Steinmetz Engineer And Socialist

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Steinmetz: Engineer and Socialist

Author : Ronald R. Kline
Publisher : Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 375 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Steinmetz: Engineer and Socialist by : Ronald R. Kline

Download or read book Steinmetz: Engineer and Socialist written by Ronald R. Kline and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2019-12-12 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Charles Proteus Steinmetz (1865-1923) died suddenly at the height of his fame, his face was as familiar to Americans as that of Babe Ruth, Henry Ford, or Jack Dempsey. Newspapers quoted his views on religion, politics (he was a Socialist), science, and future technological wonders. All were intrigued by the Horatio Alger tale of the penniless, hunchbacked German immigrant who rose to fame as the Wizard of Science, chief engineer at General Electric, and symbol of the new breed of scientists who daily surpassed the feats of Thomas Alva Edison. This intellectual biography follows Steinmetz from his education in Germany to his rise as General Electric’s chief consulting engineer. Steinmetz obtained nearly 200 patents; he made his most important contributions in electrical energy loss (or hysteresis), the understanding and wider use of alternating current, and high-voltage power transmission. General Electric became Steinmetz’s home, his identity, and a platform from which he stepped onto the wider stage of world affairs. As leader of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Socialist councilman in Schenectady, New York, and part-time professor at Union College, Steinmetz attempted to “engineer” society in the direction of a technocratic utopia by promoting welfare capitalism, Lenin’s electrification of the Soviet Union, and other schemes — all with limited success. In a life filled with contrasts, perhaps even Steinmetz himself, a prominent Socialist serving as chief engineer of a major corporation, was not always able to separate the myth from the man. Steinmetz: Engineer and Socialist was the subject of the 2014 PBS documentary film, “Divine Discontent.” “Well informed by recent studies of similar mythologizing, Kline explains both the rise and decline of Steinmetz’s popular reputation.” — Robert Friedel, Science “Kline’s explanations are lucid and he offers broader insights about science and technology that will interest all cultural historians.” — Mark Pittenger, Journal of American History “Steinmetz not only provides the first comprehensive, technically sophisticated analysis of Steinmetz’s engineering achievements, but also carefully examines his influential political and social writings, and judiciously dissects the making of the ‘Wizard of Schenectady’ legend.” — David Sicilia, Reviews in American History

History of the Mohawk Valley, Gateway to the West, 1614-1925

Author : Nelson Greene
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 978 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (89 download)

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Book Synopsis History of the Mohawk Valley, Gateway to the West, 1614-1925 by : Nelson Greene

Download or read book History of the Mohawk Valley, Gateway to the West, 1614-1925 written by Nelson Greene and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 978 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Networks of Power

Author : Thomas Parke Hughes
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801846144
Total Pages : 492 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (461 download)

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Book Synopsis Networks of Power by : Thomas Parke Hughes

Download or read book Networks of Power written by Thomas Parke Hughes and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 1993-03 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Awarded the Dexter Prize by the Society for the History of Technology, this book offers a comparative history of the evolution of modern electric power systems. It described large-scale technological change and demonstrates that technology cannot be understood unless placed in a cultural context.

The Cybernetics Moment

Author : Ronald R. Kline
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 1421416719
Total Pages : 351 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (214 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cybernetics Moment by : Ronald R. Kline

