In the first quarter of the 19th century, the British inventor Charles Babbage managed to take a decisive step in the design of mechanical programmable computers. He was the first to apply the mathematical methods of the theory of probability and statistics to study industrial production and economics.
But his main life goal was not theoretical research, but the creation of calculating machines capable of predicting optimal solutions in political economy. This story, oddly enough, leads us to Nazi Germany …
Analytical Society
In the late autumn of 1814, several mathematician graduates gathered in one of the mathematics classes at Cambridge Tri-Thread College. It was a meeting of the Analytical Society that Charles Babbage, with his friends John Herschel and George Pico-com, organized a couple of years ago. The chairman of the society, the newly baked Bachelor Babbage, spoke:
- I propose to proceed to the study of the probability of the occurrence of certain economic, political and social events …
Babbage's speech was interrupted by several shouts at once:
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- We do not have methods of such calculations …
- These calculations will take a lifetime …
- And funds from the royal treasury …
After hearing the objections, the young bachelor resolutely raised his hand:
- Here are my arguments. I propose to take as a basis the newest method of organizing mathematical calculations of the Frenchman de Prony. In it, all performers are divided into three qualification levels. The highest level is occupied by qualified mathematicians, - Babbage bowed to jokes and applause, - they are followed by "mathematical engineers" who organize the calculations. Well, the last in the scheme are simple calculators, well familiar only with arithmetic, our French colleague called them “computers”.
- Something too simple, - the astronomer Herschel said thoughtfully.
“You're right and wrong, John! Babbage unfolded an imposing package in front of him with an energetic gesture. - This is the key to our success - the brainchild of the great Blaise Pascal - "Pascaline".
He held up a brass box with number windows and control wheels high.
- Let's replace the third, and maybe the second stage with similar mechanical devices, making significant changes in them.
Babbage strode swiftly to the whitewashed board and began to draw charts and formulas in charcoal.
- Here is a brief idea of one of such mechanisms, called a small difference machine …
Big Difference Engine
With the concern of Herschel, Babbage spoke at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society with a report "Observations on the use of machinery for calculating mathematical tables." There, the mathematician talked about the successful use of the difference engine for solving various astronomical problems and compiling tables. This caused such enthusiasm among scientists that the chief astronomer Royal submitted a convincing petition to the President of the Royal Society, Sir Humphrey Davy, and in 1823 Babbage received from the Chancellor of the Exchequer £ 1,500 for the creation of a large difference engine. Five years passed, and both the state and personal funds of the inventor were exhausted, but the computer was not created. In the next five years, financing and construction of the machine continued with varying success, until in 1833 it collapsed. All equipment and drawings were confiscated in favor of the state …
It seemed to be over. But at the same time, Babbage met with Byron's daughter Augusta (Ada), Lady Lovelace, who became interested in the activities of a mathematician. Moreover, it was from her that Babbage learned that the idea of the difference engine originated in 1786 with Johann Müller. But he could not bring it to life. Ada also surprised the inventor by citing an article by D. Lardner, "Babbage's Computing Machine." Finally Babbage was struck by the information that his car was being actively designed by two Swedish inventors: Georg and Edward Schutz.
So Ada Lovelace entered the Analytical Society of Psychohistorians, and Babbage began a new project to create a programmable computing engine - an analytical engine, considered the mechanical prototype of modern computers.
In 1842, the scientist suddenly abandoned all business and rushed to the University of Turin for a seminar on computers. The result of this trip was the organization of the Italian branch of the Analytical Society, headed by the young engineer Luigi Menabrea, who later became the Prime Minister of Italy. Menabrea wrote over the Babbage's lectures, and they were soon published by the Public Library of Geneva. At Babbage's request, Lovelace translated Menabrea's notes with very extensive commentary. This is how one of the main technical documents of the society arose under the acronym AAL.
Artificial intelligence of advisor Korsakov
Ada Lovelace was without a doubt a good angel of the Analytical Society. It was she who discovered in the archives of the Royal Society in the "Proceedings of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences" for 1833 a description of one strange device, called by the author "a machine for comparing ideas." The author turned out to be a collegiate adviser S. N. Korsakov. The main element of his device was a file of punched cards, which were sorted and compared with a special mechanism. Most of all, the members of the Analytical Society were struck by the fact that Korsakov, describing his intelligent machines, led by artificial intelligence, donated his ideas to the "public domain."
