Article ID: CBB001202247

Reinventing Machines: The Transmission History of the Leibniz Calculator (2015)

unapi

This paper argues that we should take into account the process of historical transmission to enrich our understanding of material culture. More specifically, I want to show how the rewriting of history and the invention of tradition impact material objects and our beliefs about them. I focus here on the transmission history of the mechanical calculator invented by the German savant Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Leibniz repeatedly described his machine as functional and wonderfully useful, but in reality it was never finished and didn't fully work. Its internal structure also remained unknown. In 1879, however, the machine re-emerged and was reinvented as the origin of all later calculating machines based on the stepped drum, to protect the priority of the German Leibniz against the Frenchman Thomas de Colmar as the father of mechanical calculation. The calculator was later replicated to demonstrate that it could function 'after all', in an effort to deepen this narrative and further enhance Leibniz's computing acumen.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001202247/

Similar Citations

Article Sven Dupré; (2023)
The Nature of Glass: Technologies of Transparency, Materials on the Move (/isis/citation/CBB891087905/)

Book Kidwell, Peggy Aldrich; Ackerberg-Hastings, Amy; Roberts, David Lindsay; (2008)
Tools of American Mathematics Teaching, 1800--2000 (/isis/citation/CBB000952034/)

Article Croucher, John S.; Croucher, Rosalind F.; (2011)
Mrs Janet Taylor's “Mariner's Calculator”: Assessment and Reassessment (/isis/citation/CBB001024727/)

Book Seigel, Jerrold E.; (2005)
The Idea of the Self: Thought and Experience in Western Europe since the Seventeenth Century (/isis/citation/CBB000930043/)

Article Carroll, P. Thomas; (Summer 2009)
The Railroad Spike (/isis/citation/CBB506581880/)

Article Viktoria Tkaczyk; (2023)
Early Sound Archiving and the Making of Scientific Resources (/isis/citation/CBB028278381/)

Article Amor Cherni; (2016)
Leibniz, l'animal et la machine (/isis/citation/CBB776273368/)

Book Leonie Hannan; (2023)
A culture of curiosity: Science in the eighteenth-century home (/isis/citation/CBB794527095/)

Article Marieke M. A. Hendriksen; Ruben E. Verwaal; (2020)
Boerhaave's Furnace. Exploring Early Modern Chemistry through Working Models (/isis/citation/CBB089602675/)

Article Schmidgen, Henning; (2005)
The Donders Machine: Matter, Signs, and Time in a Physiological Experiment, ca. 1865 (/isis/citation/CBB000850142/)

Book Klein, Ursula; Spary, E. C.; (2010)
Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe: Between Market and Laboratory (/isis/citation/CBB001020046/)

Article Marshall, E. L.; (2009)
The Quest for Thermodynamic Efficiency: Atkinson Cycle Machines versus Otto Cycle Machines (/isis/citation/CBB001231644/)

Article Megan Barford; (2017)
D.176: Sextants, Numbers, and the Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty (/isis/citation/CBB878342734/)

Article Iwan Rhys Morus; (2019)
Looking into the Future: The Telectroscope That Wasn’t There (/isis/citation/CBB208206746/)

Article Christine von Oertzen; (2023)
Paper Knowledge and Statistical Precision (/isis/citation/CBB422462024/)

Article Fanny Gribenski; David Pantalony; (2023)
Sounding Acoustic Precision: Tuning Forks and Cast Steel’s Nineteenth-Century Euro-American Networks (/isis/citation/CBB913576480/)

Book Heesen, Anke te; (2002)
The World in a Box: The Story of an Eighteenth-Century Picture Encyclopedia (/isis/citation/CBB000201413/)

Authors & Contributors
Leonie Hannan
Ruben E. Verwaal
Barford, Megan
Fanny Gribenski
Régine Fabri
Hendriksen, Marieke M. A.
Concepts
Scientific apparatus and instruments
Material culture
Machines
Supply networks; logistics; supply chain economics
Science and technology, relationships
Calculating machines
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
17th century
20th century
Enlightenment
16th century
Places
Germany
Great Britain
United States
France
Prussia (Germany)
Netherlands
Institutions
British Admiralty
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment