Computing through the Ages: From Bones to Binary

by Michael Woods, Mary B. Woods

Overview

Every civilization throughout history needed one thing to trade, build, and farm: math. Explore the many unique computing systems created by ancient civilizations and how they developed into the numbers and equations we use today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798765619421
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/01/2024
Series:	Technology through the Ages
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	80
File size:	17 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	12 - 14 Years

About the Author

Michael Woods is a science and medical writer whose nationally syndicated newspaper stories and columns have won numerous national awards. He directs a program at the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society, to inform the public about science. He and his wife, Mary B. Woods, have written almost forty books together. Michael is the writer, and Mary is the researcher.
Mary B. Woods is an elementary school librarian in the Fairfax County (VA) Public School system. She has presented at international librarians' conferences. Mary has worked with her husband, Michael Woods, to write almost forty books. She is the researcher, and Michael is the writer.

Editorial Reviews

"Readers learn about various aspects of key developments, including the factors that spurred innovation, benefits to humans, and specific details on techniques and inventions. . . Well-written resources for middle and high schoolers."—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

2023-10-21
A history of mathematics and measuring devices from prehistory to early-modern times.

Offering a revised text and an overall redesign, if little new material, this refurbished version of Ancient Computing Technology (2011) presents descriptions (textual ones, at least; not all are actually illustrated) of ancient numbering systems and mathematical techniques worldwide up to binary code. The book also includes tools ranging from tally sticks and beam scales to calendars and mechanical calculators, such as the Antikythera mechanism. Ada Lovelace and Alan Turing get nods, but the development of modern electronic computing is packed into the final two paragraphs, with nary a mention of AI or quantum computing, and the appended timeline ends at 2005. Many of the pictures, while attractive, are at best tangentially relevant to the passages they accompany, but a few images of historical artifacts and reconstructed devices are included. A list of more recent “further reading” has been tacked on to the out-of-date bibliography, which is dominated by works from the 1970s and 1980s; the most recent source in the selected bibliography is a 2010 paper on Mayan mathematics.

Strictly for report writers and school libraries where the original is worn out. (glossary, index, photo credits) (Nonfiction. 11-18)

Kirkus Reviews