Download or read book The Cybernetics Moment written by Ronald R. Kline and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Choice Outstanding Academic Title Cybernetics—the science of communication and control as it applies to machines and to humans—originates from efforts during World War II to build automatic antiaircraft systems. Following the war, this science extended beyond military needs to examine all systems that rely on information and feedback, from the level of the cell to that of society. In The Cybernetics Moment, Ronald R. Kline, a senior historian of technology, examines the intellectual and cultural history of cybernetics and information theory, whose language of “information,” “feedback,” and “control” transformed the idiom of the sciences, hastened the development of information technologies, and laid the conceptual foundation for what we now call the Information Age. Kline argues that, for about twenty years after 1950, the growth of cybernetics and information theory and ever-more-powerful computers produced a utopian information narrative—an enthusiasm for information science that influenced natural scientists, social scientists, engineers, humanists, policymakers, public intellectuals, and journalists, all of whom struggled to come to grips with new relationships between humans and intelligent machines. Kline traces the relationship between the invention of computers and communication systems and the rise, decline, and transformation of cybernetics by analyzing the lives and work of such notables as Norbert Wiener, Claude Shannon, Warren McCulloch, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, and Herbert Simon. Ultimately, he reveals the crucial role played by the cybernetics moment—when cybernetics and information theory were seen as universal sciences—in setting the stage for our current preoccupation with information technologies. "Nowhere in the burgeoning secondary literature on cybernetics in the last two decades is there a concise history of cybernetics, the science of communication and control that helped usher in the current information age in America. Nowhere, that is, until now . . . Readers have in The Cybernetics Moment the first authoritative history of American cybernetics."—Information & Culture "[A]n extremely interesting and stimulating history of the concepts of cybernetics . . . This is a book for everyone to read, relish, and think about."—Choice "As a whole, the book presents a comprehensive in-depth retrospective analysis of the contribution of the American scientific school to the making, formation, and development of cybernetics and information theory. An unquestionable advantage of the book is the skillful use of numerous bibliographic sources by the author that reflect the scientific, engineering, and social significance of the questions being considered, competition of ideas and developments, and also interrelations between scientists."—Cybernetics and System Analysis "Dr. Kline is perhaps uniquely situated to take on so large and complicated [a] topic as cybernetics . . . Readers unfamiliar with Wiener and his work are well advised to start with this well-written and thorough book. Those who are already familiar will still find much that is new and informative in the thorough research and reasoned interpretations."—IEEE History Center "The most comprehensive intellectual history of cybernetics in Cold War America."—Journal of American History "The book will be most valuable as historical background for the large number of disciplines that were involved in the cybernetics moment: computer science, communications engineering, information theory, and the social sciences of sociology and anthropology."—IEEE Technology and Society Magazine "Ronald Kline’s chronicle of cybernetics certainly does what an excellent history of science should do. It takes you there—to the golden age of a new, exciting field. You will almost smell that cigar."—Second-Order Cybernetics "Kline’s The Cybernetics Moment tracks the rise and fall of the cybernetics movement in more detail than any historical account to date."—Los Angeles Review of Books

Radio and Television Regulation

Author : Hugh R. Slotten
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 0801872987
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (18 download)

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Book Synopsis Radio and Television Regulation by : Hugh R. Slotten

Download or read book Radio and Television Regulation written by Hugh R. Slotten and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2003-04-30 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From AM radio to color television, broadcasting raised enormous practical and policy problems in the United States, especially in relation to the federal government's role in licensing and regulation. How did technological change, corporate interest, and political pressures bring about the world that station owners work within today (and that tuned-in consumers make profitable)? In Radio and Television Regulation, Hugh R. Slotten examines the choices that confronted federal agencies—first the Department of Commerce, then the Federal Radio Commission in 1927, and seven years later the Federal Communications Commission—and shows the impact of their decisions on developing technologies. Slotten analyzes the policy debates that emerged when the public implications of AM and FM radio and black-and-white and color television first became apparent. His discussion of the early years of radio examines powerful personalities—including navy secretary Josephus Daniels and commerce secretary Herbert Hoover—who maneuvered for government control of "the wireless." He then considers fierce competition among companies such as Westinghouse, GE, and RCA, which quickly grasped the commercial promise of radio and later of television and struggled for technological edge and market advantage. Analyzing the complex interplay of the factors forming public policy for radio and television broadcasting, and taking into account the ideological traditions that framed these controversies, Slotten sheds light on the rise of the regulatory state. In an epilogue he discusses his findings in terms of contemporary debates over high-resolution TV.

