Calculating Instruments and Machines.

First UK edition of 'the first comprehensive exposition of electronic digital computing', originally published the previous year in the US. In addition to his significant contributions to ballistics and quantum theory, British mathematician Douglas Hartree (1897-1958) was a leader in efforts to automate scientific calculations. He was 'involved in the development of the digital electronic computer, which emerged from wartime attempts to automate calculation further. In 1946 Hartree's advice was sought in the application of the United States army's ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer) to the production of ballistic tables' (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). The present volume is 'based upon a series of lectures delivered at the University of Illinois in 1948. These lectures were intended for a well-informed scientific audience outside the tiny group of professionals then involved with electronic computing. They represented the first comprehensive exposition of electronic digital computing, and this book was one of the first two treatises on the subject. The other book, Edmund Berkley's Giant Brains or Machines That Think was written for a more popular audience and achieved greater sales. Reflecting Hartree's English background, this book contained more information on the English machines than did Berkley's. Foremost among the digital machines discussed in Hartree's work are the Harvard Mark I and ENIAC. Chapter 8, entitled "Projects and Prospects", contains the first generally available comprehensive account of the stored-program machines then in development, including EDVAC, ACE, and EDSAC' (Hook & Norman, Origins of Cyberspace 652). First UK edition, first impression; tall 4to; diagrams and monochrome illustrations from photographs throughout the text, neat contemporary ownership inscription to the front free endpaper, contents toned; original burgundy cloth, titles to spine gilt, spine rolled, cloth rubbed and marked, corners bumped, very good condition; 138pp. Hook & Norman, Origins of Cyberspace 652.…