The Ascent of GIM, the Global Intelligent Machine: A History of Production and Information Machines

366 Pages·2019·23.487 MB·English

by  Teun Koetsier

History of Mechanism and Machine Science 36
Teun Koetsier
The Ascent of
GIM, the Global
Intelligent
Machine
A History of Production and Information
Machines
History of Mechanism and Machine Science
Volume 36
Series editor
Marco Ceccarelli
LARM: Laboratory of Robotics and Mechatronics
DICeM; University of Cassino and South Latium
Via Di Biasio 43, 03043 Cassino (Fr), Italy
[email protected]
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publishes works that give an overview of the historical developments, from the
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Thistechnicalapproachisanessentialcharacteristicoftheseries.Bydiscussing
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formalisms the possibility is created not only to track the historical technical
developments but also to use past experiences in technical teaching and research
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with English translation and comments.
Thebookseriesisintendedtocollecttechnicalviewsonhistoricaldevelopments
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Prospective authors and editors can contact the series editor, Professor
M. Ceccarelli, about future publications within the series at:
LARM: Laboratory of Robotics and Mechatronics
DICeM; University of Cassino and South Latium
Via Di Biasio 43, 03043 Cassino (Fr)
Italy
email: [email protected]
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7481
Teun Koetsier
The Ascent of GIM,
the Global Intelligent
Machine
A History of Production and Information
Machines
123
Teun Koetsier
Department ofMathematics,
Faculty ofScience
VUUniversity
Amsterdam, TheNetherlands
ISSN 1875-3442 ISSN 1875-3426 (electronic)
History of Mechanism andMachineScience
ISBN978-3-319-96546-8 ISBN978-3-319-96547-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96547-5
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©SpringerInternationalPublishingAG,partofSpringerNature2019
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This book is dedicated to Ineke without whom
life would be considerably less interesting.
Preface
Forseveralyears,Itaughtaclassonthehistoryandphilosophyoftheinformation
societyatVUUniversityinAmsterdam.Moreover,fordecades,Iparticipatedinthe
work of the Permanent Commission for History of the International Federation for
the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science (IFToMM). The combination
of these two things led to this book.
The bookisdifferent from other histories ofthemachine inthat it describes the
development of both production and information machinery over the course of the
history of mankind. Influenced by David Christian, I attempted to write a Big
History of the machine.1 It is fascinating to zoom in on the micro level and study
specificdiscoveries.Itisjustasfascinatingtozoomoutandlookatthebigpicture.
Thetwoperspectivescomplementeachother.JamesBeniger’sbookontheControl
Revolution taught me that the mechanization of information processing was a
naturalandinevitablecontinuationofthemechanizationofourphysicalinteraction
with nature that preceded it.2
Inthehistoryofmankind,IdistinguishfourperiodsseparatedbytheStoneAge
Revolution, the Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. These rev-
olutionswerealltechnologicalandforallofthemholdsthatmostoftheinventions
that were based upon, never stopped developing. The Industrial Revolution in
particular never came to an end. I distinguish five waves of Industrial Revolution
usingKondratieff’slongwavetheory.Althoughthistheoryisinsufficientlyprecise
as a macroeconomic theory, the Schumpeterian idea that the waves are driven by
clustersofinnovationsgivesusforthenineteenthandtwentiethcenturiesanatural
periodization of the development of technology.
One cannot study the history of machines without taking the development of
science into account. The birth of science in classical antiquity, the Scientific
Revolution and the rise of scientific technology in the Third Wave of Industrial
Revolution are all treated.
Thecombinedfocusonproductionmachinesandinformationmachinestogether
withChristianandBeniger’sbroadviewsledmetotheconclusionthattheInternet
of Things will be succeeded by something even bigger that is not only gathering
and processing information but automatically intervenes in nature as well. The
vii
viii Preface
Internet of Things will become GIM, the Global Intelligent Machine. Fully auto-
matedindustriesofallsortsarequicklybecominganacceptedfactandtheyarepart
of GIM. The history of the machine culminates in GIM. It will in the end
encompass all existing machines of sufficient sophistication.
I am grateful to the students and faculty members of the Faculty of Science at
VU University and the many members of IFToMM’s Permanent Commission for
History. In particular, I wish to thank Marco Ceccarelli, Leo Finn, Alessandro
Gasparetto, Ineke Hilhorst, Carel Hofland, Nathalie Jacobs, Tjeerd Jongeling,
HanfriedKerle,BeaKoetsier,BogdanKoetsier,FransvanLunteren,FrancisMoon,
Anneke Pot, Michael Wright, Anne Wright, and Maarten van Steen.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands Teun Koetsier
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 GIM, The Global Intelligent Machine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Cultural Evolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Production Technology and Information Technology. . . . . . . . 4
2 The Rise of Homo Sapiens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1 Animals Using Production Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2 Monkeys and Apes Using Production Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3 Information Tools in the Animal World: Clues,
Signs and Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.4 Communicating Honey Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.5 Communication Among Monkeys and Apes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.6 From the Hairpin Ancestor to Homo Sapiens . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.7 Olduwan Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.8 The Adze Makers of Langda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.9 Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.10 The Control of Fire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.11 The Stone Age Revolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.12 Information Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.13 Whistle Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.14 Talking Drums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.15 The Ishango Bone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.16 Orientation in Space, Maps in the Pacific . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3 Tools in the Early Agricultural Empires. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.1 Economic Surplus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.2 Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.3 The Wheel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.4 Monumental Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.5 Complete Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
ix
x Contents
3.6 Towards the Alphabet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.7 Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.8 Sundials and Water Clocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4 The Axial Age and the Birth of Western Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.1 The Axial Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.2 The Rise of Abstract Symbolic Thought in China
and India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.3 Oral Versus Written Thought. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.4 Aristotle’s Logic, a New Information Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.5 Knowledge-How Versus Knowledge-That . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.6 Deductive Science. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.7 The Birth of the Theory of Machines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.8 The Wedge and the Pulleys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.9 Archimedes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.10 The Invention of the Screw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.11 Heron’s Mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.12 Combinations of Simple Machines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4.13 Difficulties in Understanding the Wedge
and the Inclined Plane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
5 Machines in Classical Antiquity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.1 The Invention of Artillery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.2 Production Machines in Vitruvius’ Ten Books
on Architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.3 The Phaistos Disk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.4 The Abacus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.5 Water Clocks and Sundials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.6 The Armillary Sphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.7 The Anaphoric Clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.8 The Astrolabe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.9 The Mystery of the Antikythera Mechanism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.10 The Front Dial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
5.11 The Upper Back Dial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5.12 The Pin and Slot Mechanism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.13 The Hodometer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.14 Automata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
6 The Middle Ages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
6.1 Marco Polo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
6.2 Textile Machines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
6.3 Military Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
6.4 Metal Technology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
6.5 Movable Type Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116