Sir William Grove's Grave

Past Events

Ludwig Wittgenstein in Swansea, 1947

Past Events

Bertrand Russell in North Wales, 1963

Past Events

Ludwig Mond at Clydach

Past Events

Thereza Dillwyn Llewelyn in Swansea, 1854

Past Events

About Us

Scientists, Science, and Society:  
Seminar on History of Science and Technology

The dialogue between the present and the past of science and technology is intellectually fascinating; and it plays an influential role in the conduct of contemporary science and technology, and in speculations - and policy making - about the future. The College of Science has created this seminar to strengthen analysis and reflection of nature of science and technology.

The aims of the seminar series are:

(i) To bring together people with an interest in some aspect of the history of science and technology;
(ii) To encourage multidisciplinary approaches to scientific and technological themes;
(iii) To inform, educate and entertain.

The seminar is open to all - staff and students and interested members of the public. Suggestions for themes, topics, periods, approaches and speakers are welcome.

The history of science and technology requires a partnership and collaboration between three sorts of people with their characteristic expertise. First, there are the scientists and engineers who know about the theory and practice of their subject and are interested in its history. Scientists and engineers often seek the origins of contemporary topics, sometimes with an intention of using historical narratives to progress their science and its reception.  

Secondly, there are historians of science and technology whose intense engagement with their particular subjects and periods seek a proper foundation for us to try to understand the scientific and technological past as it was.

Thirdly, there are general scholars of history, literature, economy and sociology, who know about periods, places, events, people, networks, historical methods, literary genres, global markets, and social theories. They can help confirm, correct and expand our views of scientists, their science and its influence on society.

Organisers: Professor Niels Jacob (Mathematics) and Professor John V Tucker (Computer Science).

Events

Dr Serafina Cuomo (Birkbeck College, London)

Numeracy in ancient Greece and Rome - questions and problems

3.00 Friday 18 January 2013
Robert Recorde Room, Faraday Building

How did people in ancient Greece and Rome count, calculate and measure? What procedures and instruments did they use? And how can we reconstruct the wider significance of numeracy in those societies? The talk, based on research in progress, will address some of these questions, and focus in particular on issues of methodology and evidence.
 
For further information, contact Professor John Tucker – j.v.tucker@swansea.ac.uk

What can we compute? A history of the Church-Turing Hypothesis

3.00 Friday 30th November
Robert Recorde Room, Faraday Building

Professor John V Tucker

What can we compute? A history of the Church-Turing Hypothesis

In 1936, motivated by the philosophical problem of what are the limits to human knowledge, Alan Turing wrote his wonderful paper the nature of computation; he was 24 years old. In it is to be found three intellectual innovations:

(i) a mathematical model of a human making a calculation, namely the Turing machine;
(ii) the idea of a universal machine that can mimic all other machines, namely a general programmable computer; and
(iii) the discovery of a computation that is provably impossible to perform.

In this lecture I will look at one of the many legacies of this work: the hypothesis that anything that can be calculated can be calculated by a Turing machine. This hypothesis is plays an important role in computer science, mathematics, neuroscience, and philosophy of science. I will concentrate on how the thesis arose and on its generalisations in algebra, programming and physics.

Future Events

Tracey E Rihll
Ancient mechanics

John V Tucker
Robert Recorde

2013 is the centenary of the death of Alfred Russel Wallace
(1823-1913):

Niels Jacob
Alfred Russel Wallace - A Life

Related Swansea Events

Alan Turing’s Other Universal Machine: The ACE

Professor Martin Campbell-Kelly FLSW (Warwick University)

5pm, Wednesday 5th December 201
Faraday Lecture Theatre, Faraday Building

In October 1945, shortly after finishing his code-breaking activity at Bletchley Park, Alan Turing was recruited by the National Physical Laboratory to design an electronic digital computer, the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine). The ACE was a highly innovative design that set it apart from all contemporary computers: the machine traded some complexity of programming for an efficiency gain of a factor of at least five. Several commercial derivatives were produced including the highly successful English Electric DEUCE and the Bendix G-15. This seminar describes the genesis of the ACE from Turing’s On Computable Numbers paper of 1936 and John von Neumann’s EDVAC Report of 1945, and its role in the shaping the early computer industry.


www.swansea.ac.uk/compsci/aboutus/distinguishedlectures/martincampbell-kelly/

Quick links

• Learned Society of Wales
• LSW History of Science and Technology
• Dillwyn Project
• History of Computing Collection
• Greek and Roman Science and Technology
• Cu@Swansea
• World of Welsh Copper