 170 years ago.

do posthumous acceptances of propositions that encountered resistance during the life of the proponent count

SCIENCE said:

do posthumous acceptances of propositions that encountered resistance during the life of the proponent count

I mean … no?

A Babbage Difference Engine in Meccano. I saw one of these a few years ago at a Meccano exhibition in Sydney.

related perhaps

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire
“The earliest tires were bands of leather, then iron (later steel) placed on wooden wheels used on carts and wagons. A skilled worker, known as a wheelwright, would cause the tire to expand by heating it in a forge fire, place it over the wheel and quench it, causing the metal to contract back to its original size so that it would fit tightly on the wheel.

The first patent for what appears to be a standard pneumatic tire appeared in 1847 lodged by the Scottish inventor Robert William Thomson. However, this never went into production. The first practical pneumatic tire was made in 1888 on May Street, Belfast, by Scots-born John Boyd Dunlop, owner of one of Ireland’s most prosperous veterinary practices. It was an effort to prevent the headaches of his 10-year-old son Johnnie, while riding his tricycle on rough pavements. His doctor, John, later Sir John Fagan, had prescribed cycling as an exercise for the boy, and was a regular visitor. Fagan participated in designing the first pneumatic tires. Cyclist Willie Hume demonstrated the supremacy of Dunlop’s tires in 1889, winning the tire’s first-ever races in Ireland and then England. In Dunlop’s tire patent specification dated 31 October 1888, his interest is only in its use in cycles and light vehicles. In September 1890, he was made aware of an earlier development but the company kept the information to itself..”

like what about the invention of hands hygiene

It’s often suggested that the ancient Greeks or Romans could have developed the steam engine (Hero of Alexandria invented a simple steam turbine), had there been enough social and economic pressure to do so.

Seems a lot of different factors have to come together at more-or-less the same time for this or that technology to be fully realised. Bicycles for example relied on the development of cheap steel tubing and pneumatic tyres to become practical as popular mass-produced vehicles. They then rapidly became the most efficient transport ever devised, which is not something that early experimenters with two-wheeled vehicles would have predicted.

probably radio and gating co-evolved

dv said:

I’ve long been interested in cases where inventions were delayed longer than seems reasonable.

Not related to relay logic, but from chemistry, the preparation of elemental fluorine by purely chemical means was first accomplished as late as 1986. This preparation involves only chemicals that were available to Henri Moissan, the person who first prepared elemental fluorine by electrolysis in 1886, 100 years before the purely chemical preparation.

2 KMnO₄ + 2 KF + 10 HF + 3 H₂O₂ → 2 K₂MnF₆ + 8 H₂O + 3 O₂↑
2 K₂MnF₆ + 4 SbF₅ → 4 KSbF₆ + 2 MnF₃ + F₂↑

KJW said:

dv said:

I’ve long been interested in cases where inventions were delayed longer than seems reasonable.

Not related to relay logic, but from chemistry, the preparation of elemental fluorine by purely chemical means was first accomplished as late as 1986. This preparation involves only chemicals that were available to Henri Moissan, the person who first prepared elemental fluorine by electrolysis in 1886, 100 years before the purely chemical preparation.

Noice.

With regard to Car’s example of the steam engine, I would think another thing is that there would be little apparent imperative to develop an alternative mechanical source in a society in 70% of the population were slaves.

KJW said:

2 KMnO₄ + 2 KF + 10 HF + 3 H₂O₂ → 2 K₂MnF₆ + 8 H₂O + 3 O₂↑
2 K₂MnF₆ + 4 SbF₅ → 4 KSbF₆ + 2 MnF₃ + F₂↑

Fucking obvious when you look at it that way.

dv said:

With regard to Car’s example of the steam engine, I would think another thing is that there would be little apparent imperative to develop an alternative mechanical source in a society in 70% of the population were slaves.

I guess necessity really is the mother of invention. In the case of fluorine, it was assumed that fluorine is far too reactive to be produced by means other than by electrolysis, so because it was available by electrolysis, nobody tried to produce it chemically until Karl O. Christe, in preparation for a conference to celebrate the centennial of Moissan’s achievement, devised a chemical method.

sibeen said:

KJW said:

2 KMnO₄ + 2 KF + 10 HF + 3 H₂O₂ → 2 K₂MnF₆ + 8 H₂O + 3 O₂↑
2 K₂MnF₆ + 4 SbF₅ → 4 KSbF₆ + 2 MnF₃ + F₂↑

Fucking obvious when you look at it that way.