Alas, it is not known what concrete embodiment the ideas of the Russian genius found among British scientists. With the death of Ada Lovelace in 1852, traces of the Analytical Society are lost …
But the ideas live on
In April 1914, professor of the Kharkov "techno-spoon" A. N. Shchukarev read a lecture "Cognition and Thinking" at the Moscow Polytechnic Museum. He accompanied his words with a demonstration of a logical thinking machine, capable of mechanically making logical conclusions based on initial information. In his work, Shchukarev used the results of his colleague, Professor of Kharkov University P. D. Khrushchev. It was he who introduced Professor Shchukarev to a half-forgotten invention - the "intellectual machine" of the advisor Korsakov. Shchukarev and Khrushchev, together with IV Sleshinsky, professor of mathematics at Odessa University, managed to create the first prototype of a logical thinking machine. Further traces of this amazing device are lost amid the chaos of the revolution and the Civil War. But Shchukarev's innovative work "Mechanization of thinking"in which he formulates almost word for word the main theses of the Babbage Analytical Society.
Hollerite Tabulator
After the death of Babbage and the collapse of the Analytical Society, the inventor's son tried to continue the construction of the universal analytical machine. But unsuccessfully.
Meanwhile, even during Babbage's lifetime, one of the variants of his differential calculator performed by the Schutz family won the gold medal at the Paris Exhibition and was sold for $ 5,000 to the director of the New York Observatory, Benjamin Gould. At one time, Gould successfully used the device to calculate a number of astronomical tables. But in 1859 he was accused of embezzlement of funds and was fired, and the tabular machine was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution, where nothing was heard about it for a long time. Only 20 years later, statistician Herman Hollerith proposed to speed up the census of the population to process punched cards on an electromechanical computer that he developed - a tabulator, which in fact was one of the important parts of Babbage's machine.
However, it was Hollerith who received the patent for the tabulator. And even founded a small company for its production. The case turned out to be commercially successful. But Hollerith somehow created a syndicate of small businesses, and then suddenly sold his share together with the company …
Blue giant
In 1914, a certain Thomas John Watson took over Hollerith's business. A man with a criminal background was completely unknown in the business world, but he had a real bulldog grip. He managed to transform a little-known accounting equipment company into the powerful International Business Machines Corporation. For the color of the logo in industrial circles, she was nicknamed the Blue Giant.
By the beginning of World War II, IBM had a network of branches and representative offices in 79 countries. At the same time, Watson paid special attention to the German branch of DEHOMAG. His activities in the early 1930s were shrouded in a thick veil of secrecy, but journalistic investigations showed that IBM directly funded the Nazi Party's election campaign. The Blue Giant's contribution to the rise of Nazism was so significant that in July 1937, Hitler personally awarded Watson the Order of Merit of the German Eagle.
IBM took an active part in automating Hitler's machine of extermination of the enslaved peoples of Europe and especially in the process of "final solution of the Jewish question."
Department "M"
In the late 1930s, many racist books were published in Germany, but among them, the opuses of a certain Richard Korherr stood out for their "well-grounded scientific character". As a result, he was noticed by the leadership of the NSDAP and received the post of head of the statistics and demography department in the management of Rudolf Hess. Here Korherr's career took off quickly: in 1940, SS Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler appointed him head of the Statistical Bureau of the General Directorate of Reich Security. Here Korherr became not only the chief statistician of the Reich, but also began to actively collaborate with the SS Ahnenerbe, an occult organization.
On January 1, 1942, "Ahnenerbe" became part of Himmler's personal headquarters, and all of its activities were completely reoriented to military needs. This is how the Ahnenerbe Institute for Scientific Research of Targeted Military Significance arose, in which Korherr dealt with the M (mathematics) department. Among the employees of this department there were many concentration camp prisoners: mathematicians, statisticians and engineers. They all ended up there on suspicion of links with the German branch of the Babbage Analytical Society. Their search, as well as the search for "persons with paranormal abilities", was carried out by one of the leaders of the institute, Wolfram Sievers. And information - attention! - he received from anonymous sources at the Smithsonian Institution.
The tasks solved by Korherr in the "M" section were reduced to "planning the racial and demographic situation" in the territory of the "Greater Reich". At the same time, the chief statistician made extensive use of the gigantic database of several censuses of the population of European countries, conducted in the pre-war years by the Blue Giant using its unique equipment. This and other truly amazing technology for that time with the IBM brand entered Germany until the very end of the war and included a wide variety of electromechanical calculating and analytical computers and devices. In them one could find not only the nodes, once developed by Babbage for his universal analytical machine, but also the blocks of the logical thinking machine, created by the brilliant Russian scientists …
In Germany, the last battles were still going on when Watson sent several of his special teams to Europe, ostensibly to search for advanced German technology. In fact, the Blue Giant's employees had a very different order: cover up the tracks of IBM, remove or destroy any equipment with the corporate brand.
Much to Watson's surprise, however, his emissaries only found Hollerith's old mechanical tabulators. Where have all the German traces of the most advanced IBM technologies gone? And what did the German process engineers manage to develop on their basis?
The answers to these questions lead us to Latin America and South Africa. However, this is a completely different story - the new heirs of the Babbage Analytical Society …
Oleg Arsenov