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The Computation of Nature, Or: Does the Computer Drive Science and Technology?

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The Nature of Computation. Logic, Algorithms, Applications (CiE 2013)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 7921))

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Abstract

It has often been claimed that the computer has not only revolutionized everyday life but has also affected the sciences in a fundamental manner. Even in national systems of innovation which had initially reacted with a fair amount of reserve to the computer as a new scientific instrument (such as Germany and France; cf., e.g., [33,18]), it is today a commonplace to speak about the ”computer revolution” in the sciences [27]. In his path breaking book Revolution in Science, Cohen diagnoses that a general revolutionary change in the sciences had followed from the invention of the computer. While he asserts that the scientific revolution in astronomy in the 17th century was not based on the newly invented telescope but on the intellect of Galileo Galilei, he maintains in contrast that the ”case is different for the computer, which [. . . ] has affected the thinking of scientists and the formulation of theories in a fundamental way, as in the case of the new computer models for world meteorology” [10, pp. 9-10 & 20-22].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Research Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Deutsches Museum, 80306, München, Germany

    Ulf Hashagen

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  1. Ulf Hashagen
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento die Informatica, Sistemistica e Comunicazione, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126, Milan, Italy

    Paola Bonizzoni

  2. Institute for Theoretical Computer Science, Mathematics and Operations Research, Faculty of Computer Science, Universität der Bundeswehr München, Werner-Heisenberg-Weg 39, 85577, Neubiberg, Germany

    Vasco Brattka

  3. Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam, Postbus 94242, 1090 GE, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Benedikt Löwe

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Hashagen, U. (2013). The Computation of Nature, Or: Does the Computer Drive Science and Technology?. In: Bonizzoni, P., Brattka, V., Löwe, B. (eds) The Nature of Computation. Logic, Algorithms, Applications. CiE 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7921. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39053-1_30

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39053-1_30

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-39053-1

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