Charles Proteus Steinmetz

Author : Robert W. Bly
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781610353267
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (532 download)

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Book Synopsis Charles Proteus Steinmetz by : Robert W. Bly

Download or read book Charles Proteus Steinmetz written by Robert W. Bly and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Charles Proteus Steinmetz presents the amazing life story of a forgotten genius who created the fundamental infrastructure that powers the modern world. Thomas Alva Edison and Nikola Tesla have the glory, but the greatest electrical wizard of them all was Charles Proteus Steinmetz (1865–1923). Revered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a genius, but largely forgotten today, Steinmetz made the modern world possible through his revolutionary work to develop AC electricity transmission, the technology underlying today’s power grid. More than just a great scientist, Steinmetz was also one of the most colorful characters in American life. Standing just four feet tall with a pronounced spine curvature, Steinmetz was as well known for his unconventional political opinions, his fierce advocacy for social progress and education, his unusual home life and his private menagerie as for his technical achievements."--Publisher's description.

Consumers in the Country

Author : Ronald R. Kline
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801862489
Total Pages : 396 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (624 download)

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Book Synopsis Consumers in the Country by : Ronald R. Kline

Download or read book Consumers in the Country written by Ronald R. Kline and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2000-04-28 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1900 to 1960, the introduction and development of four so-called urbanizing technologies–the telephone, automobile, radio, and electric light and power–transformed the rural United States. But did these new technologies revolutionize rural life in the ways modernizers predicted? And how exactly–and with what levels of resistance and acceptance–did this change take place? In Consumers in the Country Ronald R. Kline, avoiding the trap of technological determinism, explores the changing relationships among the Country Life professionals, government agencies, sales people, and others who promoted these technologies and the farm families who largely succeeded in adapting them to rural culture.

Private Life and Privacy in Nazi Germany

Author : Elizabeth Harvey
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108484980
Total Pages : 411 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis Private Life and Privacy in Nazi Germany by : Elizabeth Harvey

Download or read book Private Life and Privacy in Nazi Germany written by Elizabeth Harvey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-18 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Highlights the surprising ways in which the Nazi regime permitted or even fostered aspirations of privacy.

America by Design

Author : David F. Noble
Publisher : Knopf
ISBN 13 : 0307828492
Total Pages : 574 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis America by Design by : David F. Noble

Download or read book America by Design written by David F. Noble and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2013-01-23 with total page 574 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hailed a “significant contribution” by The New York Times, David Noble’s book America by Design describes the factors that have shaped the history of scientific technology in the United States. Since the beginning, technology and industry have been undeniably intertwined, and Noble demonstrates how corporate capitalism has not only become the driving force behind the development of technology in this country but also how scientific research—particularly within universities—has been dominated by the corporations who fund it, who go so far as to influence the education of the engineers that will one day create the technology to be used for capitalist gain. Noble reveals that technology, often thought to be an independent science, has always been a means to an end for the men pulling the strings of Corporate America—and it was these men that laid down the plans for the design of the modern nation today.

Alexanderson

Author : James E. Brittain
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Alexanderson by : James E. Brittain

Download or read book Alexanderson written by James E. Brittain and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ernst F. W. Alexanderson came to the United States from Sweden in 1901. A prolific inventor in the fields of radio, television, power transmission, electric railways, radar, and computers, he secured more than 340 U.S. patents--the last one in 1973, at the age of 95. Now, in Alexanderson: Pioneer in American Electrical Engineering, James E. Brittain provides the first biography of one of the premier engineer-inventors of the twentieth-century. Alexanderson spent most of his career as an engineer at the General Electric Company. He was involved in the controversy over the electrification of railroads--a battle between rival technologies and competitive corporations alike--and in the development of the radio alternator, a device that permitted reliable radio communication between North America and Europe in 1918. In a manner possible only in the early days of electrical technology, he mastered the principles of physics, radio engineering, and power engineering, and many of his breakthroughs demonstrated the creative possibilities of simultaneous work in these fields. Alexanderson: Pioneer in American Electrical Engineering also serves as a case study in the history and sociology of twentieth-century technology. Brittain treats themes that remain of vital interest today, including the issue of creativity in a corporate setting, the distinctions between science and engineering, the importance of corporate style and culture, and the role of the military in bringing about technological change. This revealing and informative biography chronicles the distinguished career of a leading figure in the development of technology during the first half of the twentieth century.

