Electronic Brains
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Description
From the mobile phone to the office computer, mathematician Hannah Fry looks back at 70 years of computing history, to reveal the UK's lead role in developing the technology we use today. In the first episode, she travels back to the 1940s, to hear the incredible story of the creation, in Britain, of the computer memory. Three teams from across the country - in Teddington, Manchester and Cambridge - were tasked with designing automatic calculating engines for university research. But which team would be first to crack the tricky problem of machine memory? Meanwhile, tabloid headlines proclaimed that engineers were building 'electronic brains' that could match, and maybe surpass, the human brain, starting a debate about automation and artificial intelligence that still resonates today. Featuring archive from the Science Museum and the BBC Library, plus an interview with technology historian Dr James Sumner from Manchester University. Presented by Hannah Fry Produced by Michelle Martin Photo: Maurice Wilkes and Bill Renwick with EDSAC Credit: Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge.
More Episodes
Published 11/16/15
Hannah Fry tells the story of the little known British company in Cambridge that designs and build the ARM chip, found in almost every mobile device in the world, and the impact it has had in powering the digital age. The team at Acorn had designed the BBC Micro back in the early 1980s. In an...
Published 11/16/15
The city went crazy for dot com companies in 1999. But in March 2000, the boom suddenly turned into a bust. Hannah discovers that technology then wasn't up to the job.
Published 11/16/15