Download or read book Cultural Babbage written by Francis Spufford and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With contributions from writers on both sides of the science/humanities divide, this is a collection of quirky and offbeat essays on technology, culture and forgotten or imaginary histories. Taking as its starting point Charles Babbage's 'Difference Engine', a machine imagined but never built, the book explores a range of subjects where the imagination and science and technology meet. Essays deal with such topics as the invention of the phonograph, the Victorian delight in automata and the Internet and the British. The result is a work which makes surprising connections and draws intriguing conclusions.
Download or read book Victorians and Numbers written by Lawrence Goldman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-02-03 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A defining feature of nineteenth-century Britain was its fascination with statistics. The processes that made Victorian society, including the growth of population, the development of industry and commerce, and the increasing competence of the state, generated profuse numerical data. This is a study of how such data influenced every aspect of Victorian culture and thought, from the methods of natural science and the struggle against disease, to the development of social administration and the arguments and conflicts between social classes. Numbers were collected in the 1830s by newly-created statistical societies in response to this 'data revolution'. They became a regular aspect of governmental procedure thereafter, and inspired new ways of interrogating both the natural and social worlds. William Farr used them to study cholera; Florence Nightingale deployed them in campaigns for sanitary improvement; Charles Babbage was inspired to design and build his famous calculating engines to process them. The mid-Victorians employed statistics consistently to make the case for liberal reform. In later decades, however, the emergence of the academic discipline of mathematical statistics - statistics as we use them today - became associated with eugenics and a contrary social philosophy. Where earlier statisticians emphasised the unity of mankind, some later practitioners, following Francis Galton, studied variation and difference within and between groups. In chapters on learned societies, government departments, international statistical collaborations, and different Victorian statisticians, Victorians and Numbers traces the impact of numbers on the era and the intriguing relationship of Victorian statistics with 'Big Data' in our own age.
Download or read book The Eye of the Master written by Matteo Pasquinelli and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2023-10-10 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is AI? A dominant view describes it as the quest "to solve intelligence" - a solution supposedly to be found in the secret logic of the mind or in the deep physiology of the brain, such as in its complex neural networks. The Eye of the Master argues, to the contrary, that the inner code of AI is shaped not by the imitation of biological intelligence, but the intelligence of labour and social relations, as it is found in Babbage's "calculating engines" of the industrial age as well as in the recent algorithms for image recognition and surveillance. The idea that AI may one day become autonomous (or "sentient", as someone thought of Google's LaMDA) is pure fantasy. Computer algorithms have always imitated the form of social relations and the organisation of labour in their own inner structure and their purpose remains blind automation. The Eye of the Master urges a new literacy on AI for scientists, journalists and new generations of activists, who should recognise that the "mystery" of AI is just the automation of labour at the highest degree, not intelligence per se.
Download or read book Discographies written by Jeremy Gilbert and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-03-11 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experiencing disco, hip hop, house, techno, drum 'n' bass and garage, Discographies plots a course through the transatlantic dance scene of the last last twenty-five years. It discusses the problems posed by contemporary dance culture of both academic and cultural study and finds these origins in the history of opposition to music as a source of sensory pleasure. Discussing such issues as technology, club space. drugs, the musical body, gender, sexuality and pleasure, Discographies explores the ecstatic experiences at the heart of contemporary dance culture. It suggests why politicians and agencies as diverse as the independent music press and public broadcasting should be so hostile to this cultural phenomenon.
Download or read book New Makers of Modern Culture written by Wintle Justin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 905 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New Makers of Modern Culture is the successor to the classic reference works Makers of Modern Culture and Makers of Nineteenth-Century Culture, published by Routledge in the early 1980s. The set was extremely successful and continues to be used to this day, due to the high quality of the writing, the distinguished contributors, and the cultural sensitivity shown in the selection of those individuals included. New Makers of Modern Culture takes into full account the rise and fall of reputation and influence over the last twenty-five years and the epochal changes that have occurred: the demise of Marxism and the collapse of the Soviet Union; the rise and fall of postmodernism; the eruption of Islamic fundamentalism; the triumph of the Internet. Containing over eight hundred essay-style entries, and covering the period from 1850 to the present, New Makers includes artists, writers, dramatists, architects, philosophers, anthropologists, scientists, sociologists, major political figures, composers, film-makers and many other culturally significant individuals and is thoroughly international in its purview. Next to Karl Marx is Bob Marley, next to John Ruskin is Salmon Rushdie, alongside Darwin is Luigi Dallapiccola, Deng Xiaoping runs shoulders with Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva with Kropotkin. Once again, Wintle has enlisted the services of many distinguished writers and leading academics, such as Sam Beer, Bernard Crick, Edward Seidensticker and Paul Preston. In a few cases, for example Michael Holroyd and Philip Larkin, contributors are themselves the subject of entries. With its global reach, New Makers of Modern Culture provides a multi-voiced witness of the contemporary thinking world. The entries carry short bibliographies and there is thorough cross-referencing. There is an index of names and key terms.