Karl O. Christe reasoned that chemical fluorine generation should be feasible since some metal fluoride anions have no stable neutral counterparts; their acidification potentially triggers oxidation instead.

pneumatic tyres are really helpful, subject traction they tend to hug the ground surface over some area, courtesy rubber deformation, along with a supporting adjustable air spring (tyre pressure). The tyre resumes its roundness as the two surfaces separate, which may not seem like a big deal, until you ride in something of which the tyre hasn’t resumed its roundness, inconvenient maybe when it happens but opportunity to refresh the conceptual relationship between roundness and wheels, some study of the roundness of wheels

so the tyre is a spring too, air assisted, suspension, and it all helps hug the surface, and of a lot of surfaces I guess they deform also, which could explain vehicle tracks I see around the place

transition said:

probably radio and gating co-evolved

consider the technological evolution of radio and digital, through to 5G today, a substantial enterprise, it’s been bumpy, or involved lags

so i’m sort of thinking there are perhaps aspects of radio, development of, that are likely to push the basics of digital, but the progression of the use of early logic gates (electro-mechanical) was unlikely to be uniform, or tidily track or correspond with theoretical progress

radio involves signal processing, all started with EMR of some sort, traversing the aether, any variation of the signal is essentially modulation, the signal modulated is the carrier

just looking up history of materials for first radio diodes, before they were called diodes..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_radio
“The rectifying property of a contact between a mineral and a metal was discovered in 1874 by Karl Ferdinand Braun. Crystals were first used as a detector of radio waves in 1894 by Jagadish Chandra Bose”

re of the use of diode way back in early receivers, it strikes me that in that is something used as a basic logic gate element

> I’ve long been interested in cases where inventions were delayed longer than seems reasonable. Like the bicycle. Anyone could have built a reasonable pedal-driven bicycle in the mid 18th century. It’s not rocket science. The tyres would have been not great: perhaps some non-vulcanised solid rubber or gummed cotton, but it would have better than a kick in the bum. Instead, the first real pedal-powered bicycle appeared in 1853, around the same time as the invention of the four-stroke petrol engine (which, in my view, is a much more advanced piece of engineering).

Totally agree. Although back then a horse would have greatly outperformed a bicycle, and horses were easily available.

Coronavirus vaccine is another example. Availability is delayed much longer than seems reasonable.

> Relay logic is another case: the use of electromagnetic relays to create logic gates for computing.

From a meme’s point of view, the delay makes sense. Until computers developed to the stage where they could be used for wordprocessing and imaging there was no real point in having them.

There is a big difference between the theory and the practical.

While the bicycle example is an extremely good one – the theory and technology was there, there had just been no known examples of somebody actually doing it. (Much like the Incas and the wheel) Often this comes down to a lack of need, as with the bicycle, horses were cheap and common and far more comfortable.

As for the relay logic specifically, I believe a lack of practical applications and reliability also played a large part in its development delay. The relays of 50 years ago have nowhere near the operational or MTBF reliability of those we make today. Why buy an expensive, unreliable machine built for a single inflexible purpose who’s results you can’t trust when you can just hire a person to do it.

guns

Dark Orange said:

There is a big difference between the theory and the practical.

While the bicycle example is an extremely good one – the theory and technology was there, there had just been no known examples of somebody actually doing it. (Much like the Incas and the wheel) Often this comes down to a lack of need, as with the bicycle, horses were cheap and common and far more comfortable.

As for the relay logic specifically, I believe a lack of practical applications and reliability also played a large part in its development delay. The relays of 50 years ago have nowhere near the operational or MTBF reliability of those we make today. Why buy an expensive, unreliable machine built for a single inflexible purpose who’s results you can’t trust when you can just hire a person to do it.

I disagree about the lack of practical applications. People were actively working on mechanical computers to generate numerical tables for various engineering purposes.

dv said:

Dark Orange said:

There is a big difference between the theory and the practical.

