Abstract
The application of computation models and simulations is ubiquitous, their use is key to modern science and engineering. Often described as the material culture of science, models demonstrate how natural it is for humans to encode meaning in an artefact, and then manipulate that artefact in order to derive new knowledge. Today, many familiar models are computational. They run on digital computers, and often demand extensive processing power. In becoming a primary tool for modelling, the widespread use of modern computers has shaped the very meaning of technical terms such as ’model’ and ’simulation’. But what did pre-digital modelling and simulation look like?For many, the first technology to support a form of simulation that is today recognisable as computational was electronic analogue computing.Analogue computers were a technology that was in wide use between 1940 and l970. As early modelling technologies, their history highlights the importance that modelling has always held within the history of computing.As modelling machines, analogue computers and electrical analogies represent a type of computing that was focused on knowledge generation and acquisition rather than information management and retrieval. Analogue technology provides an important window on the history of computing and its use as a modelling technology.
This chapter is based on research undertaken as part of a PhD funded by the Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick (Care, 2008). An early form of this chapter was presented at SHOT 2007, and it develops themes published in Care (2010).
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Care, C. (2012). Early Computational Modelling: Physical Models, Electrical Analogies and Analogue Computers. In: Bissell, C., Dillon, C. (eds) Ways of Thinking, Ways of Seeing. Automation, Collaboration, & E-Services, vol 1. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25209-9_5
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