Konrad Zuse was a German engineer and computer pioneer that invented the first programmable computer. His biography is interesting if you wish to google him up to see.

In 1967 Zuse suggested that the universe itself is running on a grid of computers (digital physics); in 1969 he published the book Rechnender Raum (translated into English as Calculating Space). This idea has attracted a lot of attention, since there is no physical evidence against Zuse's thesis. Edward Fredkin (1980s), Juergen Schmidhuber (1990s), Stephen Wolfram (A New Kind of Science) and others have expanded on it.

Zuse received several awards for his work. After he retired, he focused on his hobby, painting. Zuse died on 18 December 1995 in Hünfeld, Germany, near Fulda.

What are your thoughts about calculating space. Is it infinite or does it end? Is there a starting and ending point?

Can there be a computer that can do the job like Konrad Zuse imagined or envisioned?


http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/zuse.html

He also programmed the first playable chess game

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa050298.htm

Infinity contains 'space.'

I think you can calculate space where a space-time environment is concerned. The space itself is totally dependent on the formation of objects or matter. Where matter ceases to exist, so does space.

Space exists within the field of the universal mind where form is manifested.

The idea that we live in a virtual reality or some sort of holodeck or digital environment has been suggested by a few other people too. I find it fascinating.

Evidently so.

Although I perfer to think of it as the "mind of God".

Your software may vary.

I don't have to go look to see this is a joke post.

The first pogrammable electronic computer was invented in England during ww2; an simultaneously (the processes of developing the invention overlapped) in the US. The British used it to decipher German coded messages; the Americans, to calculate trajectories.

The first physical (non-electrical) programmable computer was invented by a Briton in the 1800s who used it to calculate and predict variations in sea-level due to tidal action. This was extremely valuable in the hayday of naval navigaton, but the machine never got the exposure it deserved. Like so many of the greatest inventions.

1967 was actually a very bad year.

The one name that sticks out for me when it comes to programmable computers is Janos von Neumann, who solved a huge roadblock in the groundwork of computer architechture when he suggested that the program and the data be two separate and somewhat independent entities. Janos was Hungarian, and one of my profs at college where I took a degree in comp sci was fascinated with him. Apparently Janos was quite the guy. He screwed more women than Einstein or Oppenheimer, and in this he was only surpassed by Herr Gretchen, the leader of the German engineering team during WW2 who were working on their version of the computer. (Die Erbrennensachsgemaldezahlenmaschine.)

i think if we look far enough into space we'll see our backsides

I have to correct myself. It is not proven that Gretchen had more women than Janos, but they ran a simulation program on the two many years later, and it turns out that Gretchen had most likely more blondes, seeing that the lab where he worked was located in a German-occupied area of Scandinavia. And, as eveyone knows, brunettes don't count at all in a tally when put against blondes.

Some experts were not happy with this, namely Maria von Klittschheimer and Rita Grop-Liebowitch, so they developed a complex math formula, whith several unknowns and derivative functions, but even their best effort could only prove, that, when we talk in a magnitude of 10 to the third or larger, brunette lovers come in at around the value of 0.2324 blondes each, plus or minus a few percentage points.

I guess you have to be a tall guy to be able to do that.

nope just patient..light only travels so fast

Question:

When was the first computer invented?

Answer:

Unfortunately this question has no easy answer because of all the different types of classifications and types of computers. Therefore this document has been created with a listing of each of the first computers starting with the first programmable computer leading up to the computers of today. Keep in mind that early inventions such as the abacus, calculators, tablet machines, difference machine, etc. are not accounted for in this document.

First (((programmable))) computer

The Z1 originally created by Germany's Konrad Zuse in his parents living room in 1936 to 1938 is considered to be the first (((electrical))) binary programmable computer.

The first digital computer

Short for Atanasoff-Berry Computer, the ABC started being developed by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry in 1937 and continued to be developed until 1942 at the Iowa State College (now Iowa State University). On October 19, 1973, US Federal Judge Earl R. Larson signed his decision that the ENIAC patent by Eckert and Mauchly was invalid and named Atanasoff the inventor of the electronic digital computer.


The ENIAC was invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania and began construction in 1943 and was not completed until 1946. It occupied about 1,800 square feet and used about 18,000 vacuum tubes, weighing almost 50 tons. Although the Judge ruled that the ABC computer was the first digital computer many still consider the ENIAC to be the first digital computer.


Because of the Judge ruling and because the case was never appealed like most we consider the ABC to be the first digital computer. However, because the ABC was never fully functional we consider the first functional digital computer to be the ENIAC.

The first stored program computer

The early British computer known as the EDSAC is considered to be the first stored program electronic computer. The computer performed its first calculation on May 6, 1949 and was the computer that ran the first graphical computer game.


The first personal computer

In 1975 Ed Roberts coined the term personal computer when he introduced the Altair 8800. Although the first personal computer is considered to be the Kenback-1, which was first introduced for $750 in 1971. The computer relied on a series of switches for inputting data and output data by turning on and off a series of lights.