While the bicycle example is an extremely good one – the theory and technology was there, there had just been no known examples of somebody actually doing it. (Much like the Incas and the wheel) Often this comes down to a lack of need, as with the bicycle, horses were cheap and common and far more comfortable.

As for the relay logic specifically, I believe a lack of practical applications and reliability also played a large part in its development delay. The relays of 50 years ago have nowhere near the operational or MTBF reliability of those we make today. Why buy an expensive, unreliable machine built for a single inflexible purpose who’s results you can’t trust when you can just hire a person to do it.

I disagree about the lack of practical applications. People were actively working on mechanical computers to generate numerical tables for various engineering purposes.

For a very long time.
Clocks for example.

dv said:

Dark Orange said:

There is a big difference between the theory and the practical.

While the bicycle example is an extremely good one – the theory and technology was there, there had just been no known examples of somebody actually doing it. (Much like the Incas and the wheel) Often this comes down to a lack of need, as with the bicycle, horses were cheap and common and far more comfortable.

As for the relay logic specifically, I believe a lack of practical applications and reliability also played a large part in its development delay. The relays of 50 years ago have nowhere near the operational or MTBF reliability of those we make today. Why buy an expensive, unreliable machine built for a single inflexible purpose who’s results you can’t trust when you can just hire a person to do it.

I disagree about the lack of practical applications. People were actively working on mechanical computers to generate numerical tables for various engineering purposes.

What sort of maths/tech were needed for the first totalisers use for betting?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tote_board

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabulating_machine

mollwollfumble said:

> I’ve long been interested in cases where inventions were delayed longer than seems reasonable. Like the bicycle. Anyone could have built a reasonable pedal-driven bicycle in the mid 18th century. It’s not rocket science. The tyres would have been not great: perhaps some non-vulcanised solid rubber or gummed cotton, but it would have better than a kick in the bum. Instead, the first real pedal-powered bicycle appeared in 1853, around the same time as the invention of the four-stroke petrol engine (which, in my view, is a much more advanced piece of engineering).

Totally agree. Although back then a horse would have greatly outperformed a bicycle, and horses were easily available.

Coronavirus vaccine is another example. Availability is delayed much longer than seems reasonable.

> Relay logic is another case: the use of electromagnetic relays to create logic gates for computing.

From a meme’s point of view, the delay makes sense. Until computers developed to the stage where they could be used for wordprocessing and imaging there was no real point in having them.

By 1972 (when I started work after finishing Uni) computers were already an integral part of the design process in highway and structural design. I did not come across the use of computers for word processing until 1984, and serious use for production of engineering drawings didn’t really start until late 80’s.

Witty Rejoinder said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabulating_machine

while reading that, went looked up when 7400 series TTL chip series started, appears to be 1964, and 4000 CMOS series 1968 (if I read right), earlier than I imagined, but I was born somewhere between those two dates

In the 17th and 18th centuries there were teams of people manually making numerical computations by hand for various purposes: creating astronomical ephemeredes, tables of Bernoulli’s and Bessel’s integrals etc for engineering purposes etc. It was very labour intensive, and that is what drove the development of mechanical computers, and the advent of electrical computing would have been a boon.

dv said:

In the 17th and 18th centuries there were teams of people manually making numerical computations by hand for various purposes: creating astronomical ephemeredes, tables of Bernoulli’s and Bessel’s integrals etc for engineering purposes etc. It was very labour intensive, and that is what drove the development of mechanical computers, and the advent of electrical computing would have been a boon.

Another example from structural engineering is the 19th Century Brittania Bridge

This is (afaik) the first example of the use of detailed structural analysis of a continuous structure, using equations that would be solved in seconds with computers in the 1970’s (and milliseconds now), but at the time taking months of careful and laborious hand calculation.

Why global crises are the mother of invention
In 1815 a volcanic eruption wreaked havoc around the world. But it led to the birth of the bicycle

The eruption in April 1815 of Mount Tambora, a volcano in what is now Indonesia, was one of the largest in recorded history. A vast plume of dust and ash spread around the world, blocking out the sun and reducing global temperatures. In China the cold weather killed trees, crops and water buffalo. In North America a “dry fog” reddened the sun and there was summer snowfall in New York. Riots and looting broke out in Europe as harvests failed. Food prices soared and tens of thousands of people died from famine and disease. Horses starved or were slaughtered, as the high price of oats forced people to choose whether to feed their animals or themselves.

