Astronomy

 Businesses began recognizing the value of computing and saw its potential to boost profits by improving labour- and data-intensive tasks, like accounting, insurance appraisals, and inventory management. To meet this demand, Hollerith founded The Tabulating Machine Company, which later merged with other machine makers in 1924 to become The International Business Machines Corporation or IBM - which you’ve probably heard of. These electro-mechanical “business machines” were a huge success, transforming commerce and government, and by the mid-1900s, the explosion in world population and the rise of globalized trade demanded even faster and more flexible tools for processing data, setting the stage for digital computers, w

  What is Astronomy? A body of knowledge and a method of how we learned that knowledge Science tells us that stuff we know may not be perfectly known; it may be partly or entirely wrong. Understanding that our understanding might be wrong is essential, and trying to figure out the ways we may be mistaken is the only way that science can help us find our way to the truth, or at least the nearest approximation to it. "Focus On...": Astronomers Who are we? What do we do? Astronomers are programmers, programmers, and programmers Once the data from a telescope is taken and analyzed, you have to know what to do with it Do the observations fit the physical model of how stars blow up, galaxies form, or the way gas flows through space? An astrophysicist is someone who studies the sky and uses telescopes and detectors to test hypotheses. Astronomers don't actually use the telescopes themselves, but someone who's trained in their specific use does that for them. Some of those in...

  Transcript Hello, and welcome to Crash Course Astronomy! I’m your host, Phil Plait, and I’ll be taking you on a guided tour of the entire Universe. You might want to pack a lunch. Over the course of this series we’ll explore planets, stars, black holes, galaxies, subatomic particles, and even the eventual fate of the Universe itself. But before we step into space, let’s take a step back. I wanna talk to you about science. There are lots of definitions of science, but I’ll say that it’s a body of knowledge, and a method of how we learned that knowledge. Science tells us that stuff we know may not be perfectly known; it may be partly or entirely wrong. We need to watch the Universe, see how it behaves, make guesses about why it’s doing what it’s doing, and then try to think of ways to support or disprove those ideas. That last part is important. Science must be, above all else, honest if we really want to get to the bottom of things. Understanding that our understanding might be wr...

  The first half of the 20th century saw the world's population almost double. But the scale of human systems continued to increase at an unprecedented rate. Global trade and transit networks became interconnected. computing devices, like tabulating machines, were a huge boon to governments and business. Electro-mechanical computers set the stage for future innovation The Harvard Mark I computer was built by IBM for the Allies during World War II It contained 765,000 components, 3 million connections, and 5 hundred miles of wire To keep its internal mechanics synchronized, it used a 50-foot shaft running right through the machine driven by a five horsepower motor The brains of these huge electro-mechanical. beasts were relays: Relays were electrically-controlled mechanical switches. In a relay, there is a control wire that determines whether a circuit is opened or closed. The control wire connects to a coil of wire inside the relay. When current flows through the coil, an electroma...