An American Engineer in Stalin's Russia

Author : Zara Witkin
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520351088
Total Pages : 444 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis An American Engineer in Stalin's Russia by : Zara Witkin

Download or read book An American Engineer in Stalin's Russia written by Zara Witkin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-10 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1932 Zara Witkin, a prominent American engineer, set off for the Soviet Union with two goals: to help build a society more just and rational than the bankrupt capitalist system at home, and to seek out the beautiful film star Emma Tsesarskaia. His memoirs offer a detailed view of Stalin's bureaucracy—entrenched planners who snubbed new methods; construction bosses whose cover-ups led to terrible disasters; engineers who plagiarized Witkin's work; workers whose pride was defeated. Punctuating this document is the tale of Witkin's passion for Tsesarskaia and the record of his friendships with journalist Eugene Lyons, planner Ernst May, and others. Witkin felt beaten in the end by the lethargy and corruption choking the greatest social experiment in history, and by a pervasive evil—the suppression of human rights and dignity by a relentless dictatorship. Finally breaking his spirit was the dissolution of his romance with Emma, his "Dark Goddess." In his lively introduction, Michael Gelb provides the historical context of Witkin's experience, details of his personal life, and insights offered by Emma Tsesarskaia in an interview in 1989.

Eva's Threepenny Theatre

Author : Andrew Steinmetz
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Eva's Threepenny Theatre by : Andrew Steinmetz

Download or read book Eva's Threepenny Theatre written by Andrew Steinmetz and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an unusual fiction about memoir, Andrew Steinmetz tells the story of his great-aunt Eva who performed in the first workshop production of Bertolt Brecht's masterpiece The Threepenny Opera, in 1928. Steinmetz takes the story back to Eva's childhood in Germany, with her invalid mother and domineering siblings. Her training as an actress began just after her graduation from high school, and her introduction to the philosophies of Brecht and his contemporaries soon followed. With the pronouncement of the family's Jewish origins, both Eva and her brother left Germany to escape Nazi rule, Eva eventually settling in Canada. In their sessions with the tape recorder running, we see Steinmetz's own life as it intersects with Eva's, and his changing perspective on her life and work. Tied together with threads of Brecht's play, Steinmetz presents a life lived as though the world were a stage. A fictional tribute, Eva's Threepenny Theatre is as much concerned with what happened as what might have or was imagined to have been. "I'd known Eva since childhood," says Steinmetz, "and always in the back of my mind was this story I'd heard about her and The Threepenny Opera. I didn't know much about Bertolt Brecht, initially, but in my early twenties I was a songwriter and one night while I was in the studio recording, I got to talking with the engineer and later he pulled out a record of Lotte Lenya singing 'Seeräuberjenny' and 'Kanonen-Song.' That was it. Lenya's kitsch and the killer instinct: Eva talked like that. The droll, aloof, harsh cabaret style is incredibly moving, to me at least, something which seems to work almost despite itself. It was easy to see Eva as a product of Weimar Germany, of that precise period evoked by these songs. So I guess the initial and strongest connection between the novel and Brecht was through the lyrics he wrote for this music. As a socialist playwright, Brecht wouldn't touch naturalism, seeing it as an endorsement of a bourgeois or genteel world view, and I have to say, as a writer, I could never approach writing a family memoir wearing a straight face. Eva was schooled in Brecht, and so it felt right that the novel's form would reflect that, and at the same time bring about some genre consciousness. I also wanted some sort of emotional arc despite putting up with ideas of alienation and detachment. If this makes it sound like I've been working at cross purposes for the past fifteen years, which is as long as I've been at it, then that's exactly right." This book is a smyth-sewn paperback. The text is typeset in Sabon and printed offset on laid-finish paper making (estimated) 256 pages trimmed to 5.3 × 8.5 inches, bound into a paper cover and enfolded in a letterpress-printed jacket.