This last predicament prompted Karl von Drais, a German inventor, to devise a personal-transport machine to replace the horse: a two-wheeled wooden contraption which he called the Laufmaschine (literally, “running machine”). Sitting on a saddle, Drais propelled it by planting his feet on the ground and pushing every few metres, while steering it using a tiller. A demonstration ride, in which he travelled 40 miles in four hours, showed that it was as fast as a trotting horse, and could be powered by its rider without much effort. The tricky part was keeping it balanced while gliding along, which took some practice.

Drais’s invention didn’t replace the horse: the weather returned to normal, leading to a bumper harvest in 1817. Even so, enthusiasts continued to improve on his design. The crucial addition of pedals occurred in France in the 1860s. Other refinements included better brakes, a steel frame, lightweight metal wheels and a chain to drive them. By the late 1880s these elements had been combined into a recognisably modern design: the bicycle.

An invention prompted by the challenges of a long-forgotten global crisis thus ended up spreading around the world and becoming part of everyday life. What innovations might the coronavirus outbreak of 2020 spawn? The pandemic will surely inspire new approaches to online education, say, or package delivery by drone – and, no doubt, some less obvious ideas. Who would have guessed, after all, that a volcano would give rise to the bicycle?

https://www.economist.com/1843/2020/07/03/why-global-crises-are-the-mother-of-invention?

transition said:

transition said:

probably radio and gating co-evolved

consider the technological evolution of radio and digital, through to 5G today, a substantial enterprise, it’s been bumpy, or involved lags

so i’m sort of thinking there are perhaps aspects of radio, development of, that are likely to push the basics of digital, but the progression of the use of early logic gates (electro-mechanical) was unlikely to be uniform, or tidily track or correspond with theoretical progress

radio involves signal processing, all started with EMR of some sort, traversing the aether, any variation of the signal is essentially modulation, the signal modulated is the carrier

just looking up history of materials for first radio diodes, before they were called diodes..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_radio
“The rectifying property of a contact between a mineral and a metal was discovered in 1874 by Karl Ferdinand Braun. Crystals were first used as a detector of radio waves in 1894 by Jagadish Chandra Bose”

re of the use of diode way back in early receivers, it strikes me that in that is something used as a basic logic gate element

i’d expect the relational progress of RF and switching has been quite intimate in important ways, absolutely, going way back, and the fields borrowed from each other, in (alternating) steps much of it, after progressions of materials (components) and applications

and of the early history you need imagine back before the oscilloscope, way back before the spectrum analyzer, to a time when the nearest thing to those was imagination, some theory, and cut and try, try and test

Speaking of Peirce, he was also the first person to work out that NAND and NOR gates are Universal Logic Gates. That is, you can make all of the other operations using only NANDs.
Or, alternatively, only NORs.

So he was a smart dude.

The world is analogue, not digital, and it took a long time before we could emulate it in binary.

Here is a series of youtube videos I found fascinating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpkTHyfr0pM

Dark Orange said:

The world is analogue, not digital, and it took a long time before we could emulate it in binary.

Here is a series of youtube videos I found fascinating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpkTHyfr0pM

Yeah and it was all very intuitive.

Dark Orange said:

The world is analogue, not digital, and it took a long time before we could emulate it in binary.

Here is a series of youtube videos I found fascinating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpkTHyfr0pM

encoding using DNA etc doesn’t look entirely analogue

subject more basic physics, I wonder if the earth spinning, giving day and night, much as those things are analogue, whether the clocking action, the potential in that is entirely analogue, those distinct states

I mean if I used the spinning earth as a clock in a computer of any sort, clocked a computer with it, granted I might tidy the signal up some for that (perhaps some functions of replicators might do that, or use those distinct states), would you insist the computer was entirely analogue

I mention day and night because it doesn’t seem like an entirely unsubstantial ordering force here on earth

not sure the three states of, H2O for example, are entirely analogue

surely all you need is distinct states of things to start questioning whether the world is (mostly) analogue, I can’t see that it is, and doubt replicators would exist of it were