Nils Röller: Medientheorie im epistemischen Übergang: Hermann Weyls Philosophie der Mathematik und Naturwissenschaft und Ernst Cassirers Philosophie der symbolischen Formen im Wechselverhältnis (2000) [German]
Filed under thesis | Tags: · consciousness, epistemology, history of mathematics, knowledge, mathematics, media, media theory, philosophy, philosophy of science
Ein “Medium des freien Werdens” – so nennt der Mathematiker Hermann Weyl (1885–1955) im Jahre 1921 das Kontinuum. Diese Bezeichnung ist bildet den Anlaß, die medientheoretische Bedeutung der philosophischen Schriften Hermann Weyls zu untersuchen. Die vorliegende Publikation erarbeitet dabei die Differenzen zwischen den Diskursen Weyls und des Philosophen Ernst Cassirer. Laut Weyl ist das konstruktive Kontinuum, in dem seiner Meinung nach die Physik präparierte Ereignisse ansiedelt, scharf von der anschaulichen Wirklichkeit zu trennen. Er sieht dieses als Produkt des menschlichen Bewußtseins. In seiner “Philosophie der symbolischen Formen” macht Ernst Cassirer deutlich, dass aus seiner Sicht und entgegen Weyls Theorie das konstruktive Kontinuum zusammen mit dem mathematischen Symbolismus eine Brücke zwischen Bewußtsein und Wirklichkeit bildet. Das Wechselverhältnis zwischen dem Mathematiker Weyl und dem Philosophen Cassirer zeigt beispielhafte Formen der Vermittlung zwischen Philosophie und moderner Naturwissenschaft. Weyls Schriften werden vor dem Hintergrund der Rezeptionsgeschichte in der “experimentellen Epistemologieö und der “nomadischen Mathematik” als paradigmatisch für die Medientheorie gedeutet.
Doctoral Thesis
Fakultät Medien, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Advisor: Joseph Vogl
220 pages
Charles Babbage: Babbage’s Calculating Engines: Being a Collection of Papers Relating to Them; Their History and Construction (1889/2010)
Filed under book | Tags: · computing, engineering, history of mathematics, machine, mathematics, technology
“The famous and prolific nineteenth-century mathematician, engineer and inventor Charles Babbage (1791–1871) was an early pioneer of computing. He planned several calculating machines, but none was built in his lifetime. On his death his youngest son, Henry P. Babbage, was charged with the task of completing an unfinished volume of papers on the machines, which was finally published in 1889 and is reissued here. The papers, by a variety of authors, were collected from journals including The Philosophical Magazine, The Edinburgh Review and Scientific Memoirs. They relate to the construction and potential application of Charles Babbage’s calculating engines, notably the Difference Engine and the more complex Analytical Engine, which was to be programmed using punched cards. The book also includes correspondence with members of scientific societies, as well as proceedings, catalogues and drawings. Included is a complete catalogue of the drawings of the Analytical Engine.”
Originally published by E. and F. N. Spon, 125, Strand, London, 1889
Editor Henry P. Babbage
Publisher Cambridge University Press, 2010
Cambridge Library Collection – Mathematics
ISBN 1108000967, 9781108000963
388 pages
PDF (8 MB, updated on 2014-12-22)
Comment (0)Bruce Collier, James H. MacLachlan: Charles Babbage and the Engines of Perfection (1998)
Filed under book | Tags: · computing, history of computing, history of mathematics, history of technology, mathematics, technology
Charles Babbage, “the grandfather of the modern computer,” did not live to see even one of his calculating machines at work. A dazzling genius with vision extending far beyond the limitations of the Victorian age, Babbage successfully calculated a table of logarithms during his years at Cambridge University, allowing mathematical calculations to be executed with extreme precision. Only the possibility of human error prevented complete accuracy, and Babbage understood that the only way to attain perfection is to leave the human mind entirely out of the equation. He devoted most of his life and spent most of his private fortune and government stipend trying to improve his difference engines and analytical engines.
Bruce Collier and James MacLachlan chronicle Babbage’s education and scientific career, his remarkably active social life and long string of personal tragedies, his forays into philosophy and economics, his successes and failures, and the biggest disappointment of his life– his ingenious inventions were centuries ahead of the primitive capabilities of Victorian technology.
Publisher Oxford University Press, 1998
Oxford Portraits in Science series
ISBN 0195089979, 9780195089974
123 pages
PDF (updated on 2012-7-25)
Comment (1)