Download or read book Bodies Machines written by Iwan Rhys Morus and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2002-12-01 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is hard to believe that the pursuit of artificial intelligence is not a phenomenon of the twentieth century. For over three hundred years, the boundaries between bodies and machines the natural and the artificial, the animate and the inanimate have been passionately explored. These explorations, beginning in the seventeenth and eighteenth and increasing during the nineteenth century, have been all but forgotten, lost beneath the commotion of the modern day world. This book retrieves these lost histories, giving voice to the hopes, dreams, and fears of philosophers, medical practitioners, engineers, craftsmen and artisans who have all been fascinated by the interface between bodies and machines. The journey back in time unfolds with the mysterious advent of mechanical philosophies, which conceptualized the body and the surrounding world largely in terms of mechanistic interactions. These theories develop in intriguing directions and fuel experiments in such areas as material production and social punishment, spiritualism and mental health. From reanimating dead bodies with electricity, which led to the introduction of the electric chair, through to the use of machines to render hysterics and the insane fit for reintroduction into society, this book conveys the dark truths behind our relationship with machines. This book is not only an exceptional contribution to the history of technology but also to contemporary debates about humans and machines.
Download or read book The Concise New Makers of Modern Culture written by Justin Wintle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-11-28 with total page 892 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Who's Who of Western culture, from Woody Allen to Emile Zola... Containing four hundred essay-style entries, and covering the period from 1850 to the present, The Concise New Makers of Modern Culture includes artists, writers, dramatists, architects, philosophers, anthropologists, scientists, sociologists, major political figures, composers, film-makers and many other culturally significant individuals and is thoroughly international in its purview. Next to Karl Marx is Bob Marley, with John Ruskin is Salman Rushdie, alongside Darwin is Luigi Dallapiccola, Deng Xiaoping rubs shoulders with Jacques Derrida as do Julia Kristeva and Kropotkin. With its global reach, The Concise New Makers of Modern Culture provides a multi-voiced witness of the contemporary thinking world. The entries carry short bibliographies and there is thorough cross-referencing as well as an index of names and key terms.
Download or read book Mind as Machine written by Margaret A. Boden and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 964 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The development of cognitive science is one of the most remarkable and fascinating intellectual achievements of the modern era. It brings together psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, computing, philosophy, linguistics, and anthropology in the project of understanding the mind by modelling its workings. Oxford University Press now presents a masterful history of cognitive science, told by one of its most eminent practitioners.
Download or read book Visions of Science written by James A. Secord and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-04-03 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed an extraordinary transformation in British political, literary, and intellectual life. There was widespread social unrest, and debates raged regarding education, the lives of the working class, and the new industrial, machine-governed world. At the same time, modern science emerged in Europe in more or less its current form, as new disciplines and revolutionary concepts, including evolution and the vastness of geologic time, began to take shape. In Visions of Science, James A. Secord offers a new way to capture this unique moment of change. He explores seven key books—among them Charles Babbage’s Reflections on the Decline of Science, Charles Lyell’s Principles ofGeology, Mary Somerville’s Connexion of the Physical Sciences, and Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus—and shows how literature that reflects on the wider meaning of science can be revelatory when granted the kind of close reading usually reserved for fiction and poetry. These books considered the meanings of science and its place in modern life, looking to the future, coordinating and connecting the sciences, and forging knowledge that would be appropriate for the new age. Their aim was often philosophical, but Secord shows it was just as often imaginative, projective, and practical: to suggest not only how to think about the natural world but also to indicate modes of action and potential consequences in an era of unparalleled change. Visions of Science opens our eyes to how genteel ladies, working men, and the literary elite responded to these remarkable works. It reveals the importance of understanding the physical qualities of books and the key role of printers and publishers, from factories pouring out cheap compendia to fashionable publishing houses in London’s West End. Secord’s vivid account takes us to the heart of an information revolution that was to have profound consequences for the making of the modern world.