America and the New Epoch

Author : Charles Proteus Steinmetz
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis America and the New Epoch by : Charles Proteus Steinmetz

Download or read book America and the New Epoch written by Charles Proteus Steinmetz and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

A Companion to the History of Science

Author : Bernard Lightman
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1119121140
Total Pages : 629 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (191 download)

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Book Synopsis A Companion to the History of Science by : Bernard Lightman

Download or read book A Companion to the History of Science written by Bernard Lightman and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-11-11 with total page 629 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the History of Science is a single volume companion that discusses the history of science as it is done today, providing a survey of the debates and issues that dominate current scholarly discussion, with contributions from leading international scholars. Provides a single-volume overview of current scholarship in the history of science edited by one of the leading figures in the field Features forty essays by leading international scholars providing an overview of the key debates and developments in the history of science Reflects the shift towards deeper historical contextualization within the field Helps communicate and integrate perspectives from the history of science with other areas of historical inquiry Includes discussion of non-Western themes which are integrated throughout the chapters Divided into four sections based on key analytic categories that reflect new approaches in the field

Theory and Calculation of Alternating Current Phenomena

Author : Charles Proteus Steinmetz
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 476 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Theory and Calculation of Alternating Current Phenomena by : Charles Proteus Steinmetz

Download or read book Theory and Calculation of Alternating Current Phenomena written by Charles Proteus Steinmetz and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theory and Calculation of Alternating Current Phenomena by Charles Proteus Steinmetz, first published in 1900, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.

Empires of Light

Author : Jill Jonnes
Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN 13 : 0375758844
Total Pages : 466 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (757 download)

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Book Synopsis Empires of Light by : Jill Jonnes

Download or read book Empires of Light written by Jill Jonnes and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2004-10-12 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gripping history of electricity and how the fateful collision of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse left the world utterly transformed. In the final decades of the nineteenth century, three brilliant and visionary titans of America’s Gilded Age—Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse—battled bitterly as each vied to create a vast and powerful electrical empire. In Empires of Light, historian Jill Jonnes portrays this extraordinary trio and their riveting and ruthless world of cutting-edge science, invention, intrigue, money, death, and hard-eyed Wall Street millionaires. At the heart of the story are Thomas Alva Edison, the nation’s most famous and folksy inventor, creator of the incandescent light bulb and mastermind of the world’s first direct current electrical light networks; the Serbian wizard of invention Nikola Tesla, elegant, highly eccentric, a dreamer who revolutionized the generation and delivery of electricity; and the charismatic George Westinghouse, Pittsburgh inventor and tough corporate entrepreneur, an industrial idealist who in the era of gaslight imagined a world powered by cheap and plentiful electricity and worked heart and soul to create it. Edison struggled to introduce his radical new direct current (DC) technology into the hurly-burly of New York City as Tesla and Westinghouse challenged his dominance with their alternating current (AC), thus setting the stage for one of the eeriest feuds in American corporate history, the War of the Electric Currents. The battlegrounds: Wall Street, the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, Niagara Falls, and, finally, the death chamber—Jonnes takes us on the tense walk down a prison hallway and into the sunlit room where William Kemmler, convicted ax murderer, became the first man to die in the electric chair.

When Computers Were Human

Author : David Alan Grier
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400849365
Total Pages : 423 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis When Computers Were Human by : David Alan Grier

Download or read book When Computers Were Human written by David Alan Grier and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before Palm Pilots and iPods, PCs and laptops, the term "computer" referred to the people who did scientific calculations by hand. These workers were neither calculating geniuses nor idiot savants but knowledgeable people who, in other circumstances, might have become scientists in their own right. When Computers Were Human represents the first in-depth account of this little-known, 200-year epoch in the history of science and technology. Beginning with the story of his own grandmother, who was trained as a human computer, David Alan Grier provides a poignant introduction to the wider world of women and men who did the hard computational labor of science. His grandmother's casual remark, "I wish I'd used my calculus," hinted at a career deferred and an education forgotten, a secret life unappreciated; like many highly educated women of her generation, she studied to become a human computer because nothing else would offer her a place in the scientific world. The book begins with the return of Halley's comet in 1758 and the effort of three French astronomers to compute its orbit. It ends four cycles later, with a UNIVAC electronic computer projecting the 1986 orbit. In between, Grier tells us about the surveyors of the French Revolution, describes the calculating machines of Charles Babbage, and guides the reader through the Great Depression to marvel at the giant computing room of the Works Progress Administration. When Computers Were Human is the sad but lyrical story of workers who gladly did the hard labor of research calculation in the hope that they might be part of the scientific community. In the end, they were rewarded by a new electronic machine that took the place and the name of those who were, once, the computers.