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"A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content."
- Theodore Sturgeon
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| Mechanical Calculator | ||
| A device capable of extraordinary feats of computation |
| Another of these magi constructed (of like material [brass and wood and leather]) a creature that put to shame even the genius of him who made it; for so great were its reasoning powers that, in a second, it performed calculations of so vast an extent that they would have required the united labor of fifty thousand fleshy men for a year. |
| Technovelgy from The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade,
by Edgar Allen Poe. Published by Godey's Lady's Book in 1845 Additional resources -
|
Undoubtedly a fictional presentation of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine, a mechanical calculator designed in the 1820's. Babbage constructed a small model, but sadly the full device could not be constructed owing to limitations in making the parts required.
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