(1/4) Intro/History: Introducing a 100-year-old mechanical computer

► Main videos in the series:

► Bonus videos:

[meanjean]

As a fellow chemical engineer, and clock repair hobbyist, this video makes me want to cry. The beauty of the engineering of this machine and the immense amount of work put towards finding an answer to a problem is just staggering.
Also, these videos are put together beautifully. Well done Bill and to your team as well!

[augustosj]

this guy has the ability to make any subject interesting with his soothing voice and well prepared stories :)

[xisumavoid]

Nice to see a video from you again. These topics are fascinating :-)

[spelunkerd]

I was surprised to learn that trigonometry (with cosines etc) was an integral part of education for the upper classes in the 1800's. I find it humbling to realize how smart those engineers of the past were.

[Tyrog]

I've had to perform some FFT with Matlab during my PhD... I had NO IDEA this could be done with a mechanical machine... My mind is blown. I can't wait to see how it operates.

[jcims]

Wow!  This is amazing, I can't wait to see the rest of this series.  As someone who has barely scratched the surface of digital signal processing, seeing something like this realized mechanically is a bit of a marvel.  Now we've got chips the size of a pencil eraser that can decompose signals into thousands or even millions of sinusoids (bins) in the blink of an eye.

[sakadabara]

The cochlea from the inner ear represents a real time (lag free) mechanical Fourier analyser!

[edfoster]

Thank you for these videos. Once you're out of school and have to work it can be daunting to keep studying, and with no background in science and engineering I doubt I would ever understand something like this without these kinds of videos. I appreciate how ernest and straight forward they are, and I appreciate that I don't feel like I'm being talked down to.

[photolabguy]

I do enjoy all of your videos. I have been a subscriber for many years, but I miss the wittiness and charm of the old videos. I enjoy when you get lighthearted and funny. I will always look forward to new videos!

[yeswanthbabud]

Respected sir, Thank you so much for your effort in restoring this mechanical computer back to life. It helped me understand the complex Fourier series in my college easily. I can't find words to express my joy.

[powertube]

My first computer program of any significance was one that added up the sin wave harmonics with coefficients to plot out the resulting square wave in asterisks on a TI thermal printing terminal. That was in 1975. I learned Fourier analysis in 1968 in college and have been fascinated with it ever since.

My ham radio transceiver is an SDR that does repeated FFTs to show me the spectrum of the band. I have yet to grasp how FFTs work. It's always fascinating to see this topic presented in as many ways as possible to continue to strengthen my understanding. Thanks for these lessons!

[MISTER__OWL]

Thanks again for your continued educational videos.. So many things you have taught me.

[kithsakhai]

this is co cool!  we use Fourier analysis and Fourier transformations in the chemistry lab literally every day, can't do anything without it really.

[Salafrance]

This is amazing - I knew about Michelson from the Michelson-Morley Experiment, but I had not previously heard of his contribution to the early efforts to build computing devices.

[atmloginvideos]

It is impressive and at the same time frightening that such a brilliant machine is so little mentioned in analysis books in higher education courses.
I saw a reference only in a book by Lathi, I don't remember seeing any of this before.
The machine is something sensational, a triumph of human ingenuity, a particularly striking symbol of a generation of hands-on scientists who, with virtually no technology at their disposal, yet built instruments of such sensitivity that they "forged" modern physics and led to our understanding of the world to new heights.

Congratulations to the channel for all the videos, content of great value and very careful editing, the video is a masterpiece that does justice to the beauty and precision of the described mechanism.

[its_generik]

It's so good to have you back!!! Looking forward to all your future videos

[MarkBlease]

just finished the whole series on this amazing machine. The presentation and explanations are fantastic

[dnb]

This is a brilliant device, and your narration is impeccable. I spent a lot of time in the same building as that thing and had no idea it existed! It would make a great field trip for ECE210 to walk over and see it, even if it is behind glass.

It's very rare to see tangible representations of abstract math processes like this. Most analog machines for computation are antiquated or out of sight, which makes seeing them extra surprising. They demonstrate concepts in a way that can increase and diversify one's field of understanding.

Your videos are excellent. Thank you!

[mrwhite]

I am so excited about this! Thank you, Bill and everyone else who is working on this channel for uploading such great videos.

[odhewo]

These videos, both the information/delivery and editing, were fantastic, great work Bill!