Description

The presentation will consist of three parts.
1. The first part will use illustrations to look back at the early years of the computer age. After all, few people today still know what those historical machines looked like. Around this, of course, all sorts of anecdotes on how we ourselves made cathode tube memories and magnetic drums, a process of trial and error.
2. Attention is then drawn to a number of propositions about correctness proofs, using a series of slides. Correctness proofs are important to prove the actual numerical computability of mathematical quantities.
3. Finally, there follows a consideration of Turing machines, of computability, etc. explained with some primitive calculi that can still do anything with a minimal arsenal of elements. The concept of negative entropy is also discussed there - a concept Gerard 't Hooft and Erik Verlinde have been working on recently. It was already touched upon under point 2 that information destruction is the most important operation in computing.

Speaker(s)

Prof.dr.ir. Willem L. van der Poel received his engineering degree in physics from TH Delft in 1950. He obtained his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 1956.
Between 1950 and 1967, he worked at the Neher laboratory of the PTT. From 1962 to 1988, he was a professor at TU Delft.
He is the designer of the Testudo, the PTERA, the ZERO and the ZEBRA computers. He made contributions to the programming languages Algol 68 and LISP for the ZEBRA.
In 1971, he became a member of the KNAW and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bradford. In 1984, he received the Computer Pioneer Award from the IEEE.
He enjoys international fame as a Dutch computer pioneer. He also enjoys international fame as a designer and solver of mechanical puzzles. And he is a dedicated and active musician.

Location

Science Centre

Mijnbouwstraat 120, 2628 RX Delft

Organiser

History of Technology

Histechnica

Name and contact details for information

Further information from Dr Paul van Woerkom (tel. 070 - 3070275 in the evening) or via the e-mail address below

pthlmvanwoerkom@gmail.com

Route description