Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator

by Keith Houston Narrated by Elliot Fitzpatrick

Overview

The hidden history of the pocket calculator-a device that ushered in modern mathematics, helped build the atomic bomb, and went with us to the moon-and the mathematicians, designers, and inventors who brought it to life.



Starting with hands, abacus, and slide rule, humans have always reached for tools to simplify math. Pocket-sized calculators ushered in modern mathematics, helped build the atomic bomb, took us to the bottom of the ocean, and accompanied us to the moon. The pocket calculator changed our world, until it was supplanted by more modern devices that, in a cruel twist of irony, it helped to create. The calculator is dead; long live the calculator.



In this witty mathematic and social history, Keith Houston transports listeners from the nascent economies of the ancient world to World War II, where a Jewish engineer calculated for his life at Buchenwald, and into the technological arms race that led to the first affordable electronic pocket calculators. At every turn, Houston is a scholarly, affable guide to this global history of invention. Empire of the Sum will appeal to math lovers, history buffs, and anyone seeking to understand our trajectory to the computer age.

Editorial Reviews

Alexander Nazaryan

"Houston’s narrative is full of oddballs, many of them brilliant…"

Economist

"Houston’s sprightly history aims to give the calculator the recognition it deserves as a stepping stone to the digital era.… He makes a convincing case, in sum, for the significance of the calculator."

Blake J. Harris

"Houston serves as a fantastically insightful and accessible tour guide on this charming journey of an oft-overlooked invention that changed the world and, in its demise, radically changed the world once again."

Nathalia Holt

"Empire of the Sum spans centuries and reaches across the universe, always coming back to humanity’s craving for calculating machines in all their diverse forms. I dare you to reach the end of this book and not be irresistibly charmed by both the pocket calculator and Keith Houston’s witty, gregarious prose."

Times Literary Supplement - Pablo Scheffer

"[An] enlightening history."

Wall Street Journal - Belinda Lanks

"Fas­cin­ating […] a cre­ation story of tech break­throughs be­get­ting first-of-their-kind di­gital cal­cu­lat­ors."

Cal Newport

"Keith Houston unfolds a complex and fascinating history of numeracy, the evolution of technology, and the human desire to push our capabilities ever further. Deep, fun, and insightful all at once: my favorite type of technology book."

The Economist

"Houston’s sprightly history aims to give the calculator the recognition it deserves as a stepping stone to the digital era… He makes a convincing case, in sum, for the significance of the calculator."

Nature - Jeffrey M. Perkel

"Walking readers from a 42,000-year-old counting aid to digital spreadsheets, the book provides a breezy mathematical history tour through the development of number systems, slide rules, mechanical calculators and microchips."

New York Times Book Review

"Houston’s narrative is full of oddballs, many of them brilliant…"

The Times Literary Supplement

"[An] enlightening history."

Nature

"Walking readers from a 42,000-year-old counting aid to digital spreadsheets, the book provides a breezy mathematical history tour through the development of number systems, slide rules, mechanical calculators and microchips. "

Nature Lib

"Walking readers from a 42,000-year-old counting aid to digital spreadsheets, the book provides a breezy mathematical history tour through the development of number systems, slide rules, mechanical calculators and microchips. "

Natalia Holt

"'Everywhere and nowhere at once’ is how Keith Houston describes the pocket calculator, a machine that is so intimately intertwined with human history that it is impossible to imagine our lives deprived of its influence. In Empire of the Sum, Houston takes us on a journey that spans centuries and reaches across the universe, always coming back to humanity’s craving for calculating machines in all their diverse forms. I dare you to reach the end of this book and not be irresistibly charmed by both the pocket calculator and Houston’s witty, gregarious prose."

Kirkus Reviews

2023-04-19
The success of the pocket calculator relied on operational simplicity, but it involved a complex process of false starts, slow advances, and ingenious thinking.

Houston is a writer with a taste for the esoteric, as he showed in his book about punctuation, Shady Characters. In his latest, he charts the development of the pocket calculator, delivering a fascinating, witty tale. The human search for reliable ways of counting has been long and circuitous, ranging from notches on bones to the abacus to clunky mechanical machines. Houston has a good time hunting down some of the attempts of the 19th century; most of them did not work very well, but they laid the groundwork for later improvements. War and navigation were the key drivers in the search for arithmetic accuracy, and the author introduces us to a cast of colorful characters along the way. He takes a variety of fun detours, such as a discourse on the history of pockets and a discussion of the Curta, a hand-held calculating device of gears and wheels. Slide rules became essential tools for the numerically minded, and the development of crank-operated accounting machines was a huge step forward. But the real genesis of the pocket calculator came with the Casio line, which switched the focus from mechanics to electronics. The next major improvement was the addition of built-in formulae and logarithmic tools, which turned arithmetic into math. Houston unpacks the breakthrough products, including the Hewlett-Packard HP-35 and the Texas Instruments TI-81. He believes that the heyday of the pocket calculator was the 1980s and ’90s. After that, cellphones and laptops became unbeatable competition. However, the fact that these digital advances integrated calculators into their operations meant that the idea lived on, albeit in another form. “The calculator is dead; long live the calculator,” he concludes.

An entertaining, informative story about a technology that defined an era.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159373182
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	10/31/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

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