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Water Integrator
The Water Integrator (russian: Гидравлический интегратор ''Gidravlicheskiy integrator'') was an early analog computer built in the Soviet Union in 1936 by Vladimir Sergeevich Lukyanov. It functioned by careful manipulation of water through a room full of interconnected pipes and pumps. The water level in various chambers (with precision to fractions of a millimeter) represented stored numbers, and the rate of flow between them represented mathematical operations. This machine was capable of solving inhomogeneous differential equations.''Genesis Machines. The new science of biocomputing'', , from Martyn Amos, Atlantic Books, 2006, Ch. 2., Birth of the Machines, ff. The first versions of Lukyanov's integrators were rather experimental, made of tin and glass tubes, and each integrator could be used to solve only one problem. In the 1930s it was the only computer in the Soviet Union for solving partial differential equations. In 1941, Lukyanov created a hydraulic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Analog Computer
An analog computer or analogue computer is a type of computer that uses the continuous variation aspect of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities (''analog signals'') to model the problem being solved. In contrast, digital computers represent varying quantities symbolically and by discrete values of both time and amplitude (digital signals). Analog computers can have a very wide range of complexity. Slide rules and nomograms are the simplest, while naval gunfire control computers and large hybrid digital/analog computers were among the most complicated. Complex mechanisms for process control and protective relays used analog computation to perform control and protective functions. Analog computers were widely used in scientific and industrial applications even after the advent of digital computers, because at the time they were typically much faster, but they started to become obsolete as early as the 1950s and 1960s, although they remaine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad (Russian SFSR), Kiev (Ukrainian SSR), Minsk ( Byelorussian SSR), Tashkent (Uzbek SSR), Alma-Ata (Kazakh SSR), and Novosibirsk (Russian SFSR). It was the largest country in the world, covering over and spanning eleven time zones. The country's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Russian Provisional Government ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Differential Equation
In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications, the functions generally represent physical quantities, the derivatives represent their rates of change, and the differential equation defines a relationship between the two. Such relations are common; therefore, differential equations play a prominent role in many disciplines including engineering, physics, economics, and biology. Mainly the study of differential equations consists of the study of their solutions (the set of functions that satisfy each equation), and of the properties of their solutions. Only the simplest differential equations are solvable by explicit formulas; however, many properties of solutions of a given differential equation may be determined without computing them exactly. Often when a closed-form expression for the solutions is not available, solutions may be approximated numerically using computers. The theory of d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karakum Canal
The Karakum Canal (Qaraqum Canal, Kara Kum Canal, Garagum Canal; russian: Каракумский канал, ''Karakumskiy Kanal'', tk, Garagum kanaly, , ) in Turkmenistan is one of the largest irrigation and water supply canals in the world. Started in 1954, and completed in 1988, it is navigable over much of its length, and carries of water annually from the Amu-Darya River across the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan. The canal opened up huge new tracts of land to agriculture, especially to cotton monoculture heavily promoted by the Soviet Union, and supplying Ashgabat with a major source of water. The canal is also a major factor leading to the Aral Sea environmental disaster. The Soviet regime planned to at some time extend the canal to the Caspian Sea. History The current Karakum Canal was not the first major attempt to bring the Amu-Darya water to the Karakums. In the early 1950s, construction began on the Main Turkmen Canal (russian: Главный Туркменский ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baikal–Amur Mainline
The Baikal–Amur Mainline (russian: Байкало-Амурская магистраль, , , ) is a broad-gauge railway line in Russia. Traversing Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East, the -long BAM runs about 610 to 770 km (380 to 480 miles) north of and parallel to the Trans-Siberian Railway. The Soviet Union built the BAM as a strategic alternative route to the Trans–Siberian Railway, seen as vulnerable especially along the sections close to the border with China. The BAM's costs were estimated at $14 billion, and it was built with special, durable tracks since much of it ran over permafrost. Due to the severe terrain, weather, length and cost, Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev described BAM in 1974 as "the construction project of the century". If the permafrost layer that supports the BAM railway line were to melt, the railway would collapse and sink into peat bog layers that cannot bear its weight. In 2016 and 2018 there were reports about climate chang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polytechnic Museum
