Modern Adaptations
While the abacus and mechanical calculator have been replaced by electronic calculators using microchips, the recent advances in MEMs and nanotechnology have led to recent high-tech experiments in mechanical computation. The benefits suggested include operation in high radiation or high temperature environments. These modern versions of mechanical computation were highlighted in the magazine The Economist in its special "end of the millennium" black cover issue in an article entitled "Babbage's Last Laugh".
Read more about this topic: Charles Babbage
Famous quotes containing the word modern:
“It is beyond a doubt that during the sixteenth century, and the years immediately preceding and following it, poisoning had been brought to a pitch of perfection which remains unknown to modern chemistry, but which is indisputably proved by history. Italy, the cradle of modern science, was at that time, the inventor and mistress of these secrets, many of which are lost.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)