Download or read book Ada s Legacy written by Robin Hammerman and published by Morgan & Claypool. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ada’s Legacy illustrates the depth and diversity of writers, thinkers, and makers who have been inspired by Ada Lovelace, the English mathematician and writer. The volume, which commemorates the bicentennial of Ada’s birth in December 1815, celebrates Lovelace’s many achievements as well as the impact of her life and work, which reverberated widely since the late nineteenth century. In the 21st century we have seen a resurgence in Lovelace scholarship, thanks to the growth of interdisciplinary thinking and the expanding influence of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Ada’s Legacy is a unique contribution to this scholarship, thanks to its combination of papers on Ada’s collaboration with Charles Babbage, Ada’s position in the Victorian and Steampunk literary genres, Ada’s representation in and inspiration of contemporary art and comics, and Ada’s continued relevance in discussions around gender and technology in the digital age. With the 200th anniversary of Ada Lovelace’s birth on December 10, 2015, we believe that the timing is perfect to publish this collection of papers. Because of its broad focus on subjects that reach far beyond the life and work of Ada herself, Ada’s Legacy will appeal to readers who are curious about Ada’s enduring importance in computing and the wider world.
Download or read book Engines of the Imagination written by Jonathan Sawday and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-11-30 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging the artificial divide between technological studies and cultural history, Engines of the Imagination traces the story of the imaginative encounter with machines and machinery in the European Renaissance.
Download or read book Sound Knowledge written by J. Q. Davies and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-01-30 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to hear scientifically? What does it mean to see musically? This volume uncovers a new side to the long nineteenth century in London, a hidden history in which virtuosic musical entertainment and scientific discovery intersected in remarkable ways. Sound Knowledge examines how scientific truth was accrued by means of visual and aural experience, and, in turn, how musical knowledge was located in relation to empirical scientific practice. James Q. Davies and Ellen Lockhart gather work by leading scholars to explore a crucial sixty-year period, beginning with Charles Burney’s ambitious General History of Music, a four-volume study of music around the globe, and extending to the Great Exhibition of 1851, where musical instruments were assembled alongside the technologies of science and industry in the immense glass-encased collections of the Crystal Palace. Importantly, as the contributions show, both the power of science and the power of music relied on performance, spectacle, and experiment. Ultimately, this volume sets the stage for a new picture of modern disciplinarity, shining light on an era before the division of aural and visual knowledge.
Download or read book Learning and Teaching in a Metropolis written by Lynn Ang and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2010 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the interface/Probing the Boundaries seeks to encourage and promote cutting edge interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary projects and inquiry by bringing people together from differing contexts, disciplines, professions, and vocations, the aim is to engage in conversations that are innovative, imaginative, and creatively interactive. --
Download or read book Engineering Empires written by B. Marsden and published by Springer. This book was released on 2004-12-07 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Engineers are empire-builders. Watt, Brunel, and others worked to build and expand personal and business empires of material technology and in so doing these engineers also became active agents of political and economic empire. This book provides a fascinating exploration of the cultural construction of the large-scale technologies of empire.
Download or read book Androids in the Enlightenment written by Adelheid Voskuhl and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-05-31 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eighteenth century saw the creation of a number of remarkable mechanical androids: at least ten prominent automata were built between 1735 and 1810 by clockmakers, court mechanics, and other artisans from France, Switzerland, Austria, and the German lands. Designed to perform sophisticated activities such as writing, drawing, or music making, these “Enlightenment automata” have attracted continuous critical attention from the time they were made to the present, often as harbingers of the modern industrial age, an era during which human bodies and souls supposedly became mechanized. In Androids in the Enlightenment, Adelheid Voskuhl investigates two such automata—both depicting piano-playing women. These automata not only play music, but also move their heads, eyes, and torsos to mimic a sentimental body technique of the eighteenth century: musicians were expected to generate sentiments in themselves while playing, then communicate them to the audience through bodily motions. Voskuhl argues, contrary to much of the subsequent scholarly conversation, that these automata were unique masterpieces that illustrated the sentimental culture of a civil society rather than expressions of anxiety about the mechanization of humans by industrial technology. She demonstrates that only in a later age of industrial factory production did mechanical androids instill the fear that modern selves and societies had become indistinguishable from machines.
Download or read book The Intellectual Foundations of Alfred Marshall s Economic Science written by Simon J. Cook and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-06 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows how Marshall's distinctive contributions to modern economics grew out of his early development of a neo-Hegelian social philosophy.
Download or read book Manufacturing Culture written by Joseph Bizup and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bizup concludes with an examination of John Ruskin's and William Morris's efforts to counter this sort of rhetorical maneuvering by treating cultured manliness as a figure for the cooperative impulse they both hoped would replace competitive self-interest as society's organizing value."--Jacket.