The Micral is considered the be the first commercial non-assembly computer. The computer used the Intel 8008 processor and sold for $1,750 in 1973.

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm

Evolution of the Computer:

The first counting device was the abacus, originally from Asia. It worked on a place-value notion meaning that the place of a bead or rock on the apparatus determined how much it was worth.

1600s: John Napier discovers logarithms. Robert Bissaker invents the slide rule which will remain in popular use until 19??.

1642: Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician and philosopher, invents the first mechanical digital calculator using gears, called the Pascaline. Although this machine could perform addition and subtraction on whole numbers, it was too expensive and only Pascal himself could repare it.

1804: Joseph Marie Jacquard used punch cards to automate a weaving loom.

1812: Charles P. Babbage, the "father of the computer", discovered that many long calculations involved many similar, repeated operations. Therefore, he designed a machine, the difference engine which would be (((steam-powered))), fully automatic and commanded by a fixed instruction program. In 1833, Babbage quit working on this machine to concentrate on the analytical engine.

1840s: Augusta Ada. "The first programmer" suggested that a binary system should be used for storage rather than a decimal system.

1850s: George Boole developed Boolean logic which would later be used in the design of computer circuitry.

1890: Dr. Herman Hollerith introduced the first electromechanical, punched-card data-processing machine which was used to compile information for the 1890 U.S. census. Hollerith's tabulator became so successful that he started his own business to market it. His company would eventually become International Business Machines (IBM).

1906: The vacuum tube is invented by American physicist Lee De Forest.

1939: Dr. John V. Atanasoff and his assistant Clifford Berry build the first electronic digital computer. Their machine, the Atanasoff-Berry-Computer (ABC) provided the foundation for the advances in electronic digital computers.

1941, Konrad Zuse (recently deceased in January of 1996), from Germany, introduced the (((first programmable computer))) designed to solve complex engineering equations. This machine, called the Z3, was also the first to work on the binary system instead of the decimal system.

Like when the question was raised, "is the earth really flat?"....we won't know until we can go find out.

... and in a straight line and only in one direction at a time.

So... to be able to see my own back, given a long enoug time, when I stare into space... I guess I need to be hard of hearing...??

To me the only important and worth calculating space is the space I occupied the rest of space is of non importance until I occupied that space to.

The question needs a little further refinement. Are you referring to the Einsteiniam space time fabric caused by the big bang? If so the size of space would be the amount of expansion which has occurred since that time. Since a popular theory is that spacetime expanded at many times the speed of light in the early formation, the knowledge of the age of the universe would not be of much use in calculating it's size (gamma ray bursts are now being studied for that purpose).

There is also the problem of the "event horizon" of time and space. Just like we cannot see into a black hole, there are limits to how far we can see in an ever expanding universe. Again, gamma ray bursts are giving insight into the limits.

Various estimates are that the universe is visible for thirteen billion light years so it is thirteen to twenty six billion light years across, to twice that ... or more or less than that depending upon who is arguing the point.

If "space" includes the noneinsteinian (I made this word up) space outside the region where the big bang occurred, the best guess would be infinity but no one really knows.

The word "space" as we use it normally refers to Newtonian three dimensional space, not something which may exist in another universe. Anomalies, such as black holes, fall outside of Neutonian space and give big problems to Einstienian spacetime. The other end of the black hole's tunnel of twisted spacetime may be farther away than our universe is wide ... and may indeed lead to other universes.

I am not sure how a computer can directly solve this problem.

One thing for sure is that the human mind is trying to attempt to figure out how big the universe is. I think it was no different for Mr. Zuse who just wanted to try to figure it out with a computer at the time when they didn't have much to work with.

You might want to look up "gamma ray bursts" on youtube or the web to see some of the more interesting and recent research being done on cosmology and how it affects current thinking on quantum physics.

Thank you for the information by the way. I surely will check it out.

Space is a creation of the mind. Just like when you dream. You create space in your dream. You can 'see' mountains, sky, your house, etc. When you wake up all that space is gone.

Space does not exist.

I don't believe the English title of this work, "Calculating space" has anything to do with performing a calculation about space. Its not about measuring/computing the size of space, or anything like that. I believe its intended to convey either the idea

(a) that space itself exists as a result of calculation, or
(b) that space itself is an agent of calculation, and physical phenomena are a result of that calculation

or something along those lines. Somewhat like the matrix, except there is no computer housing the matrix - the universe itself is the computer.

I looked him up. He thought the universe was either a digital computer or the output of a digital computer. In either case he thought another computer could "read" the pattern.

Begin Quote:

In physics and cosmology, digital physics is a collection of theoretical perspectives that start by assuming that the universe is, at heart, describable by information, and is therefore computable. Given such assumptions, the universe can be conceived as either the output of some computer program or as being some sort of vast digital computation device (or, at least, mathematically isomorphic to such a device).

Digital physics is grounded in one or more of the following hypotheses, listed in order of increasing boldness. The universe, or reality, is:

* Essentially informational (although not every informational ontology need be digital);
* Essentially digital;
* Itself a colossal computer;
* The output of a simulated reality exercise.