The Polytechnic Museum (russian: Политехнический музей) is one of the oldest science museums in the world and is located in Moscow. It showcases Russian and Soviet technology and science, as well as modern inventions. It was founded in 1872 after the first All-Russian Technical Exhibition on the bicentennial anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great at the initiative of the Society of Devotees of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography.Polytechnic MuseumHistory/ref> The first stage of the museum was designed by Ippolit Monighetti and completed in 1877. The north wing was added in 1896 and the south wing in 1907. The Polytechnic Museum is the largest technical museum in Russia, and houses a wide range of historical inventions and technological achievements, including humanoid automata of the 18th century, and the first Soviet computers. The collection contains over 160,000 items in 65 halls including, chemistry, mining, metallurgy, transport, energy, op ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million residents within the city limits, over 17 million residents in the urban area, and over 21.5 million residents in the metropolitan area. The city covers an area of , while the urban area covers , and the metropolitan area covers over . Moscow is among the world's largest cities; being the most populous city entirely in Europe, the largest urban and metropolitan area in Europe, and the largest city by land area on the European continent. First documented in 1147, Moscow grew to become a prosperous and powerful city that served as the capital of the Grand Duchy that bears its name. When the Grand Duchy of Moscow evolved into the Tsardom of Russia, Moscow remained the political and economic center for most of the Tsardom's history. When th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Computing Hardware
The history of computing hardware covers the developments from early simple devices to aid calculation to modern day computers. Before the 20th century, most calculations were done by humans. The first aids to computation were purely mechanical devices which required the operator to set up the initial values of an elementary arithmetic operation, then manipulate the device to obtain the result. Later, computers represented numbers in a continuous form (e.g. distance along a scale, rotation of a shaft, or a voltage). Numbers could also be represented in the form of digits, automatically manipulated by a mechanism. Although this approach generally required more complex mechanisms, it greatly increased the precision of results. The development of transistor technology and then the integrated circuit chip led to a series of breakthroughs, starting with transistor computers and then integrated circuit computers, causing digital computers to largely replace analog computers. Met ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MONIAC Computer
The MONIAC (Monetary National Income Analogue Computer), also known as the Phillips Hydraulic Computer and the Financephalograph, was created in 1949 by the New Zealand economist Bill Phillips to model the national economic processes of the United Kingdom, while Phillips was a student at the London School of Economics (LSE). The MONIAC was an analogue computer which used fluidic logic to model the workings of an economy. The MONIAC name may have been suggested by an association of money and ENIAC, an early electronic digital computer. Description The MONIAC is approximately 2 m high, 1.2 m wide and almost 1 m deep, and consisted of a series of transparent plastic tanks and pipes which were fastened to a wooden board. Each tank represented some aspect of the UK national economy and the flow of money around the economy was illustrated by coloured water. At the top of the board was a large tank called the treasury. Water (representing money) flowed from the treasury ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fluidics
Fluidics, or fluidic logic, is the use of a fluid to perform analog signal, analog or Digital data, digital operations similar to those performed with electronics. The physical basis of fluidics is pneumatics and hydraulics, based on the theoretical foundation of fluid dynamics. The term ''fluidics'' is normally used when devices have no moving parts, so ordinary hydraulic components such as hydraulic cylinders and spool valves are not considered or referred to as fluidic devices. A jet of fluid can be deflected by a weaker jet striking it at the side. This provides nonlinearity, nonlinear amplifier, amplification, similar to the transistor used in electronic digital logic. It is used mostly in environments where electronic digital logic would be unreliable, as in systems exposed to high levels of electromagnetic interference or ionizing radiation. Nanotechnology considers fluidics as one of its instruments. In this domain, effects such as fluid–solid and fluid–fluid interfa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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