Homo Informaticus, from Plato and Aristotle to Alan Turing and Claude Shannon
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Re: Homo Informaticus, from Plato and Aristotle to Alan Turing and Claude Shannon
#2> Arab mathematics came to the West during the Middle Ages. The arrival is important to our story because Al Khwarizmi (c.780-850) – from whose name we get the word algorithm – had invented a whole new way of doing calculations.
The author seems to be a bit too imaginative/misinformed when it comes to the history of mathematics. And this theme continues throughout the article with the claims that are stated. Giving Numbers, Rules to work on them - Algorithms to the mathematically challenged part of the world is indeed a start of a new era. But giving credit where it is due is utmost important.
A simple reading of Al Kwarizmi page on wikipedia will offer another narrative. That of a translation of a translation of a treatise on Hindu Numerals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Musa_al-Khwarizmi
> On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals written about 820, was principally responsible for spreading the Hindu–Arabic numeral system throughout the Middle East and Europe. It was translated into Latin as Algoritmi de numero Indorum. Al-Khwārizmī, rendered as (Latin) Algoritmi, led to the term "algorithm".
Re: Homo Informaticus, from Plato and Aristotle to Alan Turing and Claude Shannon
#3Perhaps it is because this article was translated to English from French, but I find the writing a bit too brief and vague to provide a convincing historical narrative. And at least one fact is wrong - Turing did not name "Universal Turing Machines" after himself - he just called them "computing machines".